Final Trophy Project
Matteo De Chiara
Joubert Gelas
Jennifer Jones
Craig Thomas Loveless
Project Management
A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling & Controlling The Trophy Project
Professor Al Hirsch
July 21, 2015
Background-Case Overview
Even though the Project Manager, Reichart was involved in the Trophy project since the beginning, the project became critical since day one. Reichart knew that the functional managers, expenditures and resources allocated were causing delays and a cost overrun to his project.
After 6 months into the project, that was calculated to be 1 year behind schedule with a 20% cost overrun, Reichart decided to explain the causes of the cost and schedule slippage.
Addressing the line managers inadequate staffing and resource usage as the cause of the delay and cost overrun, he hoped to put them on the project foreground and resolve the matter through higher levels of management support. Countermeasures to put the project back on track arrived immediately but they were not what Reichart expected.
He had assigned an assistant to his team and 12 additional staff members but nothing changed about the functional manager that still did not provide adequate resource for the recovery. The situation became unsustainably difficult because the weekly frequency of the meetings he had to attend to explain project progresses to the high level management and to the customer was taking away time he could have spent working on the project recovery plan of facing the problems like the delays caused by externals suppliers and vendors that were also running behind schedule.
When a customer representative was assigned to Reichart’s team to control progress on a daily basis the relationship between both parties deteriorated resulting in a change of the project leadership that was taken away from Reichart in favor of Mr. Baron. Mr. Baron took the project to completion 1 year behind schedule with a 40% cost overrun.
Why the recovery plan didn’t work? How come the
Joubert Gelas
Jennifer Jones
Craig Thomas Loveless
Project Management
A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling & Controlling The Trophy Project
Professor Al Hirsch
July 21, 2015
Background-Case Overview
Even though the Project Manager, Reichart was involved in the Trophy project since the beginning, the project became critical since day one. Reichart knew that the functional managers, expenditures and resources allocated were causing delays and a cost overrun to his project.
After 6 months into the project, that was calculated to be 1 year behind schedule with a 20% cost overrun, Reichart decided to explain the causes of the cost and schedule slippage.
Addressing the line managers inadequate staffing and resource usage as the cause of the delay and cost overrun, he hoped to put them on the project foreground and resolve the matter through higher levels of management support. Countermeasures to put the project back on track arrived immediately but they were not what Reichart expected.
He had assigned an assistant to his team and 12 additional staff members but nothing changed about the functional manager that still did not provide adequate resource for the recovery. The situation became unsustainably difficult because the weekly frequency of the meetings he had to attend to explain project progresses to the high level management and to the customer was taking away time he could have spent working on the project recovery plan of facing the problems like the delays caused by externals suppliers and vendors that were also running behind schedule.
When a customer representative was assigned to Reichart’s team to control progress on a daily basis the relationship between both parties deteriorated resulting in a change of the project leadership that was taken away from Reichart in favor of Mr. Baron. Mr. Baron took the project to completion 1 year behind schedule with a 40% cost overrun.
Why the recovery plan didn’t work? How come the
References: Robert K. Wysocki. (2014). Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, 7th Edition Kerzner, Harold R. (2013). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, And Controlling Using a Matrix Structure to Administer Your Project. Retrieved July 19, 2015, from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-a-matrix-structure-to-administer-your- projec.html I Six Sigma. Voice Of the Customer (VOC), Retrieved July 19, 2015 from http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/voice-of-the-customer-voc/ Qualtrics. Voice of the Customer. Retrieved July 19, 2015 from http://www.qualtrics.com/research-suite/voice-of-the-customer/