You’ve just taken over a project from another project manager and have come back from a very uncomfortable meeting with your business sponsor. In the meeting, the sponsor told you how dissatisfied he is with the project’s performance to date and that he’s getting ready to pull the plug on the project entirely. Deadlines keep slipping, the application isn’t complete, and the sponsor feels like he can’t get in touch with anyone to give him an update on the project’s status and progress. From conversations with your project team, you learn that requirements still haven’t been finalized, and the team is waiting for input before being able to proceed on several key parts of the application. Despite that, they’ve been able to push forward in other areas, and are quite proud of the work they’ve done. However, they haven’t had a chance to show it to the sponsor. To complicate matters further, your boss has made it clear that this project must be completed on schedule, because he needs the resources for another project. What do you do? What impact do your decisions have on the project’s cost, schedule, and performance? Project B Your project team has finished gathering the requirements and developing the solution design. Your team is broken into two main groups: The first group consists of the project manager, business analysts, and management and is located in the United States. The second group consists of the development and QA teams and they are located in India. The WBS was developed based on estimates from the teams in India. The development team agreed to provide daily updates to you about progress against the WBS to make sure that the project’s milestones are going to be met. However, by the time the development team got close to the first milestone, it became obvious that they were behind even though their daily updates indicated that they are on track. In addition, the team adopted a different design approach than the one agreed upon at the beginning of the project. The lack of meaningful updates from the development team along with a different design track has jeopardized the whole project by rendering the whole plan obsolete. Your team is now at risk of not delivering the project. What do you do? What is the impact to cost, schedule, and performance? Project C You have just taken over as the program manager of a large program with multiple tracks and a go-live scheduled in three months. At the first meeting with the project sponsors and key stakeholders, you find out that the business requirements are not complete and in some cases not started, project scope is not realistic to meet the upcoming go-live, and overall the project teams are confused due to lack of communication and understanding of priorities. What do you do? What impact do your decisions have on the project’s cost, schedule, and performance? Project D You’ve just been assigned to take over a new project from an outgoing project manager. The project is a high-visibility project that is using a development methodology that is new to you and to your company. In your transition meetings with the outgoing project manager, he assures you that development is complete, and all you have to do is shepherd the project through acceptance testing and release. As a result, several project team members were released as scheduled. The acceptance testing does not go as smoothly as planned. The application has more defects than anticipated, and some core functionality is not able to be tested. The project team doesn’t feel like they are getting the direction they need to continue moving forward, and the business sponsor has asked you when he can expect to test application functionality that wasn't a part of the original scope. In addition, your project’s deadline is rapidly approaching, and interproject dependencies make it unlikely that you will be able to push your launch date. What do you do? What impact do your decisions have on cost, schedule, and performance?
> Three years ago the Sharp Printing (SP) strategic management group set a goal of having a color laser printer available for the consumer and small business market for less than $200. A few months later the senior management met off-site to discuss the ne
> NSDC has a contract to produce eight satellites to support a worldwide telephone system (for Alaska Telecom, Inc.) that allows individuals to use a single, portable telephone in any location on earth to call in and out. NSDC will develop and produce the
> What does it mean if the priorities of a project include: Time-constrain, Scopeaccept, and Cost-enhance?
> What questions does a project objective answer? What would be an example of a good project objective?
> What are the six elements of a typical scope statement?
> When would it be appropriate to create a responsibility matrix rather than a fullblown WBS?
> How does a communication plan benefit management of projects?
> What kinds of information are included in a work package?
> In small groups, identify real life examples of a project that would fit each of the following priority scenarios: Time-constrain, Scope-enhance, Cost-accept Time-accept, Scope-constrain, Cost-accept Time-constrain, Scope-accept, Cost-enhance
> You are in charge of organizing a dinner-dance concert for a local charity. You have reserved a hall that will seat 30 couples and have hired a jazz combo. a. Develop a scope statement for this project that contains examples of all the elements. Assume
> You have prepared the following schedule for a project in which the key resource is a tractor(s). There are three tractors available to the project. Activities A and D require one tractor to complete while activities B, C, E, and F require 2 tractors. D
> Develop a WBS for a local stage play. Be sure to identify the deliverables and organizational units (people) responsible. How would you code your system? Give an example of the work packages in one of your cost accounts. Develop a corresponding OBS which
> Develop a WBS for a project in which you are going to build a bicycle. Try to identify all of the major components and provide three levels of detail.
