Brown and Hyer, Managing Projects: a Team-Based Approach

Brown and Hyer, Managing Projects: A Team-Based Approach

CHAPTER 1: MANAGING PROJECTS: WHAT AND WHY

Instructor Resource Guide

Teaching Suggestions

The material from this chapter can be covered in a 90- to 120-minute session, with a combination of lecture, discussion, student examples, and a film clip or two. The chapter outline offers a reasonable structure for the session. We recommend the following general approach:

Projects Defined. Prompt the class to develop a list of attributes that differentiate project endeavors from routine operations. Build on this discussion by offering, or drawing from the class, examples of each. Note that there are gray areas between the two.
Project Dimensions. Draw on recent news stories or student experience to offer examples of two or more real projects, showing how they differed based on drivers, sources, customers, degree of uncertainty, expected outcome, organizational reach, scope, degree of complexity, and strategic level. To keep them reasonably comparable, it is a good idea to choose projects within the same domain. For example two IT projects: one that involves solving a problem using internal resources and one that involves a major endeavor such as implementing ERP using software and consulting from outside vendors.
Importance of Projects. Use examples from recent news stories highlighting successful and unsuccessful projects to highlight the role projects play in determining the performance of any given organization. We offer several examples of news stories in the book, but stories from the week or month in which you are teaching offer a sense of urgency and importance to the topic.
Project Success Factors. We highlight ten success factors in the chapter, but recommend that rather than lecturing on these you use a project example and ask students to find them. Our favorite example is the barn-raising scene from the 1984 film Witness, starring Harrison Ford. The timing for this segment is approximately here in the film: 1:10:30-1:15:00.Although the film is over a quarter-century old, nothing newer has come along that delivers the illustrative power in such a short clip (about 4.5 minutes). Here are a few tips for using this clip:
Provide background about the story so students understand the context (this means you will have to watch the film yourself!).
Ask the class to watch the scene and make note of the factors that appear to be contributing to the success of the project.
As a disclaimer, before you show the clip, make note that the organizational culture, as in any project environment, is an important factor. The culture, in this case, places men and women in clearly demarcated roles. Rather than allowing a discussion of whether or not this is ‘sexist’ you can simply make the point that every project occurs in the context of a culture. Some cultures are more familiar (and therefore comfortable) to us than others.
At the end of the clip, ask the class if the project was a success and what indicators they used to determine this. Answers, which you can write on the board, might include: Finished on time, no one was injured, appears to have consumed no more resources than necessary, the barn didn’t fall down, team members seemed satisfied, etc. This can allow for a discussion of how we measure success.
Next, ask the class to come up with factors that contributed to the project’s success. You will observe that as you write them on the board the list will quite clearly match the list of 10 success factors from Chapter 1. At the end of the listing process, call attention to this match and make the point that the factors they saw in the barn-raising scene are universal. An additional question “From your experience, what is missing from this list?” will draw out a few examples that might not be present in the film clip. One example, not readily evident in the clip, is support from top-level managers, so you can add this one to the list on the board. There are no right or wrong answers, so be open to more than just the ten items from the chapter. At the end of this discussion, we make the point, very strongly, that it is difficult to be effective without clear, shared goals, so this is probably the number one success factor.
Project Metrics. Building on the Witness example from above, introduce the triple constraint and offer examples of projects where priorities differ. Two examples we like to use are the Olympic Games (time is number one – the dates are set) and any space-related project such as a space shuttle launch (performance is key – with human life as the number one priority within the performance context). Beyond the triple constraint, emphasize the importance of developing a balanced list of KPIs for any project. Ask students for examples of situations they have experienced in which the wrong things were measured, leading to the wrong behaviors on the part of team members. A good way to collect these kinds of examples is to have students work in three-person ‘buzz groups’ to test out their examples with smaller groups before offering them to the entire class. Another way to deliver this discussion is to offer an example of a real project that has been publicized in the news media and ask the class to come up with a set of metrics. This should be a short discussion, given that the topic will receive more attention in Chapter 5.
Teams in Project Management. We emphasize teams throughout the book, and believe it is useful just to briefly highlight the role of teams in the first class session. Let students know that all of the class coverage of project management tools will be in the context of teams. Learning the tools without learning how to apply them in team settings is, we believe, pointless. This is a good place to introduce the advantages and challenges associated with delivering projects in team settings, as they are introduced in the chapter. You can engage the class in this discussion by asking students to recall situations in which team synergy propelled a project to greatness, and other situations in which individuals might have preferred to perform the project work by themselves because the team just bogged things down.
Project Phases. One way to illustrate project phases is to use a video clip, or series of video clips, from a popular film. An example from the classic film “Apollo 13” is described in our sample answer to Question 7 at the end of Chapter 1. If you were to use the series of scenes depicting the discovery and solution of the CO2 problem, you can call on the class to comment on which phase is occurring at which time. As we note in our sample answer (see below) this is a good example of a case in which the five phases occur with a good deal of overlap, so the approach is concurrent rather than a waterfall type. Consequently, resource usage is highly concentrated and coordination is critical.
At the end of the session, we recommend that you summarize with the following:
Review the definition of projects.
Highlight that the growing need for project management, and, therefore, project managers, is on the rise.
Mention project success metrics, expanding beyond the triple constraint to include a balanced scorecard perspective. Remind them “You get what you measure.”
Review project success factors.
Review project phases.
Highlight key skills, concepts, and tools they will learn in your course. Your goal in this first session is to offer a framework and get them excited about what is to come.

