Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 Trimester 1, 2017 – Assessment 1 Unit Code MN601 Unit Title Network Project Management Assessment Type Assignment 1 Assessment Title Individual case study assignment Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping) ▪ In‐depth analysis of common issues that program/project managers often face in organisations that lack a culture that supports implementation of project management methodologies. Weight 15% Total Marks 50 Word limit 1000 Due Date Week 7 Submission Guidelines • All work must be submitted on Moodle by the due date along with a completed Assignment Cover Page. • The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Calibri (Body) font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings. • Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using IEEE referencing style. Extension • If an extension of time to submit work is required, a Special Consideration Application must be submitted directly to the School's Administration Officer, in Melbourne on Level 6 or in Sydney on Level 7. You must submit this application three working days prior to the due date of the assignment. Further information is available at: http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-publications/policies-procedures-and- guidelines/specialconsiderationdeferment Academic Misconduct • Academic Misconduct is a serious offence. Depending on the seriousness of the case, penalties can vary from a written warning or zero marks to exclusion from the course or rescinding the degree. Students should make themselves familiar with the full policy and procedure available at: http://www.mit.edu.au/about- mit/institute-publications/policies-procedures-and-guidelines/Plagiarism- Academic-Misconduct-Policy-Procedure. For further information, please refer to the Academic Integrity Section in your Unit Description. MN601 Network Project Management Page 2 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 Purpose of the assessment: Project management problems can occur when project management methodologies are not implemented successfully across organisations. In this assessment task, you are required to write a report on the current project management problems that Clement is facing. (Approx. 1000 words exclusive of references). The report is to have a current Clement Corp projects management practice, analyse issues and make recommendations for successful implementation of project management methodologies across the company to deliver successful projects. Assignment Description Case Study: Is It Standard Methodology That We Need? Peerasit Patanakul It is the time of year when the performance evaluation will soon be carried out. Matt Garner, the director of the project management department, sits in his room contemplating all the initiatives he had implemented in the past year. Some of them were successful, but the majority of them were not. Before joining Clement, Matt had many years of experience in project management and also worked as a project management consultant. He joined Clement several years ago in the quality assurance department and was promoted to the director of project management department at the beginning of this year. COMPANY AND ITS PRODUCTS Clement Corp is a provider of integrated financial and operations software for small and mid - sized businesses in the construction and real estate industries. The company also provides a range of support services. It operates predominantly within the United States; and also licenses products in other countries, including Australia and Canada. Clement ’ s customers include commercial and industrial contractors, residential builders, specialty contractors, electrical and mechanical contractors, real estate managers, real estate developers, corporate owners, and the government. Through its integrated family of construction and real estate management solutions, Clement Office construction software gives its customers highly developed cross - functional capabilities to pull everything together for streamlined, single - source control. The software suite includes: • Accounting: accounts payable, accounts receivable, billing, cash management, contracts, equipment cost, financial statement designer, job cost, pay roll, remote time entry, etc. • Estimating: tools, data base, etc. Procurement: buy - out, inventory, purchasing, etc. • Reporting and productivity: document management, information assistant, inquiry design, report designer, etc. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT CLEMENT Before Matt assumed the capacity of the director, project management at Clement was in a state of disrepair. Because of the internal promotion, technical staff were promoted to project manager positions with limited experience. In fact, no one had formal project management background and little training was provided. However, project managers did the job as best as they could. Matt knew this problem and he was MN601 Network Project Management Page 3 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 convinced by the CEO of the company to take this challenging task. He recalled his conversation with the CEO at the beginning of this year: CEO: I know this is a big issue that we have to address as soon as possible. I want you to develop a methodology, document it, train the company on it, implement it, maintain it, and get these project managers up to speed. This sounded simple but Matt knew it would not be easy to do. He knew that a previous director could not develop and implement the standard methodology. He had to figure out a way to do it successfully. He thought, at least, he had the support from the CEO. WHO ARE THESE PROJECT MANAGERS? Matt recalled the meetings with project managers. He arranged those meetings to get to know who