Harvard Business Publishing Education

Project Management Simulation: Scope, Resources, and Schedule

Scenario B:Week 0

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Managing Your Project

Project Brief: Scenario B

You are a software project manager at Quaich Networks, a wireless mobile phone and data service provider. The company's legacy billing system uses old technology and is a significant source of inflexibility that limits how quickly and well Quaich can match competitors' new pricing and marketing campaigns. You have been tasked with assembling and directing a software development team to create a new billing system that will be highly reconfigurable and flexible. Other wireless operators are at various stages with similar billing systems; some have been able to mount marketing campaigns that your legacy billing system kept you from countering, leading you to lose market share. This has put pressure on you and your team to develop a new system that can compete effectively against competitors.

Scenario Objectives: Scenario B

Senior management expects you to release a new billing system that will be better than the average competitors' existing billing systems. The target schedule is shortened to allow you to achieve a billing advantage over several competitors relatively soon. The budget is a little lower than you would like it to be, and your own analysis of the work required and subsequent work breakdown has led to you conclude that these targets are difficult but achievable.

Market intelligence gathered on the competitors' current systems and future enhancement plans is considered reliable, so the target specs for your new billing system, required to improve upon your average competitors' billing system, are reasonably well defined and understood, and expected to remain stable throughout the project. Comparatively, you are pleased that your project is reasonably staffed because other project managers are struggling to complete their work with limited resources.

Specific Objectives

Target Scope: Level 3

Your new billing systems will be better than the average billing system of competitors. You will receive 175 points for delivering a software package with the scope requested and up to 100 additional points for delivering one with a more sophisticated scope.

Target Schedule: Week 17

The schedule looks fairly reasonable given what needs to be developed. You will receive 175 points for meeting your schedule goals and up to 100 additional points for completing ahead of schedule.

Target Cost: $39,220

This budget for developing the billing system seems low. You will receive 250 points for meeting your budget/resources goals and up to 100 additional points for completing under budget.

You may also receive up to 100 points for team process by maintaining a consistent morale of 8595%.