Blue Spider Project Essay Example

Organisation architecture / Relations needs to be clearly defined and followed. •The 9 areas of Project Management knowledge were not used, Integration Management, Scope Management, Time Management, Cost Management, Quality Management, Human Resource Management, Communications Management, Risk Management and Procurement Management. Solutions to Blue Spider Project being successful are: Follow formal Project Management Methodology being followed. •A competent project manager, involve the Programme Manager and Functional Management every step of the way. •A competent project team, sufficient resources •Top management support and leadership. •Project aligned to Company Strategy with correct priority all through the project. •Customer involvement and regular consultation (Lord’s Industries). •Communication throughout the Project, proper monitoring, feedback, measurement, appraisals and review of deliverables. . 1With reference to the case, discuss the problems with their underlying causes. The Blue Spider Project presented some major challenges, for Parks Corporation. At the onset of the Project there were already problems. In this case study, the functional manager (Henry Gable, director of engineering) selects the Project Manager for this Project, in this instance there was no consultation with the director of program management, Elliot Grey. Project Management guidelines are not being followed.

Henry Gable is using Gary Anderson for his own agenda, he set the standards for the proposal and he also selected the Project Manager, using Gary Anderson’s inexperience to his own advantage. Henry Gable’s integrity is questionable as Gary Anderson, technical expert, points out that there were problems meeting the specification requirements. Henry Gable, comments that “ The truth doesn’t always win proposals”. This is a leadership behavioural problem and dysfunctional behaviour.

Gary Anderson is a brilliant production engineer and senior scientist, he was too inexperienced to

take the responsibility of Project Manager, on a major project. Although Parks Corporation claimed to have the Matrix structure in place, it was not fully functional in this project. Henry Gable intimidates Gary Anderson with his underlying threats of not succeeding. The Blue Spider project did not get a priority in Parks Corporation, only production programs, seemed to get priority, resulting in poor project prioritization.

Gary was worried from the beginning that the test matrix called out in the technical volume of the proposal would not produce results that could satisfy specifications, yet he does not raise this as an issue or escalate the problem. Gary was too “hands on” and not managing the project/ progam, he took it upon himself to do all the tasks himself. He was not clear on the duties of a Project/ Program Manager. His communication to the customer (Lord Industries) and internally is very poor. There is no evidence of regular Project Meetings taking place with all the stakeholders (internal and external).

Parks Corporation does not have a good Human Resources follow through, as Gary Anderson was promoted to the Project Manager and no induction took place. After the proposal was won, there was very poor functional management support. Gary put all the pressure on himself to deliver and did not use his team effectively. He was not maintaining a good balance between his technical and administrative responsibilities. With Lords Industries threatening to establish a customer office in Parks Corporation this shows a major lack of trust.

Henry Gable is also issuing instructions to Paul Evans and secretly testing material that was not part of the original specification. Thus creating mistrust between

the functional departments within Parks Corporation and also wasting valuable resources, as they were testing the existing material for the past two months. This has also caused mistrust between Parks Corporation and Lord’s Industries. Once again the dysfunctional behaviour of Henry Gable is displayed as he was spear heading the new research with he customer’s money, without consultation with the Project Office or the customer. When Gary submitted the handout package to Lord’s Industries, he did not give them enough time to review the new findings, causing them to postpone the meeting. The integrity of Parks Corporation is challenged by Lord’s Industries, this is not a good situation to be in as the customer does not trust the service provider and now wants to increase the written communication between the parties and supervise all acitivities, by looking over Park’s shoulder at every turn.

Gary did not keep accurate time on the project, causing the manufacturing plans to be behind schedule. He also did not draw up and communicate a work schedule to the functional departments, and let managers know of any potential problems. He did not follow procedures therefore his costs on the project are affected. Gary was not skilled in motivating his staff and this was causing everything to slow down. He then calls a meeting to discuss the strategy for the remainder of the program, the people who attended the meeting could not make the decision, therefore rendering the meeting ineffective.

In summation, the problems experienced on the Blue Spider Project are the following; poor communication, poor negotiation skills, leadership behaviour problems, poor functional management support, lack of knowledge management, conflict handling and the lack

thereof, dysfunctional behaviour, poor prioritization of projects, lack of strategic direction and no clear sign of a company value system. These are all as a result of behavioural problems within the organization.

There were operational problems evident within the organization, namely poor project planning, no quality assurance or change management, major lack in Project Management processes and procedures and a problem with customer focus. The third and final problematic area is the organizational architecture as there are clear authority, responsibility and accountability issues, poor Human Resources and no balance of power. In conclusion the Blue Spider Project’s problems were not only as a result of Gary Anderson’s inexperience but a host of other factors as discussed above. . 2Recommend what should be done to solve the problems, prioritizing the steps to be taken in your approach. Be systematic and motivate your assertions. My recommendation in running the Blue Spider Project successfully will start after Parks Corporation has won the proposal. The approach Gary Anderson should have taken when his integrity was challenged, was to step back immediately and not accept the challenge “on the back foot” from the onset.

Had Parks Corporation not been able to meet the requirement standards as set out in the proposal, a meeting should have been called with senior management and the technical experts to see if an alternate solution could be found and proposed to the customer. Therefore allowing Parks Corporation to make an informed decision. Owing to the fact that this was a $2. 2 million contract and potential business for the next ten years, a seasoned Program Manager would need to be appointed to run this program. Gary would

have excelled in the role of assistant program manager as it would have suited his skills and expertise more.