> Nicolette Larson was loading the dishwasher with her husband, Kevin, and telling him about the first meeting of the Manchester United Tournament Organizing Committee. Nicolette, a self-confessed “soccer mom,” had been elected tournament director and was
> Lukas Nelson and his wife, Anne, and their three daughters had been living in their house for over five years when they decided it was time to make some modest improvements. One area they both agreed needed an upgrade was the bathtub. Their current house
> This chapter discussed the role of values and beliefs in forming an organization’s culture. The topic of organizational culture is big business on the Internet. Many companies use their Web pages to describe their mission, vision, and c
> What distinguishes a weak matrix from a strong matrix?
> What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of the functional, matrix, and dedicated team approaches to managing projects?
> What do you believe is more important for successfully completing a project—the formal project management structure or the culture of the parent organization?
> Other than culture, what other organizational factors should be used to determine which project management structure should be used?
> Why is it important to assess the culture of an organization before deciding what project management structure should be used to complete a project?
> Individually, identify what you consider to be the greatest achievements of mankind in the last five decades. Now share your list with three to five other students in the class, and come up with an expanded list. Review these great achievements in terms
> How can project management offices (POs) support effective project management?
> Under what conditions would it be advisable to use a strong matrix instead of a dedicated project team?
> Going to college is analogous to working in a matrix environment in that most students take more than one class and must distribute their time across multiple classes. What problems does this situation create for you? How does it affect your performance?
> You work as an analyst in the marketing department for Springfield International (SI). SI uses a weak matrix to develop new services. Management has created an extremely competitive organizational culture that places an emphasis upon achieving results ab
> Use the cultural dimensions listed in Figure 3.5 to assess the culture of your school. Instead of employees, consider students, and instead of management, use faculty. For example, member identity refers to the degree to which students identify with the
> You work for Barbata Electronics. Your R&D people believe they have come up with an affordable technology that will double the capacity of existing MP3 players and use audio format that is superior to MP3. The project is code named KYSO (Knock Your Socks
> You work for LL Company, which manufactures high-end optical scopes for hunting rifles. LL Company has been the market leader for the past 20 years and has decided to diversify by applying its technology to develop a top-quality binocular. What kind of p
> Bruce Palmer had worked for Moss and McAdams (M&M) for six years and was just promoted to account manager. His first assignment was to lead an audit of Johnsonville Trucks. He was quite pleased with the five accountants who had been assigned to his team,
> Patti Smith looked up at the bright blue Carolina sky before she entered the offices of Horizon Consulting. Today was Friday, which meant she needed to prepare for the weekly status report meeting. Horizon Consulting is a custom software development comp
> Explain the role projects play in the strategic management process.
> Compute the early, late, and slack times for the activities in the network that follows, assuming a time-constrained network. Which activities are critical? What is the time-constrained project duration? Recall, in the schedule resource load chart the
> Why does the priority system described in this chapter require that it be open and published? Does the process encourage bottom-up initiation of projects? Does it discourage some projects? Why?
> The portfolio of projects is typically represented by compliance, strategic, and operations projects. What impact can this classification have on project selection?
> How are projects linked to the strategic plan?
> Describe the major components of the strategic management process.
> Discuss the pros and cons of the checklist versus the weighted factor method of selecting projects.
> Why should an organization not rely only on ROI to select projects?