Answers to End-of-Chapter Questions and Exercises

Student answers will vary and should include creative thinking that goes beyond the content of the chapter. The following sample answers may serve as guidelines for assessment.

List and briefly describe the reasons project work is on the rise. Select a well-known organization, or one where you have worked, and describe how these factors, individually and in combination, served to create more projects. Or, if they did not produce a proliferation of projects, explain why not.

Factors that should be mentioned in student answers:

A hyper-competitive business environment forces companies to react fast and adapt to ever-changing environments
Shortened product life cycles create an increased need for innovation
Increasing global reach of businesses increases competition and demands survival on fewer resources
Pressure to adapt rapidly-evolving technologies moves organizations toward more projects
Executives are realizing that with the increase in their organizations’ resources dedicated to project work they must, by necessity, manage these resources effectively and implement systems that increase opportunities for success.

Think back to the most and least successful projects in which you have been involved. Make a list of the project success factors presented in this chapter and create a table similar to the one below. Briefly describe how each of the 10 success factors played out in each of the two projects. What are your conclusions about which success factors tend to be most important? Name and describe at least one success factor that you think is missing from this list.

The following is a real answer provided by an MBA student who had been involved in several development projects.

Success Factor / Successful Project / Unsuccessful Project
Brief description of project: Consulting project to improve community re-integration for the American Red Cross. / Brief description of project:
Project to persuade the Jordanian Ministry of Planning to make regulatory changes that would make micro-financing projects easier to implement.
How this factor contributed to success / How this factor contributed to failure or detracted from potential success

Clear, shared purpose and goals

/ There was full alignment and communication with key decision-makers in the organization. / While there was alignment with our government contact, there was no opportunity to communicate directly to the Minister of Planning (the key decision maker).

Motivated project team and stakeholders

/ Very dedicated team that had worked together previously on successful projects and a client that was excited to leverage recommendations for action. / Small team that had not worked together previously and limited buy-in from individual microfinance institutions due to their cynicism toward the government.

Unfailing customer orientation

/ The team solicited and received feedback from the client on an ongoing basis. / The team solicited and received feedback from the client on an ongoing basis, however there was no contact with the ultimate decision maker, and there was no alignment between the team’s point of contact and the Minister of Planning. Consequently, we were unable to focus on the true customer.

Adequate support and resources

/ The team had the support of an experienced advisor of change management initiatives. / The team had difficulty communicating with an out-of-country advisor who had other priorities.

Clear roles and responsibilities

/ The team had clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which ensured an efficient use of time. / The team did not have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which caused confusion and inefficient use of time. This was positive, but not enough to compensate for other factors driving the project to failure.

