Arbor Industries and ACME Fabricators - Case Study Example

The Case of/on Risks Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Discussion 5 How would you set about conducting such a review? 5 How would you structure your report, i.e. on what basis? 5 Would you need to seek expert advice and, if so, in what areas? 6 Would the assignment of an ACME project manager have made a difference? 6 If so, in what way, and what specific skills would that manager have required? 6 Conclusion 7 Recommendations 8 What advice would you give to ACME? 8 In a similar way, what advice would you give to Arbor? 8 References 10 Executive Summary Project management can be defined as a process by which an organization plans, organizes, manages and controls its resources for the purpose of achieving specific goals (Melvin and Wilshusen, 2007, p.22). Most of the organization uses project management for implementing any activity. However it has larger scope, it may also include budget, timeframe, and identification of logical framework (PM4DEV, 2008, p.13). Project management also helps avoid problems associated with the project (Reiss, 2007, p.2). Hence in order to accomplish a project successfully role of a project manager is significant (Gido and Clements, 2008, p.303). In general a project is faced with three constraints result, budget and time (Thomsett, 2009, p.7). Therefore to overcome these limitations the control process must have to strong. The study will highlight the case of the unidentified risk where it will emphasize on the project management issues. Furthermore the report will also shed light on the issues raised in the case pertaining to the management of project. Finally the report will conclude and offer few recommendations regarding how the issues can be sorted out. Introduction The case entails about two companies namely ACME fabricators and Arbor industries. ACME fabricator is in the process of setting their new factory and office at a semi rural place. The company is socially responsible and would like their premises to be cleaner and greener. Hence in order to carry out landscaping activities the company invited tender. Arbor industries, a company involved in the activities of landscaping was selected for the project. In order to ensure representations from both the sides Arbor has appointed a project manager to administer the whole process while the finance manager of ACME was given the role of overseeing the project. The project was running smoothly until the newly leveled lawns got damaged due to heavy vehicles. Due to this phenomenon the first meeting between the two parties took place to decide the issue pertaining to damaging of the lawn. However to sort out the issue there were verbal agreements between the two representatives. As things started to roll on smoothly, the finance manager suddenly left the company. The new representative who came from the side of ACME was unaware about the verbal contracts and several other internal matters. This has led to huge confusions between the two companies and created dissatisfaction. Nevertheless the project ended before the deadline but with an exceeding budget. After the completion of the project the senior executives found that the results were unsatisfactory, and did not resembles the proposed sketch. The next half of the report will discuss about the issues raised in the case. Discussion A post project review is necessary for the evaluation of a project performance (Hedeman, Haren & Heemst, 2006, p.103). In this context it will mainly sort out differences between the two parties. A post project review is defined as the ultimate formal evaluation of the project that examines any new lessons which might benefit the future projects (Zedtwitz, 2002, p.256). How would you set about conducting such a review? The assessment is about examining what went wrong with the project and what can be done to enhance the quality of future projects. In order to conduct the post project review a meeting will be called where there will be presence of the following members:- Present Finance Manager of ACME Project manager of Arbor industries Senior executives of ACME Senior executives of Arbor industries Other Stakeholders of the project Vendor How would you structure your report, i.e. on what basis? The report will be structured on the basis of the proposed sketch and the outcome. However other issues with the companies will be also considered while structuring the report. The review of the project will be divided into three phases initiation, analysis and reporting. In these parts various activities related to the case will be assessed. The post project report will mainly focus on the areas that have been the causes for the failure of project. Furthermore areas pertaining to risk management will be also analyzed. Therefore the steps to be followed for formulating the report will be analysis of the happenings, collection of raw data, analysis and finally offering recommendations to both the parties. Would you need to seek expert advice and, if so, in what areas? In this context of the study few advices from the superiors will be taken. The advice will be mainly taken from the experts who have already handled such situations. It will be about the legal and ethical matters. Would the assignment of an ACME project manager have made a difference? In my opinion the assignment of a project manager from the side of ACME would have made a huge difference. The major fault was the appointment of the finance manager as the project coordinator. If ACME would have appointed a specialized project manager the coordination between the two companies would have highly increased. Furthermore with knowledge, skills and prior experience of