Project Management for Mere Mortals: The Rhythm of Project Execution

Aug 3, 2007

📄 Contents

␡

⎙ Print

< Back Page 9 of 10 Next >

This chapter is from the book 

Project Management for Mere Mortals

Learn More Buy

Case Study

Chris rushed around the rest of the week trying to finalize the schedule and budget for her meeting with June on Friday afternoon. She was able to meet with the Human Resources manager on Wednesday morning. The manager couldn't just turn over figures to Chris, as Chris had hoped. He needed a day to create either the loaded or the average salary rates. He also wanted to talk to June and see what her expectations were on how realistic the rates needed to be. He promised to get the rates to Chris no later than the close of business on Thursday.

Scheduling the meetings with the executives didn't go as well as Chris had hoped. She was able to set up only individual meetings instead of one joint meeting. That meant that she would have four meetings of at least 30 minutes to get through between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. She wanted to leave Friday morning free to get ready for her meeting with June. She knew that would probably work out; she just didn't have much time to do four meetings instead of one.

On Wednesday morning, Chris walked through the preliminary schedule with the core team and the new team resources. She was amazed at how the dynamics had changed with the introduction of a few new team members. Her core team was kind of quiet, for a change. She was getting used to their storming and performing behaviors. It looked to her that they had stepped back to the forming stage of team development. She made a note to herself to schedule a team-building session next week with all of them; they needed a chance to get to know each other better. And she knew she needed to get them through forming, storming, and norming as fast as possible.

Chris held two of the meetings with the executives on Wednesday. She had a chance to meet with Greg Peterson regarding Bill Ricardo's work on the project. They agreed that Bill's sales quotas would be decreased appropriately when he was tied up with the project. Chris also told Greg that she would provide a review of Bill's work at the end of the project. The project would take up six months of Bill's life, and Chris wanted to make sure that Greg was correctly apprised about the work Bill did. She also knew that if she had appraisal authority, she would have more authority with Bill. She knew Greg wouldn't have a problem with receiving an appraisal from her; she had heard through the grapevine that he seldom did appraisals on his subordinates anyway.

Her next meeting was with Ken Hale, her boss and Carl's boss. Ken was pretty much in tune with project management activities and expected to free up Carl so that his entire workload consisted of the two projects he was working on: VNLE and the VN Web project. He also expected a full appraisal of Carl's work on the project and asked Chris to sit with him when he was doing Carl's final year-end appraisal. He wanted to make sure that Chris's appraisal had equal weight when the final appraisal was completed. Chris was pretty pleased with the outcome of the meeting. Working for Ken was turning out better than she hoped. He also understood project management and accountability and authority really well.

The only setback that Chris had on Wednesday was the fact that Karla, Robin's supervisor, cancelled her meeting and rescheduled it for Thursday. Chris was more concerned about Robin's schedule than that of anyone else. Most of Robin's work was on the critical path of the project, and Chris wanted to make sure that she would be able to get it all done and not be hampered by her regular business activities. Well, she'd have to talk to Karla tomorrow.

On Thursday morning, Chris got an e-mail from the HR manager with the rates shown in Table 11.1. She was really pleased to get the rates earlier than she had been told, but she couldn't work on the budget then because she needed to run off to another meeting. She would have to get back to it later that day.

Table 11.1. Resource Rates for VNLE

Resource Needed	Resource Rate Per Day	Who?
Project manager	$250	Chris Williams
Executive sponsor	$750	June Jackson
Core team	$200 each per day	Bill Ricardo, Robin Good, Tina Johnson, Carol Hinnant, Carl Price, Karen French
VP Sales	$700	Greg Peterson
VP Marketing	$500	Karla Christie
VP Business Development	$500	John Robinson
COO	$650	Sue Kim
CIO	$650	Ken Hale
Business development person	$175	Jacob Liesel
Marketing person	$190 each per day	Cathy Bull, Larry Katherine
Salesperson	$200 each per day	Dale Christenson, Mike Boyd, Becky Rasmussen, Jane Noble
IT person	$190	Bill Cowan
Logistics person	$100	Kim Billing
Marketing materials vendor	$1,000 per assignment	Material R US
Booth construction subcontractor	$5,000 per booth	Sales Specialists
VN Web project manager	$250	Carl Price
Catalog department person	$100	Eva Benjamin
Focus group	$5,000	Focus group—Marketing Concepts

Chris left for her next meeting, with Sue, Tina and Carol's supervisor. Sue was pretty set in her ways in running her department and was not much of an advocate for project management. She said she would do what she could with Tina and Carol's workload, but her people were expected to work overtime whenever there was extra work to do. Sue told Chris that she would make sure that Tina and Carol knew this was her expectation. Sue then excused herself from the meeting to take a quick call. She told Chris she'd be back in five minutes. Sue did come back in 5 minutes but was still on her cell phone and continued to talk for another 15 minutes. She wasted Chris's time for a half-hour, until they finally got back to the discussion of the project and Sue's subordinates. Chris offered appraisal information on the two women, and Sue told her that would be nice and that she'd be glad to look over the feedback. She also stated that she knew what her subordinates were doing and probably wouldn't need anything additional. Chris left Sue's office and mumbled under her breath, "What a waste of time!"

