Case Study*:

ABC is a medium-sized firm specialisation in the design and manufacturing of quality widgets. The market for widgets has been stable. Historically, ABC has had a functional organisational design with four departments: Accounting, Sales, Production and Engineering. This design has served the company well, and it has been able to compete by being the low-priced company in the industry. In the past three years, the demand for widgets has exploded. New widgets are constantly being developed to feed the public's seemingly instable demand. The average life cycle of a newly realised widget is 12-15 months. Unfortunately, ABC is finding itself unable to compete successfully in this new, dynamic market. The CEO has noted a number of problems. Products are slow to market. Many new innovations have passed right by ABC because the company was slow to pick up signs from the market-place that they were coming. Internal communication is very poor. Lot of information get kicked "upstairs" and no one seems to know what happened to it. Department heads constantly blame other department heads for the problems.

Read the Case Study and answers the questions based on the case study:

1) You have been called in as a consultant to analyse the operations at ABC. What would you advise?

2) What structural design changes might be undertaken to improve the operations at the company?

3) How the product life cycle is affecting widget market and how would you manage your new projects under this environment?

4) What are the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions they could employ?

5) How would you recommendation regarding structural changes be different if the company is a large-sized firm?

6) Who are ABCs principal project management stakeholders? How would you design stakeholder management strategies to address their concerns?

1) You have been called in as a consultant to analyse the operations at ABC. What would you advise? 2) What structural design changes might be undertaken to improve the operations at the company? 3) How the product life cycle is affecting widget market and how would you manage your new projects under this environment? 4) What are the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions they could employ? 5) How would you recommendation regarding structural changes be different if the company is a large-sized firm? 6) Who are ABC's principal project management stakeholders? How would you design stakeholder management strategies to address their concerns