handling large projects, a project manager would have ensured the proposed outcome. However the sudden leave of the acting project manager did impact the project adversely. Also a project manager with his/her leadership skills could have assisted the actual project manager to accomplish according to the proposed sketch. Hence appoint of an experienced project manager would have highly enhanced the quality of the project. If so, in what way, and what specific skills would that manager have required? The project manager from ACME would have really helped the actual project manager to complete the project on time. However the project manager needs to have some of the specialized skills in order to perform his/her duties effectively. Therefore the set of skills that that are required for the manager are as follows:- Project management is an important and specialized task which requires a set of specific knowledge and expertise (Ireland, 2006). Project management is the area which includes initiating, planning, systematizing, organizing, guiding and monitoring of the associated resources (PMI, 2012). All the mentioned qualities must be present in a project manager. The biggest skill that is required for the project manager is the leadership qualities (Levin, 2010, p.25). In this context along with leadership quality, coordination skills were also important. As it needs coordination between both the companies. Conclusion The report was about how a project failed due poor management. The case highlighted that Arbor industries was the company chosen for carrying out the landscaping work at the new office of ACME Fabricators. The project ran smoothly for few days, but suddenly few issues came forward and disrupted the flow of project. Although the project completed on the stipulated time frame, but left a number of issues pertaining to management of project. The report mainly depicted how poor management can be the cause of failure. On studying the case and analyzing the findings it can be concluded that fault was from the both the sides. The beigest fault was the unavailability of an experienced project manager from ACME. Also there were faults from Arbor in the form of improper risk management. This is the reason why Arbor delivered landscaping on a financial loss. Therefore management of the entire project should have been carried out from both the sides. Recommendations What advice would you give to ACME? I will give the following advice to ACME in order to avoid any further situations like it. Also to fix the present project I will offer my suggestions. The suggestions for ACME fabricators are highlighted below:- For the future projects the company should ensure that they appoints an experienced project manager in order to ensure the completion of the project on time as well as it meets the initial propositions. Now in order to fix the present issue the company should allow some time to the Arbor industries so that they can cover up the areas where they have compromised the work. Also ACME must increase the budget as initially due to their fault Arbor had to face losses. Also for the current project ACME must appoint a project manager for administering the overall progress and ensuring it meets the requirements on time. Apart from this ACME must meet with the officials and project managers of Arbor industries to know about the progress of the project. Furthermore they should also discuss about the future scope of the project. In a similar way, what advice would you give to Arbor? Some of the suggestions that I would like to offer Arbor industries are presented below:- The company should ensure that they fulfill what they had proposed. Also in order to avoid any financial losses, they should develop a sound timeline and a budget for themselves. This will help the company to meet both deadline as well as cost. The company should not rely on any verbal contract, and should prepare a written document, so that they avoid any further issues like it. The company must also request ACME to allow them fix the issues and should also communicate about the verbal contract with the senior executives of ACME. They should clearly state the reasons for which small trees have been planted and how the previous project manager permitted them to do so. References Gido, J., and Clements, J. P., 2008. Successful Project Management. 4th ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Hedeman, B., Haren, V., and Heemst, G. V. V., 2006. Programme Management: Based on MSP; An Introduction. Zaltbommel: Van Haren Publishing. Ireland, L., 2006. Executive Management’s Role in Project Management. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 14 September 2012]. Levin, G., 2010. Interpersonal Skills for Portfolio, Program, and Project Managers. Vienna: Management Concepts. Melvin, V. C., and Wilshusen, G. C., 2007. Veterans Affairs: Sustained Management Commitment and Oversight are Essential to Completing Information Technology Realignment and Strengthening Information Security. Pennsylvania: DIANE Publishing. PM4DEV, 2008. Fundamentals of Project Management. North Carolina: Lulu.com. PMI, 2012. What is Project Management. [Online] Available at: < http://www.pmi.org/About-Us/About-Us-What-is-Project-Management.aspx> [Accessed 07 September 2012]. Reiss, G., 2007. Project Management Demystified. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Thomsett, M. C., 2009. The Little Black Book of Project Management. 3rd ed. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Zedtwitz, M. V., 2002. Organizational Learning through Post-Project Reviews in R & D. [pdf] Available at: < http://www.uncg.edu/bae/people/amoako/ISM654/reading_%2324.pdf> [Accessed 07 September 2012]. Read More