Danesh web design studio problematic situation - Case Study Example

A case study about solving a problematic situation in a company... Management Science of Abstract In this paper, we will describe a "Problematic" situation in a Web Design Studio, we will review some of the most appropriate management science methods for analysing the situation and recommend the most suitable method(s) that helps resolving the problem.We will build a model of the problem based on the selected method(s) and will discuss the limitation of the model we have developed. Also, we will discuss the process of exploring the model, arriving at recommended actions and implementing these actions within the culture of the organisation. 1.Describing the problematic situation Before we start describing the problematic situation, we have better have an overview of "Danesh Web Design Studio"1 web services and introduce the structure of the organisation in brief. We will then identify the problematic situation in the company. 1.1 Introducing "Danesh Web Design Studio" Danesh Web Design Studio offers a complete package of affordable website design and development . From the initial process of taking inputs from clients, planning on the basis of such inputs to final implementation and testing - all are done using latest web site designing technique and skills.They allow their customers to provide all kind of inputs. They develop the website, giving top priority to the intended audience/market and overall user experience. They constantly keep the customers informed and take their feedback during the job process. Some of the services they provide for their customers are "Website Management and Mauntenance", "E-Commerce Solutions","Search Engine Optimisation","Design and Implemtation of Web Based Applications" and "Website re-Design". 1.2 Identifying the "Problematic Situation" Danesh Web Design Studio in structure, consists of five software engineer, two project manager,ten graphic designer and 15 web programmer and web designer. They have to work full time in order to accomplis more that fifteen web design orders each worth of $3000 to $15000 in a month depending on the project complexity and partitial/complete future maintenance support. The company had three manager, just three weeks before the problem starts. One of the project manager lefted the company to join a software production team in canada. The problem was the failure in project delivery to customers in the appointee time. Each project was delivered to the customers with seven to twenty days delay. This caused the studio to cancel some of the newly received projects in order to accomplish the old orders in shortest possible time and this caused the company to loose 7 orders worth of $47500 in June 2006. Nothing in the studio's total structure was changed exept for the project management because the company had lost %33 of it's management power. This seemed to be the cause of the failure in delivering the orders in time but other factors like the productivity of the personnel and their expertise in the field they were working could be questioned too. Not all the orders have been the same, for example, an employee might have been assigned to an order which has not been in the scope of his knowlege no matter if he/she has taken the order because of a good income or it has been the manager's decision. In next section, we will have an overview to some of the most appropriate management science methods that seems they may help us resolve the issue in the shortest possible time. We will then select the most appropriate method to resolve the issue with. 2. Reviewing some of the most appropriate management science methods for analysing the situation "Management science, or MS, is the discipline of using mathematics, and other analytical methods, to help make better business decisions. While often considered synonymous with Operations research (OR), MS is differentiated by being generally thought to have a more practical, rather than academic, bent. Some of the fields that are englobed within Management Science include: decision analysis, optimization, simulation, forecasting, game theory, network/transportation forecasting models, mathematical modeling, data mining, probability and statistics, Morphological analysis, resources allocation, project management as well as many others."2 In this paper we will use decision analysis, simulation, foecasting, Strategic Choice Approach and project management and at the end we will select the most appropriate methos(s) to help resolve the issue at Danesh Web Design Studio. 2.1 Decision Analysis "Decision Analysis (DA) is the discipline comprising the philosophy, theory, methodology, and professional practice necessary to address important decisions in a formal manner. Decision analysis includes many procedures, methods, and tools for identifying, clearly representing, and formally assessing the important aspects of a decision situation, for prescribing the recommended course of action by applying the maximum expected utility action axiom to a well-formed representation of the decision, and for translating the formal representation of a decision and its corresponding recommendation into insight for the decision maker and other stakeholders."3 " Graphical representation of decision analysis problems commonly use influence diagrams and decision trees. Both of these tools represent the alternatives available to the decision maker, the uncertainty they face, and evaluation measures representing how well they achieve their objectives in the final outcome. Uncertainties are represented through probabilities and probability distributions. The decision maker's attitude to risk is represented by utility functions and their attitude to trade-offs between conflicting objectives can be made using multi-attribute value functions or multi-attribute utility functions (if there is risk involved).Decision analytic methods are used in a wide variety of fields, including business (planning, marketing, and negotiation), environmental remediation, health care research and management, energy exploration, litigation and dispute resolution, etc."4 Since the problem appeared in our company has not been done by a wrong decision before or it is not about a decision making that may resolve the problem "completely", Decision Analysis can not help us resolve the problem of "late project delivery" very much. This way only may help the owner of company decide to keep the remained managers at the company or kick out some of the emplooees out and receive $47500 less in a month. This