Project Management Crosby Manufacturing Corporation - Case Study Example

? Project Management Crosby Manufacturing Corporation Strayer The assignment is on project planning and scheduling. The case study has been done on Crosby Manufacturing Corporation. In this company, the president calls for a meeting with managers from different departments of the company. The task demands that a synopsis be given; this tackles the summary of the whole case study. It describes the intention of the meeting and the strategy that has been undertaken by the different managers in the company. In this task is also the discussion of the viability of appointment of Emary by the president to head the project planning. With this appointment, the assignment has discussed possible reaction s of the employees towards this appointment. The project constraints are identified and discussed including their impact on the performance quality of a project. Having critically considered many factors in this task, I therefore conclude that for a successful project, there should be a good project plan and schedule which should be adhered to. Keywords: Crosby Manufacturing Corporation, Project, Planning, Scheduling, Managers, President, Emary, Employees, Constraints Summary The president of Management Cost and Control System (MCCS) had a meeting with department managers to solve the issue of MCCS reporting procedures. The government had just renewed the interest in the company, and therefore, there was a need to computerize the finance reporting methods, so as to compete fairly with other companies. Having taken over the leadership in 2005, Livingstone took a major stride in reorganizing the structure of the company leadership, this really worked well and they could now get large number of government contracts. The second strategy was to update the MCCS reporting procedure to ensure a sizable cash outlay to increase the business. The president then appointed Emary to be the planning project leader, even though he was not conversant with computers. Livingston’s Appointment The president of the company while appointing Tim Emary to head the project stated that he was doing so because of the importance of the project, and while acknowledging that Emary had little knowledge of computers, the president reiterated the fact that Emary knew how to make schedules and do the work well. With due respect for the president, being a leader who had seen the flourishing of MCCS since his appointment, his confidence in Emary boosted by his experience in leadership shows that he was right to pick Emary as the leader of the planning team; he was highly conversant with his staff and the capability of each one of them. He too wanted to achieve, and unlike in the previous year, he had now realized the mistake they had done. As indicated by the president, the leader to be was not computer literate, but other project team members were. Since the project was to be well scheduled and well planned, it was very necessary to have a mix of experience in the team, just as the president had done. Emary was going to help much in planning and scheduling, while the rest were going to assist in computer skills and application. Project planning is a highly demanding and exhausting process; “the scheduler has to keep many activities, resources, calendars, logical relationships and constraints correctly, completely and currently stated in the schedule” (Hullet, 2009, p. 3). Emary in this case is assigned to collect information from the rest of the team and to combine them into a better project logic. Another major role to be played by Emary as a scheduler is to act as a middle man between the project team and the president; this is a typical role of a scheduler. He is also to ensure that the project schedule represents the desired plan and any changes that may be required later. To achieve this, Emary as a project scheduler will ensure that logical relationship and critical paths are well examined. As further argued by Hulett (2009), success in managing a project needs a complete and sensible project schedule; project scheduling is a core value in a project team. The fact that the rest of the team from MIS and EDP department were mere managers and had no specialization in project planning shows that Emary was to play a major role. Therefore, it was by no mistake that he was appointed. The case study shows that previously, project leaders used to be from MIS and EDP departments, as can be seen from the president’s statement, the company was nonresponsive to the three contracts that had been awarded by the government, as it could not adhere to the customers’ requirements. With this in mind and the type of leadership in President Livingstone, he wanted to have things done differently to avoid a repeat of the same mistakes that had caused the failure in the previous year. The president therefore had made the right choice in appointing Emary as the leader of project planning. Reaction of Functional Employees to the Appointment of Emary The employees are used to a system where one of them is chosen to be the leader of the project team; since this had been their tradition they expected one of them to be appointed as well. The appointment of Emary was to their surprise, although not included in the case study, there is a likely hood that they could have questioned the decision and gone to the extent of protesting. This view is drawn from the fact that as soon as the president had announced his message, the MIS manager chipped in quickly with a first step of solution; this shows that they were prepared to take the responsibility. He had already prepared the feasibility study, his counterpart, the EDP manager, had come up with an optimistic schedule. With their progress, they must have been very disappointed to hear about a different person with no knowledge in the field, coming to head them. The president could have also known this because he pleaded with them to support the incumbent leader, and even promised that he was going to be with them during the project development process. Another reaction by the functional employees to the appointment of Emary could be that they were contended. They were fully aware of the failure in their previous year’s project, and with the confidence they had in their president, then they could have been satisfied with the appointment. As explained by Hulett (2009), a successful scheduler exhibits a lot of skills including dealing with people with different agendas effectively and with a lot of expertise. They knew the challenges they had faced, therefore, given their positions as managers under a well performing president, there is no doubt that they were much aware of project life cycle and the importance of project planner. Impact of Time Cost and Time Constraints on Networking Techniques and Project Schedule Time constraints deals with the duration with which a project would take, for it to be completed. Before any project commences, the projected time frame has to be figured out (“The Three Constraints of Project Management,” 2006) through a networking technique that has parts and components; each of this depends on time allocated to each. An enlarged project schedule means that there is time elongation, hence, the shorter the schedule, the shorter the time needed for completion. Projects often take a longer time than expected when they waste a lot of time between slacks. This is because there are early and late time arrivals; events are procrastinated in order to tackle them during the late time arrival. If activity durations are shortened, as well as scheduling activities, then the tendency of procrastination is eliminated (Nicholas & Steyn, 2012). Cost constraints can be viewed as the price or the expenses on materials, labor, and other resources required for the progress of a project. A network technique such as CPM is used to analyze the cost of a project. CPM estimates the least cost with least duration for the successful completion of a project. In a project, there is a crash activity cost, as well as the normal activity cost; both are the figures representing the expenses of a project (Nicholas & Steyn, 2012). If a project is not completed within a scheduled time, it is certain that it fails to function as desired. Additionally, if cost estimation is not well formulated, then the entire project may end up being very costly. Constraints that Compromise the Project’s Performance Quality Project quality can be compromised by a number of factors, but all can be controlled by the project team and the client. The most important thing in project planning is to manage the constraints, so as to avoid any consequence on the quality of a project. The main constraints are the cost, time, as well as quality or performance. Quality is the main target of any project designer. In a case where the project team wants to complete a project within the shortest period regardless of quality and cost, then the time constraint has to be prioritized; this means that the project quality will be poor and may not meet the required standard (Tonkin, 2002). When cost is the priority, it means that it will be a bit expensive and take a longer time. In most cases, people would like to achieve in all the three constraints, for which it is not always possible. As argued by Tonkin, the best decision on compromise has to come from the client, but not the project developer. Conclusion The success of a project is highly determined by the schedule that has been performed prior to the project. As seen in this case study (Crosby Manufacturing Corporation), the first task had failed because of the lack of a project planner, who had not been included in the project team. The president then learnt from this failure and ensured that he included one during the subsequent project. Reference List Hulett, D. (2009). Practical Schedule Risk Analysis. Surrey: Gower Publishing Limited. Nicholas, J. M. & Steyn, H. (Eds.). (2012.) Project Management for Engineering, Business Technology. Oxon: Routledge. The Three Constraints of Project Management. (2006). Retrieved August 19, 2013, from www.exforsys.com/career.center/project-management/the-three-constraints-of-project-management.html Tonkin, C. (2002). Consulting Mastery: The Ability Myth: When being Good is not enough. New South Wales: Aragon Gray Pty Limited. Read More