You are required to read the attached case study thoroughly and apply your understanding of the basic concepts of Project Management discussed in class. Based on the above, you are required to analyze the topic mentioned below: a. Referring to the McDonald's Case Study, how do you think project communications itself enabled the effective management of the project, in alignment to organizational strategy. Your analysis should reflect as to how communications integrate with other project management knowledge areas. // Dell Order Here Hansen Order Here MGA To Oude Yarpar dana 2018 PMI PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST Remade McDonald's reinvented its customers' digital experienceand its project governancein less than a year. BY SARAH FISTER GALE PORTRAITS BY SAM GRANT 48 PM NETWORK JANUARY 2019 PMI.ORG Amy Martin, PMP, and Scott Badskey McDonald's, Chicago Illinois, USA Order Here o how m TO to Order 2018 PMI PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST M. cDonald's CEO Steve East erbrook ordered change- and he wanted it fast. The leader of the world's second-largest restaurant chain last year gave his team less than a year to complete a massive digital overhaul that would adapt McDonald's groundbreaking quick-service dining experience to today's hyperconnected expectations. "I have absolutely no doubt that our industry will get disrupted by technology," he warned. "Our discussions within McDonald's are 'Why don't we be the ones to disrupt ourselves rather than wait to be disrupted? You have a choice to either be the disrupter or the disrupted." More than 60 years after the company turned the food service industry upside down, McDon- ald's launched the Digital Acceleration project in January 2017. The US$155 million project developed and deployed a custom mobile order- ing and payment platform to more than 20,000 restaurants in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, France, mainland China and Hong Kong. The new system lets custom- ers order meals via in-store kiosks or a mobile app and pick up their orders as soon as they arrive at the restaurant. The project team also implemented geofencing technology, which uses the GPS on a customer's mobile device to direct orders to the proper restaurant based on the cus- tomer's location. That early detection also helps speed food preparation, shaving precious time off the delivery window "It's about reinventing ourselves. -Daniel Henry McDonald's, Chicago Illinois, USA "It's about reinventing ourselves," says Daniel Henry, executive vice president and global CIO, McDonald's, Chicago, Illinois, USA. "It's about showing our customers that we can be aggressive in how we move forward with technology to pro- vide the experience that we want our customers to have." Rapidly scaling a global digital platform placed the project team in unfamiliar territory -unusu- ally aggressive deadlines presented a daunting task for a company that has 37,000 restaurants in 120 countries. Decentralized and deliberate governance had become as much a part of the company's DNA PHOTO BY DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE/ALAMY STOCK 30 PM NETWORK JANUARY 2019 PMIORG // WELCOME C 24. Welcome to your McDonald's App why not celebrate with your first moment 4.50 CLICK FOR MORE as cheeseburgers and french fries. Transforming processes, culture and staff training was necessary to ensure immediate benefits and ROL "The largest risks that we had to contend with were the speed that we were running at and the pace and change that we were driving," says Scott Badskey, director of portfolio and process manage- ment within the global project management office (PMO), McDonald's, projects had siloed plans deployed separately in cach market, a structure that slowed progress and prevented consistent communication and delivery, Mr. Badskey says. So in December 2016, the com- pany created a global PMO. Months later, the PMO chose to build a single team to deliver the project across all markets. The centralized structure ensured the same level of quality and reliability for deployment in say, China, as in Canada while still allowing cus- tomization to suit regional language, menu and culture differences. This structure also helped the PMO clearly define roles and responsibilities "A project of this scale can divide a team if you're not careful. But our team stuck together when things didn't always go the way we wanted." -Daniel Henry PMO PACESETTER One way McDonald's picked up the pace was rethinking its governance structure. Previous global JANUARY 2019 PM NETWORK 31 WELCOME C 24. Welcome to your McDonald's App why not celebrate with your first moment 4.50 CLICK FOR MORE as cheeseburgers and french fries. Transforming processes, culture and staff training was necessary to ensure immediate benefits