is a decison but not that nuch complicated that we want to use such method to "Analyse" it. Every beginner manager knows that if the owner adds a new manager and pays him $5000 a month, he can prevent a $47500 loss each month! As a result, Decision analysis is used when we have a pattern of decision/Information/decision/Information. A decision is made upon the present situation/problem based on multiple ways that seems can help the issue. Then the consequences are analysed and possible future decisions are analysed too. In fact, this method is better to be used in more complex, multi level and multi choice situations that the right decision is not clear at first. So, I will check and see whether other methods may give me more help regarding my issue or not. 2.2 Simulation " A simulation is an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviors of a selected physical or abstract system. "5 " Simulation is used in many contexts, including the modeling of natural systems or human systems in order to gain insight into their functioning. Other contexts include simulation of technology for performance optimization, safety engineering, testing, training and education. Simulation can be used to show the eventual real effects of alternative conditions and courses of action.Key issues in simulation include acquisition of valid source information about the referent, selection of key characteristics and behaviours, the use of simplifying approximations and assumptions within the simulation, and fidelity and validity of the simulation outcomes."6 Simulation can not solve the problem we have described in our case study too, at least the main part of it. There is no need to simulate and see whether an extra manager can resolve the problems or not. The result is obvious and clear that it helps resolving this issue because millions of times adding a new manager to such a system has organised the problematic situations. A simulation is used for situations that it costs a lot to experience something for a few first time in real word like simulation of robots bhavior whit personalities like humans or analysing how much destructive a new generation of atomic bomb would be. 2.3 Forcasting " Forecasting is the process of estimation in unknown situations. Prediction is a similar, but more general term, and usually refers to estimation of time series, cross-sectional or longitudinal data. In more recent years, Forecasting has evolved into the practice of Demand Planning in every day business forecasting for manufacturing companies. The discipline of demand planning, also sometimes referred to as supply chain forecasting, embraces both statistical forecasting and consensus process... "7 As stated avove, forcasting is suitable in "unknown situations" and since or problem is not "unknown" this is not the right way to solve our problem. 2.4 Strategic Choice Approach "Strategic choice is an important logical element of the strategy formulation process. Choice is at the centre of strategy formulation. If there are no choices to be made, there can be little value in thinking about strategy at all. On the other hand, there will always, in practice, be limits on the range of possible choices. In general, small enterprises tend to be limited by their resources, whereas large enterprises find it difficult to change quickly and so tend to be constrained by their past. In large corporations, managers may find their range of choice limited because some choices are made at a higher level or in another country. In the public sector, the genuine strategic choices may be made by politicians so that the role of the manager is limited to devising how best to implement strategies rather than to ponder fundamental choices of future direction for themselves. Even when managers are apparently free to make strategic choices, results may eventually depend as much on chance and opportunity as on the deliberate choices of those managers. When considering future strategies, it may seem that there are clear choices to be made. When reflecting on outcomes in retrospect, it is often clear that events, and particularly unexpected events, played a major role in determining results. When considering choice, it is necessary to take a prescriptive view. Descriptive ways of thinking may help to explain the outcomes after the event. In a tidy logical world, any process of choice could be rationally divided into four steps-identify options, evaluate the options against preference criteria, select the best option, and then take action. This suggests that identifying and choosing options can be done purely analytically. In practice, it may be difficult to identify all possible options with equal clarity or at the same time. Unexpected events can create new opportunities, destroy foreseen opportunities, or alter the balance of advantage between opportunities. Identifying and evaluating options is a useful approach but it has limitations. It is necessary to remember that the future may evolve differently from any of the options. Good strategic choices have to be challenging enough to keep ahead of competitors but also have to be achievable. Analysis has an important role in making strategic choice but judgement and skill are also critical. For instance, sometimes it may be better to delay making a decision whereas at other times a wrong decision may be better than no decision. Strategic choices that keep options open may be preferable in an uncertain future to defined strategies that depend for their success on uncertain events happening. Such judgements require wisdom as much as analytical skill."8 Strategic Choice Decision is a very good way to help analysing the situations in great and complex organisations that making more than once a decision is costly for them. Situations where they have to make a right decision as a first choice and there are not much more opprtunities to change or modify the previous decisions because of huge costs for them. However in our web design studio, the structure of organisation is not complex, not much external entities can effect the company that they are not predictable, the right decision is still completely obvious, adding a new manager. The other side of the problem is about wrong projec management that needs good project managements methods to resolve the issue of delays in project delivery. 