Dotcom.com, a software engineering and systems development consulting firm, sells a wide assortment

of the Internet and computer-based solutions for resource planning, administrative, and accounting

networks to organizations in health care delivery, financial services, and hotel management. ypically, a

service provider approaches Dotcom.com with a list of problems it has and some targets for

organizational improvement. Because most of Dotcoms clients are not themselves computer savvy, they

tend to rely heavily on Dotcom to correctly diagnose their difficulties, propose solutions to correct these

problems, and implement the new technologies. the industry in which Dotcom operates is extremely

competitive, forcing successful organizations to make low bids to win consulting contracts. In this

environment, project management is vital for Dotcoms success because poorly managed projects

quickly eat up the profit margin for any job.

Unfortunately, Dotcoms senior management team has noticed a recent upsurge in project operating

costs and a related drop-o in profitability. In particular, Dotcoms executives are concerned because the

last seven consulting contracts have resulted in almost no profit margin because the software systems

were delivered late and required several rounds of rework to Fix bugs or correct significant shortcomings

in the software. the Firm decided to hold a weekend off-site retreat with the project managers

responsible for these most recently completed projects in order to learn why project management was

being done so poorly.

to a person, the project managers Fixed the blame for their problems on the clients. A typical response

was made by Susan Kiley, a project manager with more than Five years experience, who stated, We are

put in a very tough position here. Most of the customers dont know what they really want so we have to

spend hours working with them to get a reasonable Statement o Work that we can develop the project

scope around. this takes time. In fact, the more time I spend with the customer up front, the less I have

to get my team to actually develop the system for them. Its a Catch-22If I want to get things right, I

have to pry information out of them. the better I do getting a sense of their problems, the less time I

have to develop and run the project!

Jim Crenshaw, another project manager, spoke up. It doesnt stop there, unfortunately. My biggest

problems are always on the back end of the project. We work like dogs to get a system up that

corresponds to the clients demands, only to have them look it over, push a few buttons, and start telling

us that this was not anything like what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a system to

solve their problems when they dont know what their problems are? Better yet, what do we do when

they think they know what they want and then when we create it, they turn around and reject our

solutions out of hand?

After two hours of hearing similar messages From the other project managers, it became clear to the

senior management team that the project management problems were not isolated but were becoming

embedded in the firms operations. Clearly, something had to be done about their processes

QUESTION

1. how do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project scope in order to complete the project in a timely fashion??

I want a proper explanation of this question