TCM 750: Advanced Project Management
Case Review I: The Blue Spider Project
By
Sona Ngoh
Missouri State University
Department of Technology & Construction Management
College of Business Administration
Spring 2014
Contents
1. Summary of Findings 3
2. Background Information 4
3. Problem Statement 5
4. Analysis of Issues and Alternatives 5
5. Detailed Recommendations 8
6. Implementation and Evaluation 9
I. Bibliography 11
II. Works Cited 12
Summary of Findings
The Blue Spider Project is an example of a situation where the project manager show lack of understanding of the life-cycle for project management and the inability to leverage the
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In 1975, Parks corporation decided to change its corporate strategy again, reverting to R&Ds as it was realized that with the upturn of in DoD spending and the new evaluation criteria set forth for project awards, companies wining the R&D and qualification phases, now stand better chance of being awarded production contracts. To support this new strategy, Parks began to beef up its R&D engineering staff, growing its staff strength to 2700 by 1978. Owing to the limitations of salaries that Parks could afford to offer engineers, their access to experienced engineers was limited, forcing them to employ mainly young inexperienced engineers, straight out of college. Gary Anderson was one of such engineers employed straight out of college. The new corporate strategy adopted by Parks necessitated the administration of a new wage and salary program that included job upgrading. Gary had distinguished himself to be an outstanding production engineer over the years and was promoted to senior scientist responsible for all R&D activities performed in the Mechanical Engineering department as management felt that his experience could be extended to R&D as well.
In January 1978, Parks Corporation decided to bid for Phase I on the Blue Spider Project, with Lord Industries as the prime contractor for the Army’s Spartan Program. The project was to improve structural capabilities and the age life of the short range tactical missile, which was exhibiting fatigue failure after 6
For over 8 years Mecanroc a French Company, headed by Pascal Rambaud, along with Jerome Arsac and Thierry James have been working on a new 4-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicle called the Swincar E-Spider. This is the most unique tilting 4-wheeler of its kind. The vehicle can traverse over the roughest terrains because each wheel has its own electric hub motor that’s powered by 1000-watt brushless electric motor. http://www.widoobiz.com/vie-entrepreneur/salon_des_entrepreneurs_de_lyon/sde-lyon-pascal-rambaud-mecanroc/59770
In the case study of Volkswagen, the project management team failed to use the project life cycle as the foundation for managing the project (Pinto, 1990). The Volkswagen crisis could have initially been avoided during the defining stage. According to Larson and Clifford, good management brings about order and stability by formulating plans and objectives, designing structures and procedures, monitoring results against plans, and taking corrective actions when necessary (Larson & Gray, 2014). As the project manager for this project, I would have first defined the specification of the project. By properly defining the project, the project management would have detected that diesel engine for the Volkswagen was not meeting the emission standard (Hutchinson, 2015). This could have been also avoided if the project management had
Over the past few years, project managers and Project management has shown tremendous growth. Project management has evolved over the past several years from an activity in an organization to a discipline in its own right. Many professional bodies exist today to represent project management as a discipline, Some of which include, PMI, Prince2 Foundation, PM Bok.
The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on
Gray, C. F. & Larson, E. W. (2008). _Project Management: The Managerial Process_. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hills Companies, Inc.
Running head: HOW TO NOT DO A PROJECT- THE SEVEN CLASSIC MISTAKES How to not do a Project The Seven Classic Mistakes Menaka Katapadi Kamath The University of Texas at Dallas Author Note Menaka Katapadi Kamath, Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas Menaka Katapadi Kamath is now at Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080. Correspondence concerning this journal should be addressed to Menaka Katapadi Kamath, 7760 McCallum Blvd Apt 18104, Dallas, TX 75252. contact: mxk165230@utdallas.edu Abstract This assessment summarizes the failures and classic mistakes that occur during the life cycle of a project and best practices to prevent and overcome mistakes. Every project basically centers around mistakes that are either people or process related. Seldom are the chances that mistakes have anything to do with technology or the product itself. There are seven classic mistakes that are found to occur very commonly in nearly one third of projects. They include poor estimation and scheduling, ineffective management of stakeholders, insufficient management of risks, planning insufficiently, giving less importance to quality assurance, weak work force issues and insufficient sponsorship of project. Proactively identifying problems and taking corrective measures to alleviate the hiccups can prove to be very helpful in handling these mistakes prematurely. How to not do a project The Seven classic mistakes Every
In the case study, “Project management Helps the Department of Defense protect Military and Civilians from Hazardous Materials”, the Department of Defense (DOD) had similar problems as the company in the article. The DOD had project to create a web-based software system that monitors, collects and analyzes information regarding human exposure to hazardous materials. The DOD also had scheduling problems. Teams for this government sponsored project had a difficult time coordinating their schedules with other government initiatives. Besides scheduling problems, there were disagreements on the minimum system requirements. And of course the schedule challenges led to budget issues
Project Management Institute Inc. (2013). Guide to project management body of knowledge (5th ed.). Newton Square, PA: Author.
Spiders can be found in all environments throughout the entire world, except in the air and sea. (Biology of Spiders, R.Foelix) These invertebrates of the order Aranea are one of the several groups of the Class Arachnida, with about thirty four thousand species.
Uncertainty has been identified as the underlying cause of the common mismanagement of projects. In response, many approaches to project management have been developed in order to mitigate the adverse effects of the inevitable ambiguity. However, many of these methods fail to address erroneous assumptions that are often made at the management level. In the novel “Critical Chain”, Eli Goldratt presents effective methods that challenge such assumptions. The novel follows multiple stories in order to demonstrate the benefits of this management philosophy as they apply to several project types.
6. Is it true when you enter project management, you either go up the organization or out the door?
This assignment will address three areas of project management that stood out while taking this program. Project integrated management, project communication, and project stakeholder management. A discussion on how they are executed will be presented. As more courses were taken during this project management graduate program, many of the project management concepts became clear and revealed more of the interdependencies and intricate dynamics that are required for successful project management.
As far as project management is concerned, it is referred as the use of management process, skills and tools in a project in order to gain successful outcomes through it. In a project life cycle, management the most imperative step is the planning step because through this step a clear picture of the tasks comes into view. Beside this, it is also planned that what type of resources will be required to accomplish each task and what will be the goals of each task. After evaluation, if resources are available and
Project management has become a means of remaining competitive and deliver results consistently for businesses, a report carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit mentioned roughly eighty percent of global executives believed having project management as a core competency helped them remain competitive during recession period (Gale, 2009, p.2). Organisations have become aware of their shortcomings and tried to improve but instead they struggle to find the ways to address the problems and challenges when it comes to dealing with projects. Throughout the rest of this reading material there are examples of some of the common problems which organisation of all sizes face and how project management is able to solve them effectively.
During the project life-cycle, project managers are responsible for oversight of such tasks or processes as work breakdown structure, critical path methods (calculation of all the activities from start to finish to determine the duration of the project), resource smoothing, earned value, and configuration control (Burke, 2001). Many organizations are turning to management-by-projects approach because it provides flexibility, decentralized management responsibility, a more holistic or global way of conceptualizing problems and solutions, and problem