Crosby Company Analysis - Case Study Example

? Crosby Case Study The Background of the case The electronics component producing firm Crosby was undergoing a crisis related to the Management costand control systems. The company had lost many government contracts due to the faults in the reporting procedures. When Wilfred Livingston became the president of the company he tried to restructure the MIS and computerise the reporting procedures so that they could meet the competition that lay ahead of them in getting contracts from the government. He found it necessary to ignore the normal organisation structure and appoint Tim Emary as the project leader who was an expert in planning though he lacked technical knowledge that was essential for the project. Livingston assured that he would be monitoring the entire project and would be organising meetings for feedback. Discussion whether or not Livingston's selection of Emary as project manager was a mistake Tim Emary had expertise in the areas of scheduling and he was a competent planner. However he did not belong to any of the departments like the EDP department, the functional department or the project management departments. Thus, the instance becomes an unusual one where the project manager does not come from these departments and hence problem may arise. The problem behind selection of Emary was that he might not be able to deal with the problems that the company may come across while the project is on. If someone from these departments had been appointed these problems would not have occurred and hence appointing the right person for the management of projects is essential. In every project, a hierarchy is maintained in the management which depends on the project size, the sub projects under each project and different individuals would be required to do the supervise these undertakings. Now for each segment of the project different project managers should be employed who have their specific skills. But in this particular case a unique project manager is appointed and hence he may not be able to deliver and monitor so many tasks at the same time. Even if he had expertise in all the areas like computers or EDP or other functions it might have been feasible but Livingston himself admitted that he knew nothing about any of the segments of the project and hence his appointment is basically unfavourable for the successful execution of the project. Livingston should have appointed someone who had experience and basic knowledge about computers, MIS or EDP as well as good in delivering projects on time. The possible reaction of the functional employees to the appointment of Emary as project manager The functional employees would naturally react adversely to this situation. They would feel less motivated to work in the project because of this new entrant in the entire project scenario. They would be less committed to the duties that they would be assigned. However, they would not contradict the decision that their president has imposed on them but they might start non cooperation in their daily work and might dishonour the instructions that Emary might put to them. Slowly this will result in the deterioration of the quality of the project. Since Emary has been brought into the project as a scheduler and an expert in delivering projects on time, the employees might try to find out ways to make the pace in which the project is taking place sluggish only to prove in an indirect way that the president’s decision was wrong. They might also waste resources or not properly utilise the resources to make the project costly with the same motive in their minds. However, this kind of insufficiency in a project that is high-value can be expensive for the company both financially as well as the long lost reputation that the company aims at regaining. Impact of cost and time constraints on networking techniques and project schedules Execution of a high value project requires implementation of proper networking techniques like PERT, CPM etc. in order to schedule the entire activity in a time based way and find of the detailed starting and ending time of each of the units of work. The time and the cost constraints have an enormous impact on the scheduling of a project. There are various techniques in which project completion time can be reducing keeping the quality of the project unharmed. But there are costs involved with such activities as well. For example, methods like Crashing can reduce the time but it also incorporates several incremental costs like implementation of additional resources (Meredith and Mantel, 2011). Hence monetary costs have to be traded off for buying time. Time could also be saved through the method of Fast Tracking in which activities take place parallel to one another rather than sequentially. But in this method if a fault is detected at any point of the project the entire work has to be done again. Hence any fallacy would lead to consumption of a lot of time and costs. Thus reduction in the total project time can lead to increase in the cost of the project and hence proper scheduling is indispensable. Constraints that ultimately compromise the project's performance quality The factors that lead to a setback in the performance quality of a project, are time and cost. Unless proper allocation of time is done through necessary scheduling and breaking down of the entire project into smaller units, the project cannot be completed successfully on time. Management of time is directly related to the management of project schedule. Thus it is necessary for a project manager to be aware of the time that is required for each unit of work and to make use of it most effectively and efficiently. If the project is not delivered on time, the company would face other setbacks like delaying of the other projects and may fail to get the projects from the government. The organisation may also incur extra costs due to delays in the project. When the project gets delayed, the pressure due to competition from other vendors gets increased and it leads to increase in the financial burden to the company. The company has to pay the employees for a longer period of time and has to employ additional resources. This leads to interference into the quality of the project. If this happens during the completion stage, it would directly impact the delivery of the entire project. This will have an adverse effect on the future prospects of the company in getting projects. Reference Meredith, J.R. and Mantel, S. J., (2011). Project Management: A Managerial Approach. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More