Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow

Quasar Communications, Inc.

Quasar Communications, Inc. $($QCI$),$ is a thirty$-$year$-$old, $$350$ million division of Communication Systems International,

the world's largest communications company. QCI employs about $340$ people of which more than $200$ are engineers.

Ever since the company was founded thirty years ago, engineers have held every major position within the company,

including president and vice president. The vice president for accounting and finance, for example, has an electrical

engineering degree from Purdue and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard.

QCI, up until$1986,$ was a traditional organization where everything flowed up and down. In $1986,$ QCI hired a major

consulting company to come in and train all their personnel in project management. Due to the reluctance of the line

managers to accept formalized project management, QCI adopted an informal, fragmented project management

structure where the project managers had lots of responsibility but very little authority. The line managers were still

running the show.

In $1989,$ QCI had grown to a point where most of their business base revolved around twelve large customers and thirty

to forty small customers The time had come to create a separate line organization for project managers, where everyone

could be shown a career path in the company and the company could benefit by creating a body of planners and

managers dedicated to the completion of a project

The project management group was headed up by a vice president and included the following full$-$time personnel

$-$Four individuals to handle the twelve large customers

$-$Five individuals for the thirty to forty small customers

$-$Three individuals for R&D projects

$-$ One individual for capital equipment projects

The nine customer project managers were expected to handle two to three projects at one time if necessary. Due to

the customer requests usually did not come in at the same time, it was anticipated that each project manager would

handle only one project at a time. The R&D and capital equipment project managers were expected to handle several

projects at once. In addition to the above personnel, the company also maintained a staff of four product managers who

controlled the profitable off$-$the$-$shelf product lines. The product managers reported to the vice president of marketing

and sales.

In October $1989,$ the vice president for project management decided to take a more active role in the problems that

project managers were having and held counselling sessions for each project manager. The following major problem

areas were discovered.

R&D PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project manager: $"$My biggest problem is working with these diverse groups that aren't sure what they want. My job is

to develop new products that can be introduced into the marketplace. I have to work with engineering, marketing,

product management, manufacturing, quality assurance, finance, and accounting. Everyone wants a detailed schedule

and product cost breakdown. How can I do that when we aren$$t even sure what the end$-$item will look like or what

materials are needed? Last month I prepared a detailed schedule for the development of a new product, assuming that

everything would go according to the plan. I worked with the R&D engineering group to establish what we considered to

be a realistic milestone. Marketing pushed the milestone to the left because they wanted the product to be introduced

into the marketplace earlier. Manufacturing then pushed the milestone to the right, claiming that they would need more

time to verify the engineering specifications. Finance and accounting then pushed the milestone to the left asserting that

management wanted a quicker return on investment. Now, how can I make all of the groups happy?"

Vice president: "Whom do you have the biggest problems with?"

Project manager: "That's easy$-$marketing I Every week marketing gets a copy of the project status report and decides

whether to cancel the project Several times marketing has cancelled projects without even discussing it with me$,$ and I$\text{'}$m

supposed to be the project leader"

Vice president: "Marketing is in the best position to cancel the project because they have the inside information on the

profitability, risk, return on investment, and competitive environment."

QUESTION $3(25$ Marks$)$

The project manager is the person responsible for accomplishing the project objectives. Use the theory related to the role of

a project manager that you have studied and explain how this theory could have benefited the case study project.

$$ Discuss the theory related to the role

of the project manager

$$ Illustrate how it could have benefited

the case study project