Project Management Skills to Brown Educational Gaming Studio Ltd - Case Study Example

This paper will apply project management skills to Brown Educational Gaming studio Ltd. Project Management of The aim of this paper is to choose a managerial position at Brown Educational Gaming Ltd as a case study. We will identify a specific change being necessary within the organization and for which we expect to have some leadership responsibility and w will apply what we have learned in our course that might be taken to address them. In this paper, we will focus on a "Problematic" situation at Brown Educational Gaming Ltd, We (as the desired manager) will build a model of the problem based on the most appropriate method(s) we learned 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 organization. 1.Describing the organization, position and problematic situation “Brown Educational Gaming Company (BEG) is a UK-based educational gaming company specialising in young children’s educational games. The company has operated from the start through projects, starting with the development of two major and highly successful games. Now there are many more; no-one quite know how many projects are taking place at BEG at present if the truth be known. BEG has just completed their fourth year of operation. The company has received a large influx of capital for growth by issuing stock privately through an investment bank. The return on investment for the 2006 and 2007 was 80% per year and for 2007-08 will be 25%. Parents and grandparents of young children have been buying BEG products almost as fast as they are developed. Every member of the 56-person firm is enthusiastic and looking forward to helping the firm grow to be the largest and best educational gaming company in the world. The founder of the firm, Sally Peters, has been awarded the accolade of The Guardian Business Woman of the Year 2007 for her ability to develop an organizational culture in which all stakeholders are committed to innovation, continuous improvement and organizational learning. Last year, the 10 top managers of BEG worked with a team of external consultants to develop the organization’s strategic plan. This year the same 10 managers had a weekend away in a 4 star hotel in Barcelona, to formulate next year’s strategic plan, using the same strategic plan. Most executives seem to have a consensus of where the firm should go in the intermediate and long-term, but there is little consensus on how this should be accomplished. Peters, now Managing Director of BEG feels she may be losing control. The frequency of conflicts seems to be increasing. Some individuals are always requested for any new project created. When resource conflicts occur among projects, each project managers believes his or her project is most important. More projects are not meeting deadlines and are coming in over budget. Yesterday’s management meeting revealed some top BEG talent have been working on an international business game for college students. This project does not fit the organization’s vision or market niche. At times it seems everyone is doing what they like. Somehow more focus is needed to ensure everyone agrees on how strategy should be implemented, given the resources available to the organization. Yesterday’s meeting alarmed Peters. These emerging problems are coming at a bad time. Next week BEG is increasing the size of the organization, the number of new products and its marketing effort. Fifteen new people will join BEG next month. Peters is concerned that policies be in place that will ensure that the new people are used most productively. An additional potential problem looms on the horizon. Other gaming companies have noticed the success of BEG; recently one rival company tried to hire a key product development employee away from BEG. Peters wants BEG to be ready to meet any potential competition head on and to discourage any new entries into their market. Peters knows BEG should continue to be a projects-driven company. However she is not confident how the company should be managed, especially with such a fast growth, but with potential competition looming. The magnitude of emerging problems demand quick attention and resolution.”1 2. Theoretical / Conceptual Framework "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 en-globed 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, forecasting, Strategic Choice Approach and project management and at the end we will select the most appropriate methods(s) to help resolve the issue at Brown Educational Gaming Ltd. 2.2 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."3 2.3 Is project management a suitable method ? 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 previous 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 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 met. 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 projects to be delivered to the customer with delay regarding the mentioned lifecycle. For example, we will analyze the "Organizational chart" of the company/studio and we will analyze the GANTT chart for a game project 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."4 3.2. The model of the problem Here we will point to the role of project manager in the organization chart at first. We will then analyze 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 organizations or companies. In our game 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 analyze the workflow of the organization to identify the weaknesses in project management, we will analyze the GANTT chart of a game project. The above GANT chart has been designed by one of the two remained managers at the company. This manager has only asked the employees 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 left the project supervision since June 5th 2006. There is still one more problem, the developer too, has had a very limited experience in XML, the most important part of the project. However the developer has had the chance to improve 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 control 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 Brown Educational Gaming Ltd now, the companys 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 its services by attracting new managers and employees. References Project Management Lifecycle, NYS Project Management Guidebook Release 2 Available to download from http://www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/guidebook2/index.htm 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, Project Management ,27.06.2007 available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management Read More