Case Study: Project Miner

Background

Scope of Work

Schedule

TASK:

Project Miner

You are a project manager at UNISA Mining Solutions $($UMS$),$ which develops systems to help

mining firms reduce their exploration costs.

UMS has been commissioned by EmpowerMinerals, a leading South African mining company, to

develop technology that locates precious minerals with lower costs and higher productivity than

current systems. In response, UMS has developed a system called Project Miner which uses

pattern recognition technology and artificial intelligence programmes to identify gold from small rock

samples and predict which sites have exploitable levels of gold, with a very high level of accuracy.

The developed system is currently being tested with the client through a project nicknamed Project

Miner. Project Miner involves testing the developed technology and software in the field at one of

EmpowerMineral's mining concessions in the Northern Cape. Although the budget for the project is

relatively small by mining standards, at R $13000000,$ the eventual business from this project might

generate considerable revenues in the future for UMS. To your firm, this project is therefore of great

importance and critical to its future revenues.

One fine Monday morning you are called into an urgent meeting by your Director, who informs you

that he would like you to take over Project Miner from its current project manager, Andrew, who is

your colleague in the firm. He informs you that the project is going very poorly, and the client is very

unhappy with the progress and the deliverables so far. On all counts, quality of outputs, cost, time

and scope, the project performance is poor.

You know that Andrew has never been a good project manager, but it may not be his fault and you

would like to find out what might have gone wrong. At this meeting, the Director lays out several

facts:

$$ The computer system uses new software developed by your company, but which has never

been used in the field. In fact, the Director thinks that the system was tested in a laboratory

but does not know for sure, and does not know if the system has ever been tested outside

of the laboratory. The project business plan is silent on this, too.

$$ In the field, the system has repeatedly identified incorrect minerals as gold.

$$ In addition, the processing of identifying gold in the minerals is taking weeks instead of hours

as mentioned in the project charter.

$$ UMS do not have the advanced programming skills needed so they subcontracted the

development of the system to a subcontractor, who has since finished their work and been

paid for the system they delivered. The poor performance of the system has surprised the

subcontractor developers too.

$$ There is disagreement between UMS and EmpowerMinerals as to what the system was

supposed to do$.$ UMS, according to its scope statement, was to deliver a system that

identifies whether the quantities of minerals in the drilled site are large enough to be

exploited. EmpowerMinerals insist that in addition, it was also supposed to identify from a satellite where the drilling sites should be$.$ There was no scope statement or project charter

signed by both parties.

$$ Even after taking weeks to identify the gold and predict which sites have substantial

amounts, none of the $12$ identified sites so far have produced anything other than minute

quantities of gold. This is costing the client, whom you developed this for, tens of thousands

of rand a day in exploration costs. EmpowerMinerals is unhappy, as months have gone by

with the drilling team mining in the wrong places.

$$ The Director also tells you that at the start of the project, certain risk items have been kept

confidential from EmpowerMinerals. Key test results done on the system at your laboratory

have been misplaced or lost and no backups exist. These were never found at the start of

the project and had been identified as a risk. EmpowerMinerals now want to know if your

company could share the initial test results with them. This was never a contractual

agreement, so UMS has been avoiding this subject altogether. However, it has not improved

relationships between the two companies.

$$ In addition, the project team, who have been trained on the system, is not capable of solving

the performance issues. The warranty period for some of the software purchased from

outside vendors and used by the computer system has expired and UMS decided against

purchasing maintenance for the software, as it would have reduced profits by R $900,000.$

Instead, the project team members were team trained for a fraction of the cost on how to

maintain the system. However, classroom training has proved ineffective.

$$ Andrew and the project team have been working for the last $7$ months straight trying to get

the project back on track, but now your Director wants Andrew out and you in$.$ You are

required to get the project back on track