You are a project management leadership consultant working for Zenith Consulting, LLC. Your company has been hired
Question:
You are a project management leadership consultant working for Zenith Consulting, LLC. Your company has been hired to provide project management consulting services to your client, Swanson Controls, Inc. (a large provider of control systems including building automation, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, fire and security systems).
Swanson is under contract with Goliath Insurance Company to help build their new headquarters in San Francisco, California. Scope includes a new building automation system, fire system and security system.
Swanson has hired you and your firm to help with the project as Goliath is extremely unhappy with the performance of Swanson on the project to date. The Swanson team is overloaded with a large backlog of work and the company has experienced many rounds of layoffs due to cost cutting measures instituted by Swanson Corporate. Goliath is aware of the layoffs and is also aware that the CEO of Swanson has just received a $20M bonus as approved by the board of directors at Swanson. Goliath is a huge, global customer. Failure on this project could spell disaster for Swanson worldwide. During your meeting with Swanson representatives you have uncovered the following information:
- Goliath believes that they and Swanson have massive disagreement on the actual scope of the project.
- Goliath believes that Swanson has miscalculated their initial cost estimates (meaning that they underestimated the scope of the project) and that Swanson is looking for a way out of the project.
- Goliath believes that the communications from Swanson have been unacceptable to date.
Questions:
It is time that you have digested all the lessons covered in your Project Management text, particularly titled Defining the Project.
What information are you going to ask Swanson to provide you at this point? What are you going to do with this information once you receive it?
Based on your knowledge gained from your project management class what tools/processes should Swanson be utilizing in the delivery of this project?
Once you analyze the information provided by Swanson, what will be your recommendations for Swanson going forward on the Goliath project?
What recommendations do you have for Swanson going forward on all their projects?
Research the Internet to provide Swanson with some expert backup information regarding how critical it is to define the scope of their projects.
Be sure to cite references.