Project Management at Dotcom.com

Dotcom.com, a software engineering and systems development

consulting firm, sells a wide assortment of Internet$-$ and computer$-$based

solutions for resource planning, administrative, and accounting networks

to organizations in health care delivery, financial services, and hotel

management. Typically, a service provider approaches Dotcom.com with

a list of problems it has and some targets for organizational improvement.

Because most of Dotcom$$s 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 Dotcom$$s success

because poorly managed projects quickly eat up the profit margin for any

job. Unfortunately, Dotcom$$s senior management team has noticed a

recent upsurge in project operating costs, and a related drop$-$off in

profitability. In particular, Dotcom$$s 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 don$$t know what

they really want, so we have to spend hours working with them to get a

reasonable Statement of 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. It$$s a Catch$-22$if 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 doesn$$t 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 client$$s demands, only

to have them look it over, push a few buttons, and start telling us that it is

not anything like what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a

system to solve their problems when they don$$t 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 these project management problems were not

isolated, but were becoming embedded in the firm$$s operations. Clearly,

something had to be done about their processes.

Questions

$1.$ How would you begin redesigning Dotcom. com$$s project management

processes to minimize the problems it is experiencing with poor scope

management?

$2.$ How do the company$$s consulting clients contribute to the problems

with expanding or changing scope? If you were to hold a meeting with a

potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly

understand?

$3.$ 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?

$4.$ Why are configuration management and project change control so

difficult to perform in the midst of complex software development

projects, such as those undertaken by Dotcom.com