they were. He found that besides not having formal project management training, most of them did not have any experience outside Clement that they could relate to. Also there was a huge lack of internal credibility. Employees in other departments did not understand why they needed project managers. What project managers were really doing was the administrative function; posting project documentation on the website, etc. They knew that they needed to maintain project schedules but they were not trained how to put the schedule together to begin with. They picked up little tidbits of issues. Since they did not have a real project schedule, these project managers could not create any expectation and make any trade - off decisions. They did not know whether decisions they made impacted the rest of the project. FIRST STEP: CREATING TEMPLATES With his project management experience, Matt could provide the internal training to the project managers. However, projects were still going on and new ones were continuously coming in. He could not take project managers out of their job and conduct a week or two classroom training. Matt decided to develop templates to help the project managers in the meantime. He started off with maintenance release types of projects since all project managers were familiar with them. He also did some coaching and mentoring. The template for maintenance release projects seems to have been a success. As Matt anticipated, these project managers were familiar with these projects. They could relate to them right away. The project managers understood key deliverables and dependencies. Matt started to feel a bit relieved that things seemed to be getting along fine. Then one day, he helped one project manager develop a schedule for a new product development project. Matt: You know what to do, right? We have a standard life cycle phase. So, you can start from there. PM: Okay. Matt: Start with the work breakdown schedule. This is the new product development project, so we have to do prototyping. We have to develop iterations and so on. PM: So, the work with the schedule template does not apply to this project. Matt: Not all of them. Look at this deliverable; is it going to be suitable for this project? PM: No. Matt: Do you need some help? It is obvious that you need some help. Let’s go write things down on the board. PM: You know how to create a work breakdown schedule for this project, right? Matt: Yes. PM: Well, could you create one of those for me? MN601 Network Project Management Page 4 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 Matt insisted that he would help the project manager create the WBS. They started brainstorming and finally they put together a decent WBS for this project. However, along the way, he realized: Even though these project managers show the progress on the schedule of maintenance release projects, when it comes to new product development projects, things go downhill pretty quickly. They could not identify deliverables. They could not set up dependencies. No wonder they could not track the project progress. He felt so sad for them and also for the company. He wondered how the company could maintain its businesses all these years. WHAT IS THE PRIORITY HERE? Besides developing standard methodology, Matt had the typical responsibility of a director, e.g., assigning projects to project managers, solving resource conflicts, and keeping track of projects and their status. He met with one project manager to discuss her new assignment: Matt: I checked the status of your projects. Every one of them is progressing well and they are almost completed. We are not involved in any implementation. I think you have enough capacity to take on this new project. PM: Oh no. I do not have capacity. Just today an issue came up. I sent you an email this morning explaining the issue to you. Matt: I know but I do not think you need to be involved in that. PM: No, they can’t resolve them. I need to be there. I also have to set up a conference room for that meeting. Matt: You don’t need to do that. Do you have anything to contribute? PM: No, but. Matt: So, stop doing such things like those. Take on this project. It’s good for you. PM: But I am busy. Matt: You are not. You are pretty much at 60 percent capacity right now. As I said most of your projects are going to be completed soon. You have enough capacity to take on this project. Be focused. Set your priorities. Also, pull yourself off the administration stuff. This is a typical issue, Matt recalled. These project managers seemed to be busy all the time but they were busy on activities that they should not have been doing. They seem to get themselves into the situations that they do more of the administrative stuff. Helping them come up to speed with the methodology wouldn’t help, Matt thinks. “I have to also help them have their priorities straight. ” Talking about priorities, management seems to have an issue with this, too. Matt recalled his conversation with one of the senior vice - presidents. Matt: We do not have enough resources to implement all of these projects. What is your priority? How do you want me to assign resources? SVP: Everything is a priority. Matt: What? MN601 Network Project Management Page 5 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 SVP: I just said everything is a priority. Matt: Okay. But you have to understand that if you want to implement all of these projects simultaneously, nothing is going to complete by the set dates. All of these projects will be delayed. SVP: But Matt, you have to understand also that if we prioritize, we are limiting ourselves. We cannot say that we are going to do these but not those. We have to respond to what our customers want. Matt: So, you would rather just get everything out despite the delay