> Pinyarat worked in the IT department of a diversified IT firm. She was describing the firm’s early encounters with critical-chain scheduling to a friend in another IT firm. Three years ago management decided to add 10 percent time to all activity estim
> In Chapter 6, Brian Smith, network administrator at Advanced Energy Technology (AET), was given the responsibility of implementing the migration of a large data center to a new office location. Careful planning was needed because AET operates in the hi
> International Capital, Inc. (IC), is a small investment banking firm that specializes in securing funds for small- to medium-sized firms. IC is able to use a standardized project format for each engagement. Only activity times and unusual circumstances c
> Why is it difficult to apply Agile PM to large-scale projects?
> What is iterative incremental development? Why is it useful for developing new products?
> Why is the traditional project management approach less effective when project scope and technology are not well known?
> What are the differences between a self-organizing team and a conventional project team?
> What similarities and differences exist between a traditional project manager and a Scrum master?
> You manage a hotel resort located on the South Beach on the Island of Kauai in Hawaii. You are shifting the focus of your resort from a traditional fun-in-the-sun destination to eco-tourism. (Eco-tourism focuses on environmental awareness and education.)
> What are the advantages of Agile PM? What are the disadvantages of Agile PM?
> Break into small groups and discuss the following question: What organizational, group, individual, and project factors do you think would promote the successful adoption of Agile PM methodologies like Scrum? Why?
> Kendra Hua had worked for six years as a software engineer in the IT department at Point 2 Point (P2P), a large freight moving company. She liked her job and the people she worked with. While she did some maintenance work, she worked primarily on project
> Why is it important to honor the customs and traditions of a country when working on an international project?
> What role do local intermediaries play in helping an outsider complete a project?
> How do environmental factors affect project implementation?
> How should you go about preparing yourself for an international project?
> What is culture shock? What can you do to reduce the negative effects of culture shock?
> Interview someone who has worked or lived in a foreign country for more than six months. a. What was his experience with culture shock? b. What did he learn about the culture of the country he lived in? c. What advice would he give to someone who woul
> The Custom Bike Company has set up a weighted scoring matrix for evaluation of potential projects. Below are five projects under consideration. a. Using the scoring matrix in the following chart, which project would you rate highest? Lowest? b. If the w
> Place in order the following countries in terms of what you would think would be the least to most corrupt: United States, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Australia, Hong Kong, Nepal, China, Kenya, Indonesia, Botswana, Greece, Chile. Use an Internet sea
> Try as best you can to apply the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck cross-cultural framework to the four countries discussed in this chapter: Mexico, France, Saudi Arabia, and China. Where do you think these countries lie on each of the cultural issues?
> Michael Thomas shouted, “Sasha, Tor-Tor, we’ve got to go! Our driver is waiting for us.” Thomas’s two daughters were fighting over who would get the last orange for lunch that day. Victoria (“Tor-Tor”) prevailed as she grabbed the orange and ran out the
> On December 26, 2004, an earthquake reaching 9.1 on the Richter scale triggered a series of devastating tsunamis off the coast of Indonesia. They spread throughout the Indian Ocean, killing large numbers of people and inundating coastal communities acros
> What major information would you expect to find in a project review?
> Why is it difficult to perform a truly independent, objective review?
> How does the project closure review differ from the performance measurement control system discussed in Chapter 13?
> Advocates of retrospective methodology claim there are distinguishing characteristics that increase its value over past lessons learned methods. What are they? How does each characteristic enhance project closure and review?
> Why should you separate performance reviews from pay reviews? How do you do this?
> Comment on the following statement: “We cannot afford to terminate the project now. We have already spent more than 50 percent of the project budget.”
> Given the time-phased work packages, complete the baseline budget form for the project. Time-phased budget ($ 000) Week 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 1O Task Budget o 6 Activity 1 4 4 13 2 2 4 2 2 Activity 2 6 Activity 3 10 Activity 4 2 3 3 8 Activity 5 3 2 1 Tot
> Consider a course that you recently completed. Perform a review of the course (the course represents a project and the course syllabus represents the project plan).
> What are some of the lessons learned from a recent project in your organization? Was a retrospective done? What action plans were generated to improve processes as a result of the project?