2.5 Project Management " Project Management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources (i.e. people) in such a way that the project is completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints. A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service, which brings about beneficial change or added value. This property of being a temporary and a one-time undertaking contrasts with processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent ongoing functional work to create the same product or service over and over again. The management of these two systems is often very different and requires varying technical skills and philosophy, hence requiring the development of project management. The first challenge of project management is to ensure that a project is delivered within defined constraints. The second, more ambitious challenge is the optimized allocation and integration of inputs needed to meet pre-defined objectives. A project is a carefully defined set of activities that use resources (money, people, materials, energy, space, provisions, communication, quality, risk, etc.) to meet the pre-defined objectives."9 2.6 The most suitable method(s) Due to the definition of five different management sciences above, It is completely obvious that the problem can be solved more suitably via "Project Management" method because our resources which are managers and employees must be so arranged so that any project is completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints. We have the lack of management for one out of each three project or maybe the management for each project is not good enough (67% control of each project respected to the prevous situation of the company in last three weeks). The other problem is placing the right designer/programmer at the right place regarding their expertise and profession in design and development of web applications. This way projects would be done faster since for example person A who has a "profession"/"degree"/"previous work experience" in Job A will do the job faster that anyone else. One more issue would be the relation of time, number of taken projects and the service force (the employees). Project Management will take care of it and will help us know how to fill the gaps in the best way.... 3. Building a Project Management model of the problem Every project in order to be done in time and with the best quality, needs to follow the "Project Management Lifecycle" completely no matter if it is a small project or a big one. There are rules that must be meeted. In this section we will have an over view of this lifecycle, and then we will try to find the problems that has caused some previous rojects to be delivered to the customer with delay regarding the mentined lifecycle. For example, we will analyse the "Organistional chart" of the company/studio and we will analyse the GANTT chart for a project named "news digest web site" that should have been accomplished in one month but the group spent 3 more weeks on the problem. 3.1 Describing Project Management Lifecycle "There are two different lifecycles that work in conjunction with one another throughout the course of every project. The project lifecycle describes the tasks that must be completed to produce a product or service. Different project lifecycles exist for specific products and services. (For example, the lifecycle followed to build a house is very different from the lifecycle followed to develop a software package.) The project management lifecycle defines how to manage a project. It will always be the same, regardless of the project lifecycle being employed. One of a Project Manager's challenges is to understand how to align the specific project lifecycle with the project management lifecycle. Project tasks and project management tasks are concurrent and ongoing, and can be associated by project management deliverables. The Project Schedule, for example, contains both project and project management tasks. Phases in the two lifecycles will overlap, depending upon the project lifecycle being employed. The Project Manager needs to be aware of how the inputs and outputs of one lifecycle affect and shape the other. The material in this section is organized according to the project management lifecycle. While no two projects are exactly alike, all projects should progress through the same five project management phases: 3.1.1. In Project Origination an individual proposes a project to create a product or develop a service that can solve a problem or address a need in the Performing Organization. The Performing Organization then submits the proposal to an evaluation and selection process. If selected, a budget or further management commitment for the project may also be required before a Project Manager is actually assigned and the project is authorized to progress to Project Initiation. Depending upon the standards and practices of the Performing Organization, a time delay between the project's proposal and selection and its actual initiation may occur. 3.1.2. At the beginning of Project Initiation, a Project Manager is assigned. The Project Manager works with the Project Sponsor to identify the necessary resources and team members needed to further develop the key project parameters - Cost, Scope, Schedule, and Quality (CSSQ). The Project Team documents its charge in the form of a Project Charter, which is based on the Project Proposal, which includes the initial Business Case. Approval of the Project Charter by the Project Sponsor authorizes the designated team to begin the initial planning effort. The initial Project Plan resulting from Project Initiation differs in the level of detail and the validity of its estimates from Project Origination, and must be at a level sufficient to acquire any additional resources needed to progress to the next phase. The Project Plan also includes plans for involving and communicating with all the parties that are affected by the project, as well as identification of an initial set of foreseeable risks that can threaten the project. At the conclusion of Project Initiation, based on the initial planning documents, the Business Case is revised and re-evaluated and a decision is made to either halt the project, or proceed to Project Planning. 