than have to choose. SVP: You work it out, Matt. ONE - WAY COMMUNICATION: GOES DOWN BUT NOT UP! Another important issue, Matt recalled, is communication. It did not seem that project managers had sufficient communication with upper management. This caused a lack of support and commitment from management. On the other hand, management did not know what was going on in the projects. He recalled what the CEO told him once: CEO: I just don’t know why we cannot get the product out of the door. Alpha project has been going on for two and a half years and I hardly have an idea how complete it is. What they told me is that we are not going to be able to get it out this year and I do not understand why. I have half of my company work on this project. Matt, from now on, I need you to tell me where we are and where we should be. Matt thought, great. So what he did shortly after that was set up a project management steering committee and started reporting on all projects ’ status on a monthly basis. The committee included the CEO, senior vice - presidents, and vice - presidents. Besides listing the status report, he also defined the role of the committee as a decision making group to make decisions on major project management issues, e.g., resource conflict, risks, and future directions. The committee started off nicely. But all of a sudden, Matt recalled, all engineers were sitting there. Some executives stopped attending. They got frustrated because they would not be able to talk about the decisions that needed to be made. The forum then turned to be a project status reporting. Even though all projects were behind, people did not talk about what they could do, what the risks were, what the response plans should be, or what the next steps were. Then, one of the senior vice - presidents decided that they did not need this anymore. The committee lasted about six months. MATT ’S NEXT MOVE . . . After thinking through all of these, Matt talks to himself: “I cannot be the only one to be blamed about all of these. I did my best. So, what is wrong here? ” Matt is not sure if people recognize the value of project management. “The CEO thought that having a standard methodology would help. But that cannot solve everything. Are we lacking any mechanism to make project management successful? Do we have the right culture? What should I do next? Ref: CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT, PROGRAM, AND ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT Dragan Z. Milosevic, Peerasit Patanakul & Sabin Srivannaboon Copyright 0 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. MN601 Network Project Management Page 6 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 MN601 Network Project Management Page 7 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 Marking criteria: Example of marking criteria is shown in following table. Marks are allocated as follows: Note: The marking criteria varies for each assignment Section to be included in the report Description of the section Marks Introduction Executive summary and background of the case study 5 Case Study Assessment ▪ Analyse and report the current project management problems that Clement Corp is facing. ▪ Compare current Clement Corp culture vs the culture of organizations that implemented project management methodologies successfully. 10 10 Recommendation What kind of project management culture should Clement Corp create? What advice would you give to the CEO? 10 5 Conclusion Write summary of the report 5 Reference style Follow IEEE reference style 5 Total 50 MN601 Network Project Management Page 8 of 8 Prepared by: Samira Baho Moderated by: Dr Karthik Nagarajan April, 2017 Example Marking Rubric for Assignment #: Total Marks 50 Note: The marking rubrics varies for each assignment Grade Mark HD 40-50 DI 35-44 CR 30-34 P 25-29 Fail <25 Excellent Very Good Good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Introduction /5 All topics are pertinent and covered in depth. Ability to think critically and source material is demonstrated Topics are relevant and soundly analysed. Generally relevant and analysed. Some relevance and briefly presented. This is not relevant to the assignment topic. Identification /10 Demonstrated excellent ability to think critically and sourced reference material appropriately Demonstrat ed excellent ability to think critically but did not source reference material appropriatel y Demonstrated ability to think critically and sourced reference material appropriately Demonstrated ability to think critically and did not source reference material appropriately Did not demonstrate ability to think critically and did not source reference material appropriately Analyse /10 Logic is clear and easy to follow with strong arguments Consistency logical and convincing Mostly consistent logical and convincing Adequate cohesion and conviction Argument is confused and disjointed Design /10 All elements are present and very well integrated. Components present with good cohesive Components present and mostly well integrated Most components present Proposal lacks structure. Evaluate/justific ation /5 Excellent use of creditable sources. Accurate referencing. Obvious that outstanding effort made Extremely good effort Good effort made but not outstanding Made some effort. For example, Web searches only Very little attempt to reference. Lazy effort with inaccuracies Conclusion /5 Logic is clear and easy to follow with strong arguments Consistency logical and convincing Mostly consistent logical and convincing Adequate cohesion and conviction Argument is confused and disjointed Reference style /5 Clear styles with excellent source of references. Clear referencing style Generally good referencing style Sometimes clear referencing style Lacks consistency with many errors