A&D High Tech (B) Case Study Questions

Case B gives actual work done on each task three months into the project. Students must answer the management questions: Can the project be fixed and completed in time for the holiday season? Can the additional requirements be incorporated, and if so, what is the best approach?

The case assignment is as follows:

Your team has been assigned to help Chris Johnson troubleshoot the online store project and develop a presentation and recommendation for Matt Webb, the CIO. Time is short. The current project actuals have been provided in Exhibit 1 of A&D High Tech (B), and available in the Excel file accompanying the case. A copy of the earned value analysis template is provided in Exhibit 2 of A&D High Tech (B) and also in the Excel file accompanying the case.

The questions are:

1. As of August 26, what is the projected cost and schedule? What are the trends? What is the critical path(s)?

2. Given the dimensions of project management and critical paths of a project, what can be done to bring the project back on track?

3. Is it possible to implement the changes to incorporate the promotional bundles and to complete the project by December 1? What are the necessary changes to the plan? Are there any additional risks involved in the revised plan?

4. What is the estimated cost variance for the project?

A&D High Tech (B): Managing Scope Change After successfully planning and organizing the A&D High Tech online store project, project manager Chris Johnson was promoted to vice president of e-business. Eric Robertson returned from his leave and assumed the position he had left as the project manager for the online store. In late summer 2014, Johnson began hearing whispers from colleagues that the project was in trouble. On August 20, CIO Matt Webb frantically approached Johnson in his office. He had just fired Robertson and wanted Johnson to serve as the interim project manager. For more than three months, Robertson had told Webb that the project was on track, but suddenly he changed course and told Webb that he "guessed" it would be at least one month late and that costs would overrun by more than 20 percent. This was hardly acceptable, since it was imperative that the project be completed in time for the holiday shopping season. The project had strategic importance to the company and was integral to its holiday promotion strategy. Webb explained to Johnson that there was an additional challenge: the vice president of marketing wanted to create "promotional bundles for the holiday season. Promotional bundles are a collection of items bundled together and sold at a lower cost than if the items were purchased individually. A&D's trial promotions with some retailers had shown an increase of 10 percent in sales with the addition of these promotional bundles, and the marketing plan called for them to be rolled out nationally. Thus, in order to maintain consistency in all sales channels, the bundles also needed to be available in the online store. Once again, Johnson was asked to quickly troubleshoot the project. He needed to analyze the true state of the project and gather his projections for cost and schedule. Johnson also needed to assess the possible impact of adding promotional bundles. Although deterred from his transition into his new job as vice president, Johnson was nonetheless excited to once again put his project management expertise to use. Promotional Bundles The promotional bundles and the tasks associated with implementing them represented the only functional or scope change for the online store as Johnson set out to troubleshoot the project. The promotional bundles did not necessarily present technical design challenge for the project. The product catalog from Microsoft Site Server had the flexibility to handle complex rules in dealing with different pricing schemes. However, since MS Site Server had to be configured and tested, a new set of tasks not originally planned or estimated needed to be factored into the project plan. Sales planning called for a total of twelve promotional bundles. The technical lead on the team, Marc Sanders, estimated that after two to three days of training per person, ten to twelve "person-days" would be needed for his team to configure the pricing rules in the system. The testing lead estimated twenty to twenty-five person-days would be needed to test the new features and to regression-test the existing products in conjunction with the promotional bundles. Sanders was a bit worried about the size of development team, since he was barely keeping up with his duties managing the existing tasks on the project