3.1.3. Project Planning builds on the work done in Project Initiation, refining and augmenting CSSQ and Project Plan deliverables. Usually, additional members join the Project Team, and they assist the Project Manager in further elaborating the details of the Cost, Scope, Schedule and Quality. A number of key elements are added to the Project Plan, including project-specific items such as change control, acceptance management and issue management, as well as externally-focused items such as organizational change management and project transition. The initial list of project risks is augmented, and detailed mitigation plans are developed. Project Planning marks the completion of the Project Plan -i.e., no work is left uncovered. However, some of the later phases of the project work may continue to be planned in more depth (e.g., Transition and Implementation details may not be developed until later in Project Execution). At the conclusion of Project Planning, the Business Case is revised and re-evaluated based on the completed planning documents and a decision is again made to either halt the project, or to commit the resources necessary for Project Execution and Control. 3.1.4. Project Execution and Control is where most of the resources are applied/expended on the project. A significant number of team members will join the project at the beginning of this phase. The primary task of the Project Manager during Project Execution and Control is to enable the Project Team to execute the tasks on the defined Project Schedule and develop the product or service the project is expected to deliver. The Project Manager uses the processes and plans prepared during Project Initiation and Project Planning to manage the project, while preparing the organization for the implementation of the product/service and for transitioning the product/service responsibility from the Project Team to the Performing Organization. 3.1.5. In Project Closeout, the Project Team assesses the outcome of the project, as well as the performance of the Project Team and the Performing Organization. This is accomplished primarily through soliciting and evaluating feedback from Customers, Project Team members, Consumers and other stakeholders. The primary purpose of this assessment is to document best practices and lessons learned for use on future projects. Key project metrics are also captured to enable the Performing Organization to compare and evaluate performance measurements across projects."10 3.2. The model of the problem Here we will poit to the role of project manager in the organisation chart at first. We will then analyse the process of project completion as the project manager does it mostly in "Project Planning" and "Project Execution" phases stated above in 3.1.3 and 3.1.4 via GANTT charts. The above chart shows the important role of Management in the studio/company. Here as you can see, the process of completion of projects is done through "Analysis","Design" and "Development" the same as many other organisations or companies. In our web design studio, one third of management power is lost and this caused the lack of good cooperation between the staffs and this causes huge problems if the company still gets the same amount of projects and /or does not wish to kick some of the unused staffs out. In order to analyse the workflow of the organisation to identify the weaknesses in project management, we will analyse the GANTT chart of a project named "News digest web site" which developers needed to implement the project in ASP.NET 2.0, MS SQL Server and C#. The developers also needed to have an extensive knowledge in XML to develope the web site. The above GANT chart has been designed by one of the two remained managers at the company. This manager has only asked the emploees to follow this schedule to accomplish the project after some primary analysis. However after 30 days the chart looked like this: In this chart, the problem is related to design and development processes. The design process has been extended for 9 days and this shows that the designer has had serious problems with the order. In fact the designer has not been professional enough to handle this project. On the other hand, the development process has been extended for 5 more days which shows that the analysis and design processes has not been good enough or maybe the developers too have not had enough expertise on the subject they have been working. 4. Discussing the limitation of the models provided The result of a review on the profession of the people involved in the order shows that this order has been supposed to be under the control of the third manager who has left the company, so one of the two remained managers had been trying to control this project in addition to his own responsibilities and because he has been too busy, he has lefted the project supervision since June 5th 2006. But, this is not the only problem, this manager also had been assigned the designer who has been professional in other subjects than "news digest web site design", infact this work has been the first experience for him in this subject. There is still one more problem, the developer too, has had a very limited experience in XML, the most important part of thr project. However the developer has had the chance to imporove his XML knowledge but this has caused the project to be delivered with 12 days delay. 5. Exploring the model, recommendations and improvements After identifying the reasons that caused the delays for our case study, the owner of the company decided to fill the gap of management on the company by adding a new manager. This caused the projects to be under the contol of the managers completely. Adding a new manager was a better decision than asking some of the employees to leave the company and having $47500 less income in a month. The studio owner also asked the managers to assign the right persons to the projects and prevent getting orders that are out of the profession scope of the studio. It is one year after making this decision in Danesh Web Design Studio now, the company's financial situation and structure is back to the normal situation again, projects are delivered to the customers in time and now the owner of the studio is in the process of developing the company and it's services by attracting new managers and employees. References Danesh Web Design Studios, about the company available at http://saeed.danesh.googlepages.com/gaf.html WikiPedia, Management Science,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_science WikiPedia, Decision Analysis ,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_analysis WikiPedia, Simulation ,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation WikiPedia, Morphological Analysis ,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_analysis WikiPedia, Project Management ,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management Project Management Lifecycle, NYS Project Management Guidebook Release 2 Available to download from http://www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/guidebook2/index.htm Read More