Project Managemant
12Initiating
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Understand the importance of initiating projects that add value to an organization 2. Discuss the background of ResNet at Northwest Airlines
3. Distinguish among the three major projects involved in ResNet
4. Appreciate the importance of top management support on ResNet
5. Discuss key decisions made early in the project by the project manager
6. Relate some of the early events in ResNet to concepts described in previous chapters
7. Discuss some of the major events early in the project that helped set the stage for project success ay Beauchine became Vice President of Reservations at Northwest
Airlines (NWA) in 1992. One area that had continually lost money for the company was the reservations call center. Fay developed a new vision and philosophy for the reservations call center that was instrumental in turning this area around. She persuaded people to understand that they needed to focus on sales and not just service.
Instead of monitoring the number of calls and length of calls, it was much more important to focus on the number of sales made through the call centers. If potential customers were calling NWA directly, booking the sale at that time was in the best interest of both the customer and the airline. Additionally, a direct sale with the customer saved NWA
13 percent on the commission fees paid to travel agents and another
18 percent for related overhead costs.
Objectives
F
Fay knew that developing a new information system was critical to implementing a vision that focused on sales rather than service, and she wanted to sponsor this new information system. Although the Information Services (IS) Department had worked to improve the technology for call centers, past projects never went anywhere.
The new reservation system project, ResNet, would be managed by business area leaders and not Information Services managers—a first in NWA’s history and a major culture
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Understand the importance of initiating projects that add value to an organization 2. Discuss the background of ResNet at Northwest Airlines
3. Distinguish among the three major projects involved in ResNet
4. Appreciate the importance of top management support on ResNet
5. Discuss key decisions made early in the project by the project manager
6. Relate some of the early events in ResNet to concepts described in previous chapters
7. Discuss some of the major events early in the project that helped set the stage for project success ay Beauchine became Vice President of Reservations at Northwest
Airlines (NWA) in 1992. One area that had continually lost money for the company was the reservations call center. Fay developed a new vision and philosophy for the reservations call center that was instrumental in turning this area around. She persuaded people to understand that they needed to focus on sales and not just service.
Instead of monitoring the number of calls and length of calls, it was much more important to focus on the number of sales made through the call centers. If potential customers were calling NWA directly, booking the sale at that time was in the best interest of both the customer and the airline. Additionally, a direct sale with the customer saved NWA
13 percent on the commission fees paid to travel agents and another
18 percent for related overhead costs.
Objectives
F
Fay knew that developing a new information system was critical to implementing a vision that focused on sales rather than service, and she wanted to sponsor this new information system. Although the Information Services (IS) Department had worked to improve the technology for call centers, past projects never went anywhere.
The new reservation system project, ResNet, would be managed by business area leaders and not Information Services managers—a first in NWA’s history and a major culture
Links: are provided to related stories from www.computerworld.com. 6. Whitten, Neal. “Are You Learning From Project to Project?” PM Network (March 1999): 16. This short article stresses the fact that many projects do not have a mandatory post-project review, and even fewer require project managers on new projects to review other lessons learned. 446 _ C H A P T E R 1 6