Exam Content
This assignment is intended to help you use leadership skills to gather project members from cross-functional departments and skill sets and lead them in the fulfillment and implementation of a mock project.Discover the various responsibilities of a project manager by organizing a project. See Chapter 19, sections 19.9 and Cases. Apply project management tools and a PM outline type of your choice to structure and plan the project by defining, planning, and controlling. The project will be a continuation of how to improve the process you chose in Weeks 1 and 2. Create a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint presentation (supported by Excel and Word as needed), with detailed speaker notes, that includes the following:
Project description
Project Management Charts (Critical Path, Gant Chart, etc.)

Improved Process Flowchart from Week 1

Meeting cadence/rhythm and timing
Metrics to measure the project’s success
Financial and budgetary considerations
Description of the project reporting structure
t.
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TABLE 19.11 Project Management Responsibilities
Define the Project
Plan the Project
Control the Project
Project triangle
Project scope
Dependency
matrix
Ensure early communication for
dependent activities
Work breakdown structure
defining the activities
Activity
network
Define milestones
Project resources
Critical path
Planning assumptions
Gantt chart
Hold regular reviews
Activity owners
Defining the project includes defining and negotiating the three variables making up the Page 672
project triangle: project time, project budget, and project scope. You then should think
about the activities that are necessary to accomplish the project scope. You take the scope and
break it up into pieces of work. This is often referred to as the work breakdown structure. The
scope defines WHAT the project needs to accomplish, and the work breakdown structure defines
HOW these accomplishments will be achieved. Finally, you need to understand what resources
you have at your disposition. Who will help you to get the job done? And will these folks spend 5
hours on this project every other week or is this project the main part of their job? Finally, we find
it helpful to document a set of assumptions about the project, including how much time the
resources will be available, technical feasibilities, and environmental conditions such as weather,
the competitive landscape, or macroeconomic variables.
Planning the project starts once you have defined the project—it is time to think about the
execution of the work. This is when you apply the tools outlined at the beginning of the chapter:
You create a dependency matrix, draw the activity network, find the critical path, and ultimately
create the Gantt chart. For each activity you need to identify a person who is in charge of the
activity (which might be you) and confirm that the Gantt chart is feasible (the resources needed
are available at the time).
While the first two pieces of work happen before the project gets under way, the important work of
a project manager happens during the actual execution of the project. We refer to this as
controlling the project. As the project unfolds, your job is to track its progress. This includes
carefully tracking the Gantt chart to see that all activities take place as planned. This also includes
managing the interdependencies among the project activities. For example, in the case of static
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a project manager happens during the actual execution of the project. We refer to this as
controlling the project. As the project unfolds, your job is to track its progress. This includes
carefully tracking the Gantt chart to see that all activities take place as planned. This also includes
managing the interdependencies among the project activities. For example, in the case of static
coordination of interdependent activities, it is critical to involve the activity owners of both
activities early on so that one activity can provide early input to the other instead of simply
completing its work and then “throwing its output over the wall” to the other activity.
A common pattern during project execution is that everything looks fine on the surface until
halfway through the project, sometimes even later. Then, bad news accumulates rapidly. To avoid
this, it is important to define a set of milestones that provide a realistic picture of the progress of
the project. At these milestones, the project should be carefully reviewed and the progress should
be carefully evaluated relative to scope, budget, and time. This includes the following:
Revisiting the assumptions of the project and evaluating whether something fundamental has
changed. For example, the project might be facing delays because of bad weather or a
competitor has entered the market, requiring us to change course. Other things might have
come up (unk-unks) and the longer a project continues, the less likely it is that the project
environment at the completion of the project is the same as it was at the outset.
Tracking the project scope is important because projects have a tendency to try to accomplish
more than what was initially agreed on.
Putting together a task list of all unresolved issues and assigning a team member to be
responsible for resolving this issue. Can you imagine that the previously mentioned delay in the
opening of Berlin’s airport was a result of 66,500 unresolved issues, of which over 5,000 were
deemed critical to opening (including fire safety and elevator functionality)?
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A common point of contention in the planning of projects, as well as during the
controlling of the project, relates to the availability of time from team members. We define a
dedicated project team as a project team in which the team members spend 100 percent of their
work time on the project. The benefit of the dedicated team is that team members are not
distracted by their regular work. Dedicating team members to a project tends to also reduce
coordination needs. You get the same hours out of two full-time employees that you get out of four
half-time employees, but the communication requirements are drastically lower.
But such dedication to the work of the project is not always possible. As we defined previously, a
project is a temporary operation. Especially in corporate settings, this temporary organization is
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half-time employees, but the communication requirements are drastically lower.
But such dedication to the work of the project is not always possible. As we defined previously, a
project is a temporary operation. Especially in corporate settings, this temporary organization is
embedded in a larger organization. And these organizations tend to have organizational structures
and hierarchies. The organizational chart (also known as org chart) of the organization is a visual
representation of the reporting relationships in the organization. To use a military term, the org
chart shows the chain of command, with the general at the top of the org chart and the foot
soldier at the bottom.
What is special about project management organization is that the organizational chart might not
neatly map out the organizational hierarchy that the project is embedded in. Oftentimes, projects
bring together members of a diverse set of organizational functions to form a cross-functional
team; for example, to develop a new product, to open a new factory, or to manage the acquisition
of another business. So it is common that members of a project team report to their “regular” boss
(based on their usual position in the org chart) and to the project manager. Such multiple
reporting lines create what is called a matrix organization.
Figure 19.12 shows a simplified org chart for a large automotive company. The company has
various functions, such as manufacturing, sales, development, finance, human resources, and so
on.
Figure 19.12 Simplified org chart for a large automotive company
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Case
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Ariel Skelley/Blend Images LLC
How long does it take to build a house from scratch? Most residential construction projects take
between 3 months and a full year. Habitat for Humanity can do so much faster. In fact, they can
do this much, much faster, as they demonstrated in the construction of Bonnie Lilly’s new home
near Birmingham, Alabama. Bonnie, together with her two children, moved into a home that has
officially been labeled the world’s fastest house by Habitat for Humanity International. The house
has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was built—yes, you are reading correctly—in 3 hours
and 26 minutes.
If you enter “fastest house ever built” into YouTube, you can watch a short movie that shows the
construction. The construction was started using a previously installed foundation. It was
completed when the entire house met all township codes and requirements.
Almost 200 carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, and painters collaborated on this project.
They followed a carefully laid-out project plan. Each task was executed in the allotted time.
Whenever a task was complete, the successor tasks were immediately started because workers
were standing next to the construction site eagerly awaiting the authorization to start their work.
The project was planned and managed by project manager Chad Calhoun of Brice Construction
Company. Chad and his team practiced for the build at an old schoolhouse. He coordinated the
work, defined a project plan, and created a detailed schedule just as he does on his other
construction projects.
QUESTIONS
1. How is it possible to build a house so quickly? Or, asked differently, why are other residential
construction projects taking 100 times longer?
2. What lessons can be learned from this record-time construction for other projects, such as the
construction of new airports, ocean liners, or campus buildings?
Sources:
http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/stories/2002/12/23/editorial1.html?page=all

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