Agraj Gokhale has just been promoted and is running his first IT project. The kickoff meeting, run by Agraj and his lead software developer, has taken place, and Agraj is very excited as he explains the results to his manager (who was not at the meeting) one week later. Agraj says, "The meeting was a huge success. We invited the managers from each of the key areas in finance and marketing. We presented a short version of the project charter because you can't put up on a computer overhead display 100 pages of information, can you? We then showed them the detailed Gantt chart of the 22 project deliverables. Finally, we gave each of them a copy of the charter to sign once they finish reading it. I think they were all impressed and liked our presentation because we didn't get much discussion. The meeting lasted only 30 minutes." Agraj's boss asks, "How did Mr. Jenkins respond?" Mr. Jenkins is the controller to whom each of the finance managers report. He has expressed concerns about the budget and aggressive schedule. Agraj responds, "Huh, we didn't invite him because he isn't directly working on the project." Agraj's boss then asks "How many of the signatures have you gotten on the charter?" Agraj tells him, "Well, none yet, but it has only been a week."
a. Do you agree with Agraj that he should be excited about this project's chances? Explain.
b. What should Agraj do next?