Chris then went back to her desk and answered a couple phone calls and e-mails before she headed to her next meeting, with John. John was very agreeable to what Chris wanted and assured her that he would make his people available for the project. He had heard from June about the importance of the project and knew these new vendors could make or break this new launch. He did have some questions for Chris about the project, though. He and Chris spent the next hour discussing John's questions. Chris made a mental note to update the communication plan on John; he would need a lot more detail to satisfy his communication needs.

Chris got back to her desk after 2 p.m. Her meeting with Karla wasn't until 5 p.m., so she had a couple hours to work on the project schedule and budget. Chris again analyzed the critical path. This time she was looking for the tasks that Carol and Tina had to perform. She knew she had a risk because of Sue's stance about project work and overtime. Tina had two critical path tasks. Carol had none. She decided that she could absorb the risk of the overtime for these two tasks.

Chris then started her calculations for the cost baseline on her project. She was able to get those done fairly quickly. You can see her finished work in Table 11.2. Now she needed to meet with Karla, Robin's boss.

Table 11.2. Cost Per Task for VNLE

Task	Resource Estimate	Duration Estimate	Work Effort	Cost of Task
1.1 Gather previous trade show information	Business development person—Jacob Liesel	5 days	16 hours	$350
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		4 hours	$125
	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen		4 hours each	$600
1.2 Gather input from other departments	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	3 days	4 hours each	$600
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		4 hours	$125
	1 VP Sales—Greg Peterson		2 hours	$175
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		2 hours	$125
	1 VP Business Development—John Robinson		2 hours	$125
	1 COO—Sue Kim		2hours	$162.50
	1 CIO—Ken Hale		2 hours	$162.50
1.3 Establish marketing goals	1 core team member—Robin Good	1 day	4 hours	$100
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		2 hours	$125
1.4 Determine target audience	1 core team member—Robin Good	1 day	4 hours	$100
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		2 hours	$125
1.5 Create draft marketing plan	1 core team member—Robin Good	3 days	8 hours	$200
1.6 Review and revise draft plan with other departments	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	2 days	4 hours each	$600
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		4 hours	$125
	1 VP Sales—Greg Peterson		1 hour	$87.50
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
	1 VP Business Development—John Robinson		1 hour	$62.50
	1 COO—Sue Kim		1 hour	$81.25
	1 CIO—Ken Hale		1 hour	$81.25
1.7 Create final marketing plan	1 core team member—Robin Good	1 day	2 hours	$50
	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull		2 hours	$47.50
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		1 hour	$31.25
2.1 Design the booth sales approach	1 core team member—Bill Ricardo	2 days	4 hours	$100
	1 salesperson—Dale Christenson		8 hours	$200
	1 VP Sales—Greg Peterson		1 hour	$87.50
2.2 Create IT demo requirements	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	1 day	4 hours each	$600
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		4 hours	$125
2.3 Design the trade show experience	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	5 days	8 hours each	$1,200
	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull		8 hours	$190
	1 salesperson—Dale Christenson		8 hours	$200
	1 VP Sales—Greg Peterson		1 hour	$87.50
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
2.4 Design the marketing collateral	1 core team member—Robin Good	3 days	8 hours	$200
	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull		8 hours	$190
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
2.5 Design the booth	1 core team member—Robin Good	3 days	8 hours	$200
	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull		8 hours	$190
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
2.6 Determine vendor partnership strategy	1 core team member—Karen French	2 days	4 hours	$100
	1 business development person—Jacob Liesel		4 hours	$87.50
	1 VP Business Development—John Robinson		1 hour	$62.50
2.7 Determine target vendors	1 core team member—Karen French	5 days	16 hours	$400
	1 business development person—Jacob Liesel		16 hours	$350
	1 VP Business Development—John Robinson		2 hours	$125
2.8 Review and revise demo requirements	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	1 day	2 hours each	$300
	1 IT person—Bill Cowan		2 hours	$47.50
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		1 hour	$31.25
2.9 Design the demo	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	2 days	4 hours each	$600
	1 IT person—Bill Cowan		4 hours	$95
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		4 hours	$125
2.10 Determine housing and travel requirements	6 core team members—Bill, Robin, Tina, Carol, Carl, Karen	1 day	2 hours each	$300
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		2 hours	$62.50
2.11 Gather marketing materials and booth shipping requirements	1 core team member—Tina Johnson	1 day	2 hours	$100
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		2 hours	$62.50
2.12 Determine catering requirements	1 core team member—Tina Johnson	1 day	2 hours	$100
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		2 hours	$62.50