and ROL "The largest risks that we had to contend with were the speed that we were running at and the pace and change that we were driving," says Scott Badskey, director of portfolio and process manage- ment within the global project management office (PMO), McDonald's, projects had siloed plans deployed separately in cach market, a structure that slowed progress and prevented consistent communication and delivery, Mr. Badskey says. So in December 2016, the com- pany created a global PMO. Months later, the PMO chose to build a single team to deliver the project across all markets. The centralized structure ensured the same level of quality and reliability for deployment in say, China, as in Canada while still allowing cus- tomization to suit regional language, menu and culture differences. This structure also helped the PMO clearly define roles and responsibilities "A project of this scale can divide a team if you're not careful. But our team stuck together when things didn't always go the way we wanted." -Daniel Henry PMO PACESETTER One way McDonald's picked up the pace was rethinking its governance structure. Previous global JANUARY 2019 PM NETWORK 31 2018 PMI PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST TALENT SPOTLIGHT Amy Martin, PMP, senior director, global project management office, McDonald's Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA Experience: 20 years Why did this project have special meaning to you? It showcases what an organization as vast and diverse as McDonald's can achieve when its people are focused on a common goal How did you relieve project stress? We looked for opportunities to inject fun. For example, we leveraged quarterly awards and informal recognitions and celebrated incremental wins on a weekly basis. What famous person could have been useful on this project? Steve Jobs. There were many parallels with how he innovated and led teams to achieve greatness and the way we ran this project. His guidance to help the team see the possibilities could have come in handy What career lesson did you learn on this project? Those who say it can't be done should get out the way of those doing it. Having the right team makes the seemingly impossible possible. "If you get a small thing wrong in 37,000 restaurants, you get a lot of noise. -Amy Martin, PMP, McDonald's also a culture shift to deploy solutions faster into the restaurants." FASTER FOOD so the project team could anticipate and manage risks as they arose. "Without that, we would have been challenged to successfully accomplish this project on time and under budget," Mr. Badskey says. The global PMO also accelerated delivery by introducing hybrid approaches, including a monthly release cadence with faster sprints for smaller deliv- erables. It was a new model for teams and execu- tives accustomed to longer development cycles, says Amy Martin, PMP, senior director and leader of the global PMO. The delivery shift required leaders to embrace a progress over perfection mindset. "McDonald's is a risk-averse organization," Ms. Martin says. "If you get a small thing wrong in 37,000 restaurants, you get a lot of noise. As much as this was a digital-transformation effort, there was SETTING BOUNDARIES With so many global stakeholders, the project team knew a flurry of change requests was inevitable. Markets frequently wanted to tweak the system for their unique needs or customers, and operators came with new ideas for features once they had the chance to spend time with prototypes. "It was just a highly complex environment," Ms. Martin says. "If we had allowed all of those changes to organically fold into the work, we never would have gone live on time." The global PMO created a change control board to prioritize stakeholder demands, provide a fire wall for developers and mitigate the risk of scope January 2017: Project launches February 2017: Five- store pilot project launches in Chicago Illinois, USA. Project charter and plan formalized for kickoffs in Australia, Canada and China. March 2017: Project goals established and shared with company investors. Deployment begins in United Kingdom April 2017: U.S. scale reaches 412 stores, May 2017: Mobile app launched nationally in Australia June 2017 China mobile app goes live nationally Pilot project is initiated in Hong Kong July 2017: U.K. scale reaches 164 stores August 2017: Key risks identified and mitigated before global scaling continues September 2017: U.K. app becomes available nationwide November 2017: Project reaches 20,000 store deployments worldwide. 