> Imagine you are conducting a review of the International Space Station project. Research press coverage and the Internet to collect information on the current status of the project. What are the successes and failures to date? What forecasts would you ma
> Olaf Gundersen, the CEO of Wireless Telecom Company, is in a quandary. Last year he accepted the Maximum Megahertz Project suggested by six up-and-coming young R&D corporate stars. Although Olaf did not truly understand the technical importance of the pr
> How does a tracking Gantt chart help communicate project progress?
> Schedule variance (SV) is in dollars and does not directly represent time. Why is it still useful?
> How does earned value give a clearer picture of project schedule and cost status than a simple plan versus actual system?
> On day 51 a project has an earned value of $600, an actual cost of $650, and a planned cost of $560. Compute the SV, CV, and CPI for the project. What is your assessment of the project on day 51?
> In month 9 the following project information is available: actual cost is $2,000, earned value is $2,100, and planned cost is $2,400. Compute the SV and CV for the project.
> How would a project manager use the CPI?
> Hector Gaming Company Hector Gaming Company (HGC) is an educational gaming company specializing in young children’s educational games. HGC has just completed their fourth year of operation. This year was a banner year for HGC. The company received a larg
> Fatma settled down for lunch at the Yank Sing Chinese restaurant. She was early and took the time to catch up on her e-mail. Soon she would be joined by Jasper and Viktoria, two fellow 2014 grads from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Jasper worke
> Why is it important for project managers to resist changes to the project baseline? Under what conditions would a project manager make changes to a baseline? When would a project manager not allow changes to a baseline?
> What are the differences between BAC and EAC?
> Given the following project network, baseline, and status information, develop status reports for periods 2, 4, 6, 8 and complete the performance indexes table. Calculate the EACf and the VACf. Based on your data, what is your assessment of the current s
> Given the project network and baseline information below, complete the form to develop a status report for the project at the end of period 4 and the end of period 8. From the data you have collected and computed for periods 4 and 8, what information are
> * Part A. You are in charge of the Aurora Project. Given the following project network, baseline, and status information, develop status reports for periods 1–8 and complete the performance indexes table. Calculate the EACf and VACf. Ba
> The following data have been collected for a British health care IT project for two week reporting periods 2 through 12. Compute the SV, CV, SPI, and CPI for each period. Plot the EV and the AC on the summary graph provided. Plot the SPI, CPI, and PCIB o
> The following labor hours data have been collected for a nanotechnology project for periods 1 through 6. Compute the SV, CV, SPI, and CPI for each period. Plot the EV and the AC on the summary graph provided (or a similar one). Plot the SPI, CPI, and PCI
> Wil Fence is a large timber and Christmas tree farmer who is attending a project management class in the spring, his off season. When the class topic came to earned value, he was perplexed. Isn’t he using EV? Each summer Wil hires crews to shear fields o
> Scanner Project You have been serving as Electroscan’s project manager and are now well along in the project. Develop a narrative status report for the board of directors of the chain store that discusses the status of the project to da
> Assume you are a member of a class on project management. Each student will join a team of 5–7 students who will be responsible for creating, planning, and executing a fund raising project for a designated charity. The fund raising proj
> You are an assistant to Percival Young, president of G&L Construction. He has asked you to prepare a brief report on the status of the Shoreline Stadium project. Shoreline stadium is a 47,000-seat professional baseball stadium. Construction started
> Given the information provided for development of a catalog product return process for periods 1 through 5, assign the PV values (using the rules) to develop a baseline for the project. Compute the SV, CV, SPI, and CPI for each period. Explain to the own
> Given the information provided for development of a product warranty project for periods 1 through 7, compute the SV, CV, SPI, and CPI for each period. Plot the EV and the AC on the PV graph provided. Explain to the owner your assessment of the project a
> What does the term “escalate” refer to, and why is it essential to project success?
> What are the best practices used by firms to outsource project work?
> Why do firms outsource project work?
> How can a project manager influence customer expectations and perceptions?
> What does the acronym BATNA refer to and why is it important to being a successful negotiator?
> Why is the principled negotiation approach recommended for negotiating agreements on projects?