Attention to planning

/ The team developed a comprehensive project plan. / The team developed a high-level project plan, but it lacked detail.

Effective management of uncertainty

/ The team could have anticipated potential risks regarding the responsiveness of the client to questions as they arose. / The team did not foresee the implications of the politicization of relationships among the individual microfinance institutions.

Continuous, effective communication

/ The team had weekly meetings with the client, sent the meeting agenda ahead of time, and produced deliverables for the client on time. / The team tried to, but was unsuccessful in, communicating regularly with the client, which hurt overall communication effectiveness.

Effective scope management

/ The team worked closely with the client to define the scope of the project so as to minimize changes to the project’s scope. / Team members worked closely with their point of contact, but his scope definition differed from that of the Minister herself.

Leadership

/ The project leader had previous experience leading similar projects, which helped guide overall project success. / The project leader did not have prior experience leading similar projects and therefore had to rely on outside advisors, who were not always readily available.

From my perspective reflecting back on these projects, I would say that clear, shared goals for key project stakeholders represented the factor that most differentiated these two projects. Other differences really stemmed from that.

Recall a project in which you have been involved. (This can be anything from moving to a new home, to hosting a Super Bowl or World Cup party, to launching a rocket.) Describe how each of the triple constraint priorities was defined for that project, and discuss their relative importance or emphasis. Comment about whether you believe the priorities were appropriately set and communicated.

Example of a project: Class Gift Fundraiser Kick-off Event:

Triple Constraint:

Time: There was some flexibility regarding the time of the event, as the main objective was to maximize attendance and contribution of graduating class members to the class gift fund.

Cost:The team depended on funding from external student groups and needed to align its budget with the available funds. However, there were potential additional funds available from the school’s Development department. The team allocated the funds available to refreshments (which they knew would draw a crowd), publicity (critical to ensuring high attendance) and t-shirts for the Class Gift Fundraising Team (to ensure their visibility and the visibility of the initiative).

Performance: Attendance and participation in the class gift fundraiser was of paramount importance. This was the number-one priority.

Recall an instance from your own experience in which a work-related performance measure encouraged the wrong behavior from employees. Describe what happened and how things should have been handled.

A student example could look like this:

At a logistics company, the Project Portfolio Management team was responsible for implementing a new system of monitoring and internal company adherence to project documentation guidelines. The key performance measure the team was tasked to focus on was the percentage of properly documented projects. Proper documentation was stressed so heavily that team members felt extreme pressure to ensure all projects in their domain had the necessary documents. As a result, several team members focused undue resources following up with project managers responsible for projects in their final stages for mandate and initiation documents that were, by that time, irrelevant. These project managers then complained to upper-level managers that it did not make sense for them to go back and create documentation for their projects. The effort was taking time away from their value-added work in completing the actual projects.

While measuring the percentage of properly documented projects in the project portfolio is a logical performance indicator, the Project Portfolio Management team should have thought about whether it would make sense to require all forms of documentation for projects nearing closure. It is understandable why certain project mangers felt frustrated that they were being asked to generate documents simply for the sake of project documentation. The Project Portfolio Management team could have both examined the portfolio and identified a subset of projects for which it might not make sense to expect full documentation, or they could have prepared a thoughtful and rational explanation for why it was important for all projects, even those nearing closure, to fulfill all documentation requirements.

Next week is your instructor’s birthday. Class members have decided to surprise the instructor with a 10-minute, in-class birthday party. Each class member has donated $1 to fund the celebration. What KPIs (key performance indicators) could you use to measure the success of this project? Try to develop a balanced scorecardof measures.

Student answers should address the four areas of a balanced scorecard:

Financial:Did every class member contribute $1? Were the funds appropriately distributed across the party’s outlined objectives (decorations, food, and birthday card)?

Internal Process:Did every class member have the opportunity to contribute ideas? Did every class member sign the card? Was it done on time? Was the room decorated in time for the party? Was there enough cake for everyone? Did all class members stay in the classroom for the party?