2 Mobile Order Curbside Enter 2 in the app to check-in PHOTO BY DAVID TRAN/ALAMY STOCK McDonald's mobile curbside pickup spot in Rockville, Maryland, USA JANUARY 2019 PM NETWORK 33 // 2018 PMI PROJECT OF THE YEAR FINALIST "The largest risks that we had to contend with were the speed that we were running at and the pace and change that we were driving." --Scott Badskey, McDonald's creep. The board met weekly to review the lat- ysis, identified tickets looking for commonality and est iterations, monitor the health of critical path rapidly mobilized teams to address reliability issues goals and consi any change requests. The board as they arose. This carly inter tion helped team approved no changes unless they met a valid busi- ensure smooth rollouts, Ms. Martin says. ness purpose, aligned with the strategic vision and "This approach proved effective with keeping the had a defined budget. overall effort on course throughout the year, ensur- Even with change control board support, the furi- ing the team could develop a mitigation plan and be ous pace created more risks on an already-bold proj- proactive from the onset," she says. ect. "Just like any project where you've got a brand new set of architecture, a brand new capability, there SERVICE SUSTAINED were a lot of unknowns," Ms. Martin says. From the start, the team knew that getting restau- The governance teams proactively looked for warn- rant owner-operators in every market on board ing signs and immediately elevated potential critical- with the platform would require robust change path problems to the risk register for mitigation, she management. In addition to learning new technol- says. For example, after initial key targets were missed ogy, franchise owners and their staff had to roll out during early iterations of the platform, the team estab- crew and manager training, make counter-design lished a dedicated war room that implemented more changes, create space to install kiosks and adapt aggressive testing, Developers applied root cause anal- parking lots for curbside pickup, Ms. Martin says. 34 PM NETWORK JANUARY 2019 PMI.ORG Each restaurant also had to rethink food prep tim- Company data indicates customers are embrac- ing to make sure the quality of each mobile order ing the new system, Ms. Martin says. By carly remained consistent, regardless of whether custom- 2018, in the United States alone, the app had ers chose to dine in, carry out or have their food accrued 30 million downloads, with 110 million delivered curbside. offers redeemed and 7.9 million active users. "Change management issues had to be incorpo- Ms. Martin also estimates that in the first few rated into the project deployment strategy for every months-and with no marketing prompts-the market," Ms. Martin says. "We knew we had to new platform helped the company exceed full- help our folks understand that the way we operate year digital sales goals. is going to be very different for the deployment to The benefits are a testament to the company's be successful." desire to meet disruption-and its competitors- To build buy-in, the team brought in experts to head-on in an effort to transform the customer coach and counsel stakeholders on how to plan experience. As part of the planning phase, the for the changes and communicate the value of the project team studied how other retailers leveraged transformation throughout the restaurant network. digital initiatives to boost customer frequency and The team also held technology demonstrations at loyalty. For instance, studying competitors led the restaurants, set strict deadlines for rollout and cap- team to implement the geofencing solution that tured lessons learned to improve each deployment allows customers who place mobile orders to pick that followed up at any location, Mr. Badskey says. "That enabled us to become faster as we con- "It really allows us to meet the customer where tinued to take on more market deployments," Mr. they want to be met," he says. The entire project Badskey says. was an opportunity to "transform the customer experience." VALUE ACHIEVED Along the way, McDonald's also transformed The project team reached the goal of 20,000 its project management structure and once again deployments in November 2017-one month established itself as a disruptive force in the global ahead of schedule and nearly US$10 million restaurant landscape. under budget. McDonald's customers can now "A project of this scale can divide a team if you're place custom orders, access special offers and pay not careful. But our team stuck together when for their meals on a mobile device. They can pick things didn't always go the way we wanted," Mr. up their food at the counter or in the drive-thru, Henry says. "It was never about an individual; it was or have it delivered curbside. always about the entire team." PM Check out behind-the-scenes videos of this year's PMI Project of the Year Award finalists on PMI's YouTube channel. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! CALL FOR AWARDS NOMINATIONS Honor project excellence in 2019. Visit PMI.org/Awards