2.13 Determine trade show on-site requirements	1 core team member—Tina Johnson	3 days	8 hours	$100
	1 logistics person—Kim Billing		8 hours	$100
2.14 Verify that product inventory supports the marketing plan	1 project manager—Chris Williams	1/2 day	1 hour	$31.25
	1 Catalog department person—Carol Hinnant		1 hour	$50
3.1.1 Arrange flights and lodging	1 logistics person—Kim Billing	5 days	8 hours	$100
3.1.2 Ship marketing material and booth	1 logistics person—Kim Billing	1 day	2 hours	$40
3.1.3 Make catering arrangements	1 logistics person—Kim Billing	1 day	2 hours	$40
3.1.4 Finalize trade show on-site requirements	1 core team member—Tina Johnson	1 day	2 hours	$100
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		2 hours	$62.50
3.1.5 Verify that product inventory supports the trade show plan	1 Catalog department person—Carol Hinnant	1/2 day	1 hour	$25
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		1 hour	$31.25
3.1.6 Prototype the booth experience	1 core team member—Robin Good	2 days	4 hours	$100
	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull		4 hours	$95
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
3.1.7 Learn and practice the demo	4 salespeople—Dale, Mike, Becky, Jane	5 days	8 hours each	$800
3.1.8 Establish pre-meetings with vendors	1 business development person—Jacob Liesel	3 days	4 hours	$87.50
3.1.9 Build marketing collateral	1 marketing person—Cathy Bull	10 days	8 hours	$190
	Materials vendor—Material R US		FF price $2,500	$2,500
3.1.10 Build the booth	1 logistics person—Kim Billing	10 days	8 hours	$100
	Booth construction subcontractor—Sales Specialist		FF price $50,000	$50,000
3.1.11 Build the demo	1 IT person—Bill Cowan	5 days	16 hours	$380
	1 core team member—Robin Good		8 hours	$200
3.1.12 Test the demo	1 IT person—Bill Cowan	5 days	16 hours	$380
	1 core team member—Bill Ricardo		8 hours	$200
3.1.13 Create trade show buzz	2 marketing persons—Cathy Bull, Larry Katherine	30 days	40 hours	$1,900
3.1.14 Verify that the Web site is ready	1 project manager—Chris Williams	1 day	1 hour	$31.25
	1 VN Web project manager—Carl Price		1 hour	$25
3.1.15 Verify that the catalog is ready	1 core team member—Carol Hinnant	1 day	1 hour	$25
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		1 hour	$31.25
3.1.16 Verify marketing collateral with focus group	1 core team member—Robin Good	10 days	8 days	$1,600
	Focus group—Marketing Concepts		7 days	$35,000
3.1.17 Verify the booth build with focus group	1 core team member—Robin Good	2 days	2 days	$400
	Focus group—Marketing Concepts		1 day	$5,000
3.1.18 Verify demo with focus group	1 core team member—Robin Good	2 days	2 days	$400
	Focus group		1 day	$5,000
3.1.19 Verify the booth experience with the focus group	1 core team member—Robin Good	2 days	2 days	$400
	Focus group		1 day	$5,000
3.1.20 Get buzz feedback and make adjustments	1 core team member—Robin Good	15 days	10 days	$2,000
	1 project manager—Chris Williams		1 hour	$31.25
	1 VP Marketing—Karla Christie		1 hour	$62.50
3.2.1 Verify and correct logistics	1 core team member—Tina Johnson	1 day	4 hours	$100
	1 logistics person—Kim Billings		4 hours	$50
3.2.2 Manage the trade show event	1 project manager—Chris Williams	4 days	40 hours	$1,000
	1 core team member—Robin Good		40 hours	$800
3.2.3 Staff the booth	4 salespersons—Dale, Mike, Becky, Jane	4 days	32 hours	$3,200
3.2.4 Get feedback for vendor experience during event	1 business development person—Jacob Liesel	4 days	8 hours	$175
3.2.5 Receive > 125 points for trade show	1 project manager—Chris Williams	1 day	1 hour	$31.25
				$129,298

The meeting with Karla lasted until 7 p.m. Karla's staff is not very large, so, needless to say, she was hesitant about trying to lighten Robin's workload. The problem was that not too many people can do what Robin does for the organization. Chris discussed the tasks that Robin needed to do and the concept of critical path, and Karla then understood the importance of freeing up Robin for the project work. Karla also didn't understand the appraisal concept. Chris had to explain the concepts of accountability and authority in project management to her. Again, this took a while, but at the end, Karla said she would welcome Chris's appraisal and together the two of them would determine Robin's overall appraisal and her pay raise for that year. Success!

By the end of the meeting, Chris was pretty tired. She decided to go home and get a good night's sleep and attack the rest of the budget in the morning. She also decided that she had better get up early to get everything ready for her meeting with June. What a day!

< Back Page 9 of 10 Next >

🔖 Save To Your Account

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Privacy Notice

Overview

Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information

To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information

Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security

Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children

This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing

Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information

If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out

Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information

Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents

California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure

Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

As required by law.
With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links

This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact

Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020

Email Address