Elliot Grey should have been involved from the inception of the program. This would have allowed the program to be prioritized with the strategic objective of the company in mind. And have a competent project manager with a competent project team. The Project Manager would create an effective project organizational architecture. The Project would need a Project Requirement Definition, which consists of Project Scope, Defined deliverables, Functional and project resource requirements, Customer (sponsor) acceptance criteria, initial risk analysis nd assumptions. A WBS would already have been drawn up and communicated to all parties concerned, to compliment the WBS a responsibility matrix should be drawn up, as it shows each person’s role in supporting the overall project. A Network plan would be drawn up enabling the planning and scheduling of the project. Gary Anderson does not have a clear understanding of his role, in this case study. A Project Manager has clear responsibilities; planning, directing, organizing, staffing, controlling and coordinating.

Human Resources from Parks Corporation could have come into play here, with Gary being new to Program Management, an induction into the department would have been appropriate and values of the organization re-enforced. Elliot Grey would also have played a much more active role, by assuring that standards and procedures are met. Risk Management Control would play a very important part of this case study, as there are both internal and external risks that need to be managed. Risks need to be identified and documented.

Qualitive and Quantitative Risk analysis as well as risk respons planning and monitoring and controlling

of the risks. Gary did not perform well in the communication of the project, both to the external client (Lords Industries) and the internal resources (project team and functional management). Gary should have formalized all the communication that was to happen on the project through a communication plan. Timely and appropriate generation, management and communication of project information. This would include regular feedback meetings with the client and regular project progress meetings.

These would be formalized by minutes and plan of action. All meetings with the clients should have had an agenda and been formal, as requested by the client. Gary should have known that he had a contractual requirement to prepare completed minutes for all interchange meetings, to be signed off before going for publication. Gary should have approached the Project Office for support with the administrative paperwork. He should not leave it up to them to prepare, but he should manage that resource as any other resource on the project.

Human Resource Management is there to enable the project manager to effectively manage and organize the project team. This would include HR planning, HR developing. Project resource team building, feedback on performance of project team members. Had Gary done this he would have been aware of the problems in the research labs. Paul Evans should be reporting any changes to the plan to Gary first. It is unacceptable that Henry Gable is running testing of new materials on the project without Gary’s knowledge at all. This also brings me to the Scope Management on a project.

The Scope planning and definition would already have been defined. So this research on JXB-3 is out of scope at

this stage of the project. Had Gary been doing Scope verification and control this would not have happened in this way and he would not be totally unaware of this testing going on and could have managed it better. Had this been identified sooner, there would not be wasted resources working on existing material for no reason. This also causes ill feeling with functional management, which in turn would demotivate staff, as they have been putting in effort into work that was wasted.

Gary did not control his time management or the project’s time during the project, but only addressed it when a crisis arose. Had he been ensuring the timely completion of acitivities within the project he would not have been behind schedule. He did not build in review time for the client (Lords Industries) Although Gary had decided to try to reduce costs by accepting responsibility for developing the bill of material himself, he had not considered the fact that it would impact his schedule, as they were now behind schedule.

He did not take the Time, Cost and Quality triangle into account, when you change any one of these on the triangle it will affect the other two. Time QualityCost The definition of Leadership is getting things done through others. Gary found it difficult to motivate his people, as they were acting as if they were on a sinking ship. Gary did not have the skills to do this, as he lacked the strong leadership ability, the ability to develop people. By the eighth month Gary seemed to be finding it difficult to motivate himself.

Gary should have consulted all the parties concerned at the

team meeting to see what the schedule should look like. The functional managers who are able to make decision should have been present at this meeting as well as Elliot Grey. Gary’s schedule seemed to be a problem as he is only involving the deparment manager responsible for testing the following day, to get a specific resource for that particular weekend. This should have been addressed at his “emergency” team meeting. One of the most important roles of the project manager is the cost management of a project. Cost estimating, cost budgeting and cost control.

Regular feedback to the sponsor of the project and the project office would be appropriate to assertain where the project is with regard to the budgeted amounts versus the actual cost amounts. Owing to communication and project controlling and wasted work the cost had to be escalated unnecessarily. Gary had predicted a profit, when in fact there was no profit. Gary had also decided to take responsibility for the reduced age life and not escalate this to management (Henry Gable). This type of project risk should be a company decision, had Gary communicated this to Henry, he may not have been demoted back to engineering.

The conclusion to the solution is for Gary to be trained in using Project Management methodology and processes (Initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closure). He should not have been left on his own with his very first project, without HR induction, training and project office support. Elliot Grey, comments that Gary has not exactly had a sparkling performance, but he should have had review sessions with Gary to give him feedback on his performance at each milestone.

The organization (Parks Corporation) needs to address it’s Behavioural, Operational and Organisation

Architecture problems to ensure the success of future projects. References and Bibliography ?Steyn Pieter, Professor, “Project Management: Leading, Creating, Implementing and Improving”, Page 1 – 73. ?Gido and Clements, “Successful Project Mangement”, Pages 76 – 81, Pages 290 – 308, Pages 391. ?Richman Larry, PMP, “ Improving your Project Management Skills”, Pages 10 – 13, Pages 17 – 40, Pages 155 – 170. ?PMP Partners, “IT Project+ Certification Essential Competencies”. Triangle of Balance. ?PMP Partners, “IT Project+ Certification Essential Competencies”. Pages 8/5 – 8/13.