Marie Scott worked with other managers at Global Construction, Inc. to decide what projects their firm should undertake to meet business needs. Construction is a low-margin, very competitive industry, and productivity improvements are crucial to improving shareholder returns. After participating in several strategic planning and project selection workshops, one of the opportunities the company decided to pursue in 2018 was just-in-time training. Several managers pointed out that Global Construction was spending more than the industry average on training its employees, especially in its sales, purchasing, engineering, and information technology departments, yet productivity for those workers had not improved much in recent years. They also knew that they needed to transfer knowledge from many of their retiring workers to their younger workers. Global Construction, Inc. still offered most courses during work hours using an instructor-led format, and the course topics had not changed in years. Several managers knew that their competitors had successfully implemented training programs so that their workers could get the type of training they needed when they needed it. For example, much of the training was provided over the Internet, so employees could access it anytime, anywhere. Employees were also able to ask questions of instructors as well as experts within the company at any time via the Internet to help them perform specific job duties. In addition, experts documented important knowledge and let other workers share their suggestions. Management believed that Global Construction could reduce training costs and improve productivity by successfully implementing a project to provide just-in-time training on key topics and promote a more collaborative working environment. Mike Sundby, the vice president of human resources, was the projects champion. After successfully completing a Phase I Just-InTime Training study to decide how they should proceed with the overall project, Mike and his directors selected Kristin Maur to lead Phase II of the project. Kristin suggested partnering with an outside firm to help with some of the projects technical aspects. Mike asked Kristin to start forming her project team and to prepare important initiating documents, including a detailed business case, a stakeholder register and engagement strategy, and a project charter for the project. He was also looking forward to participating in the official kick-off meeting. The project was estimated to be completed in one year. Update: In 2021, Global Construction faced even more challenges related to training as well as recruiting and retention. New technologies (3-D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), collaboration tools, etc.) were changing the nature of their work. Understanding the needs of workers as well as customers was critical to future success. To address these challenges, they realized that a predictive project management approach was not appropriate. They could not define the scope of work upfront, they wanted incremental releases of valuable products, and changes were expected. For these reasons, they launched a more agile project to improve hiring and retention and to provide additional training to not only their own employees, but to future employees as well. They called this new project Global Construction Human Capital (GCHC). Mike Sundby, now the Chief Human Capital Officer, would also be this projects champion. Instead of defining upfront how long the project would take and what it would cost, they empowered teams to deliver the most valuable products as soon as possible, continuing work as needed.

Do you think there is a solid business justification for doing this project? Why or why not? What parts of the business case do you think could be stronger? How?