IOM580 Project Management

Fall 2008
Hiroshi Ochiumi

Guidelines for Case Writeups

Please form teams of three or less students. Each group is required to turn in three complete case analyses the instructor will assign one case and the team will pick the other two. The team is also required to present their analysis for the assigned case. The written report should be no more than 5 pages (excluding appendices). Your write-up should recommend a solution. The recommendation should be supported by clear, well thought-out analysis. Discussions within a team, among teams, and with the instructor, are encouraged. The report should contain the following: Brief discussion of the company and its environment Brief description of the problems Analysis that links the problems to its causes Recommendations short term and long term Implementation plan and the risks

Short-term solutions should be easily implementable in the sense that they require less effort, time and resources. Please ensure that the report is well organized with clear section and sub-section headers. The questions on each case are given below to help you focus on the relevant issues. You may, in addition, want to consider other issues that you consider important in your analysis. Therefore, do not organize your report in the form of a response to each of the discussion questions.

Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology (Due on September 29) Questions 1. How successful do you expect the Access+ project to be? 2. What are the projects areas of exposure? 3. What advice would you give Steve Walsh on November 1, 1995? The Boeing 767: From Concept to Production (Due on October 6) Questions 1. How would you describe Boeings approach to project management? What are its basic elements? Its strengths and weaknesses? 2. What is your evaluation of the companys parametric estimating technique? 3. How does Boeing manage risk? Please consider all of the following: financial risk, market risk, technological risk, and production risk. 4. Which method should Boeing use to convert the first 30 767s from three-person to two-person cockpits? Why?

BAE Automated Systems: Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System (Due on October 20) Questions 1. Evaluate the implementation of the Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System. What do you believe were the top 3 factors that contributed to the projects failure? Who do you feel is most at fault? 2. What problems occurred during the time frame when Federico Pena was mayor? Given the constraints he faced when he succeeded Pena in November 1989, what should Mayor Wellington Webb have done differently? 3. As Gene DiFonso, what would you have done differently to avoid the problems faced at the end of the case? 4. How should DiFonso respond to Mayor Webbs dicision to impose a $12,000 per day penalty and the requirement that BAE assume the $50 million cost of building a conventional tugand-cart baggage system? Tektronix, Inc.: Global ERP Implementation (Due on October 27) Questions 1. What problems did Tektronix have with its IT infrastructure before they implemented an ERP system? 2. Why did Tektronix implement ERP in stages? How should a company decide between implementing in stages or going big-bang? 3. How did Tektronix manage the risks of ERP implementation? 4. What is your overall assessment of the Tektronix ERP project? Harley Davidson Motor Company: Enterprise Software Selection (Due on October 27) Questions 1. Consider Exhibit 10 on page 22 of the case. Does it include the factors you consider most important in the selection process? Which factors would you be inclined to weight most heavily? 2. Based on the information in the case, which provider would you select and why? How would you summarize for senior executives the reasons for your choice? 3. What is your overall assessment of Harleys approach to enterprise software selection? What, if anything, would you have done differently? Microsoft Office 2000 (Due on November 10) Questions 1. What is your assessment of the Office 2000 project? What criteria would you use to judge whether this project is a success? 2. Critique the process through which Office 2000 was developed. How did the team resolve uncertainty in the early stages of development? What role did Milestones and Daily Builds play in development? 3. How has Microsofts approach to development changed over the last ten years? What factors have driven these changes? 4. What should Sinofsky do? Be specific in your recommendations.

Activision: The Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer Project (Due on November 17) Questions 1. What are the competitive dynamics of the video game industry in 2002? What does Activision need to do well to compete effectively in this industry? 2. Evaluate Activisions Green Light process for game development. What are its strengths and weaknesses? How would you improve this process? 3. When should Activision launch the Kelly Slaters Pro Surfer game? Why? Turner Construction Company: Project Management Control Systems (Due on November 24) Questions 1. What is Turners business strategy? How does its strategy differ from competitors? 2. What contingencies could threaten or invalidate the viability of Turners strategy? 3. Evaluate the IOR system and related reports and meetings. Does the IOR system force managers and the project team to address the contingencies you identified in question 2? If you were Gary Thompson, what would you say about the $500,000 contingency to: a. Senior management, i.e., Les Shute and Don Kerstetter)? b. The owner of Kent Square? c. Your project tem, i.e., Jim Verzella and Bill Rantanen?