Mini-Case Study: Managing Change at ABC Publishing

ABC Publishing is producing customized eBooks for a local college. It has just received a large order for a new eBook on Strategic Human Resource Management in a Global Context from a senior professor in the business school. This distinguished faculty member is dissatised with the current textbooks, and wants a customized eBook for use with her on-campus courses, graduate seminars, and her executive education courses. This is the most complex eBook that ABC has undertaken. Because this project is so important to the professor, and will be used in so many different settings with different schedules, the professor made sure that she had her complete eBook request in early to allow sufcient time for production. She had selected a broad set of the best papers from various textbooks and had written an introduction and background, along with discussion questions for each section. This meant that this project was going to have an extensive set of permissions to acquire before production could happen, as well as a large amount of desktop publishing for the new materials written by the professor. She was quite certain that she had given ABC more than enough time to have her eBook ready before the rst class needed it.

This eBook went through the check and verify order step with a bit of back and forth with the professor to verify the information needed for the extensive number of permissions, so that started the project off with a bit of a delay. Because there were so many permissions, the supervisor (part time staff member) who planned this project, accelerated the work on obtaining permissions to make sure that all the permissions were received before they started assembling and collating the eBook in production. Permission requests are sent to the publisher of the book and the publisher in turn has to work through the material requested and provide written permission.

As the publishers liaison at ABC worked through the extensive list of permissions, the supervisor of the project was receiving a continuing series of requests from the professor. As time went on and the professor had more time to review her eBook plans, she identifying numerous changes that required further permissions, cancelled some that are no longer needed, as well as other desktop publishing related needs, such as graphics and design.

The college expected their eBooks to be delivered at a low cost, as its bookstore costs had to cover the bookstore overhead (servers for sales and distribution of the eBooks and additional costs for marketing) and the bookstore's markup, as well as the costs of the eBook from ABC. ABC had to incorporate all the permissions costs, as well as all of the desktop publishing and production costs.

The account manager at ABC was concerned about upsetting this important customer, the supervisor didnt know how these various requests could all be accommodated or how it would impact the eBook project, and the publishers liaison was worried both about added costs for new permissions, the time it would take to get them, and the costs they had already expended for permissions no longer needed.

Professor requests kept coming at an increasing rate as it got closer to her deadline for needing this eBook. The supervisor put together estimates of what each change requested by the professor would cost.

• An extra $500 for each new permission needed, in addition to the $500 already spent for each permission already acquired that can no longer be used. A refund of 80% for the permissions not used was granted.
• Two hours of Publishers Liaison effort for each new permission needed at a cost of $22 per hour
• One hour of supervisor time for re-planning each change at a cost of $28 per hour.
• Sales commission of 20%

This continuing series of requests for changes from the professor was quickly adding to the upwardly spiraling cost of this project. The supervisor feels that something must be done to improve the process of having an eBook printed.

ABC did not have a good process in place. They realized that a process had to be defined. Samantha (the newly hired project manager) would create a process for publishing books.

After deliberating and gathering requirements from the various departments, Samantha and the owners of ABC decided to automate the process. The online system would allow professors to select chapters from existing books, upload their own material and the permissions would automatically be requested when the book was submitted for printing and/or publishing as eBook. The idea is to put more control in the professors hands as well as more responsibility. All the books used by professors can be found in a digital format. The system would maintain prices for all books and the individual chapters for each book. This would give professors a way to create the custom eBooks online with estimated costs before requesting all permissions. When building their books, the associated costs for the book and permissions would be automatic.

The cost of eBooks should go down considerably due to less people being involved and the professor having an idea of the cost prior to committing to the ebook. The system will need an administrators portal to enter and manage data on the system with various security levels. The new system needs to have an easy to use interface for all types of users.

Respond to the following:

After analyzing all the problems encountered while working on the customized ebook, Samantha and the owners decided they needed an online process for creating these ebooks.

The project will involve creating a new online process for accepting eBook orders, ensuring all permissions are acquired before production, desktop publishing including creating any illustrations required, and giving read access to the students and instructors for the e-book, once approved by the instructor.

1. List ALL the issues/problems the company is having with their current process of handling eBook publishing. Will the proposed new system solve the problem? If no, what other controls would you add. Explain your answer.

(5 Marks) 3 Marks for listing and explaining the problems and why you believe they are problems, and 2 marks for answering whether the new system will solve the problem and why.

2. Using the information in this document create a ranked requirements traceability matrix (RTM), and a scope statement for the new online system. Apply the MOSCOW principle to the requirements use your judgement but be prepared to defend it. (20 Marks)

Ensure you provide detailed requirements laid out in the requirements traceability matrix. Provide information in the RTM as discussed in course. For all requirements include a unique ID, Requirement description, type (functional or non functional), risk (low, high, medium), and MOSCOW rank. Use the scope statement template provided.

You dont have to go into detail in terms of the actual development of the system. Assume the development will be outsourced and the website will be hosted and maintained by an external supplier.

3. Use one of the tools discussed in course to better understand requirements. Eg. Affinity diagram, Use Cases, mind mapping, etc. Describe which tool you used and how it helped with requirements gathering. Include the results/working papers generated. (10 Marks)

4. Who are the stakeholders of this project? List all stakeholders and identify the key stakeholders. (5 Marks)

5. Create a WBS and WBS dictionary. Use the indented format when creating the WBS. Ensure you provide adequate detail in the work packages, and you consider all requirements as outlined in the RTM. (15 Marks)

6. Design the companys change control process and create a template to be used for future changes. Support your choice of headings in the template. (10 Marks)