The Blue Spider Project

Functional manager: "Hello, Gary. I just thought I'd call to find out what charge number you want us to use for experimenting with this new procedure to determine accelerated age life." Gary Anderson: "Don't call me! Call Gable. After all, the Blue Spider Project is his baby." QUESTIONS 1. If you were Gary Anderson, would you have accepted this position after the direc tor stated that this project would be his baby all the way? 2. Do engineers with MBA degrees aspire to high positions in management? 3. Was Gary qualified to be a project manager? 4. What are the moral and ethical issues facing Gary? 5. What authority does Gary have and to whom does he report? 6. Is it true that, when you enter project management, you either go up the organiza tion or out the door? 7. Is it possible for an executive to take too much of an interest in an R&D project? The Blue Spider Project 227 8. Should Paul Evans have been permitted to report information to Gable before reporting it to the project manager? 9. Is it customary for the project manager to prepare all of the handouts for a cus- tomer interchange meeting? 10. What happens when a situation of mistrust occurs between the customer and con- tractor? 11. Should functional employees of the customer and contractor be permitted to com- municate with one another without going through the project office? 12. Did Gary demonstrate effective time management? 13. Did Gary understand production operations? 14. Are functional employees authorized to make project decisions? 15. On R&D projects, should profits be booked periodically or at project termination? 16. Should a project manager ever censor bad news? 17. Could the above-mentioned problems have been resolved if there had been a sin gle methodology for project management in place? 18. Can a single methodology for project management specify morality and ethics in dealing with customers? If so, how do we handle situations where the project manager violates protocol? 19. Could the lessons learned on success and failure during project debriefings cause a major change in the project management methodology? The Blue Spider Project "This is impossible! Just totally impossible! Ten months ago I was sitting on top. of the world. Upper-level management considered me one of the best, if not the best, engineer in the plant. Now look at me! I have bags under my eyes, I haven't slept soundly in the last six months, and here I am, cleaning out my desk. I'm sure glad they gave me back my old job in engineering. I guess I could have saved myself a lot of grief and aggravation had I not accepted the promotion to project manager." HISTORY Gary Anderson had accepted a position with Parks Corporation right out of col- lege. With a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, Gary was ready to solve the world's most traumatic problems. At first, Parks Corporation offered Gary little opportu- nity to do the pure research that he eagerly wanted to undertake. However, things soon changed. Parks grew into a major electronics and structural design corpora- tion during the big boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s when Department of Defense (DoD) contracts were plentiful. Parks Corporation grew from a handful of engineers to a major DoD con- tractor, employing some 6,500 people. During the recession of the late 1960s. money became scarce and major layoffs resulted in lowering the employment level to 2,200 employees. At that time, Parks decided to get out of the research and development (R&D) business and compete as a low-cost production facility