What should the organization do with regard to marketing

Assignment Help Project Management

Reference no: EM131018346

Project Management Paper

Section I

PART 1--Team project management paper-

ASSIGNED CASE- Sam & Betty Construction (SBC),) and your particular trust & distrust scenario will be your assigned case.

1. An assessment of, SBC marketing and financial position. What can you tell about their business health? What should this organization do with regard to marketing? This is where all those years of education start to pay off.

2. An expanded Project Requirements Document to include 3-4 bullet items under each item given to you in the SBC case. Your teams will have to be creative on this one and be creative.

3. A work breakdown structure for the SBC case down to level 3. Hand-drawn diagrams that are clear and professional are acceptable.

4. A revised contract (i.e., statement of work) for the ZPA, SBC or CPM that reflects the scenario assigned to your team. Feel free to revise as necessary accounting for grammar, editing and fit with the scenario given your team.

Teams will present their revisions to the, SBC case based on their particular scenario. Each team can expect to present for 15-20 minutes each. Thus, 3 teams can be expected to present in a 75-minute class with Q&A period following their presentations. You can anticipate feedback to student consulting teams in three areas:

a. Format and content of proposed revisions.
b. Realism of business case given their particular scenario.
c. Overall quality of presentation to SBC management.

Teams should use the ‘IDEAS' model referenced in class to critically analyze the case, provide a basis for discussion, and make recommendations about issues in the case. The ‘IDEAS' model improves problem solving and consists of the following:

a. I - Identify the problem(s) and set priorities (Step 1)
b. D - Deepen understanding & gather relevant information (Step 2)
c. E - Enumerate options & anticipate consequences (Step 3)
d. A - Assess the situation & make a preliminary decision (Step 4)
e. S - Scrutinize the process & self-correct as needed (Step 5)

Teams not presenting that day should take notes on lessons learned with regard to how well the teams they observed communicated requirement assumptions, balancing conflicting requirements within cost, schedule, and scope constraints, and collaborating in the collective authorship of their work.

Professor Adler and/or other will role-play different aspects of ZPA, SBC or CPM management to provide a cross-section of realism of what it will be like to manage projects and customers concurrently.

PART 2--Individual reflective paper-

This part includes your assessment of your team with regard to the following:

Defining the problems and issues

Were the objectives of ZPA, SBC or CPM clearly stated?

How did the reputation of the superintendent affect the definition of problems and issues?

What parts of the project requirements document were problematic?

Actions taken

Where draft requirements changed? How? Why?

How was the draft project requirements document developed? Why?

Was there an overriding team philosophy in changing requirements? If so, how would you describe it?

Organization of Team(s)

Did team members assume roles? What were they?

Did the organization of the team change over time? How?

How was integration of team member input integrated?

Communication

Did someone assume leadership of the team? If so, who?

Did all team members contribute to the team's final set of requirements? If not, why not?

How did the team communicate internally? How frequently? How did your team communicate with other teams?

What were the most effective forms of team communications?

Were there any communication blocks? What were they?

PART 3--Individual Assessment Paper-

This part includes your analysis of the SDI model relative to you and your team this semester:

1. How does (your color group) help you as a leader?

2. When people are too (your color group), how does that change their communication?

3. Why is (your color group) important to your team?

4. If you recognized that a prospective customer was extremely (your color group), how could you tailor your sales presentation?

5. What did you learn in your assessment of your team?

6. Does conflict come from differences in strengths or values? If so, how much?

7. What would happen if you had conversations like this with more people?

8. What would you expect of a boss with your color group? With the other color groups?

9. What would you expect of your colleagues with your group? With the other color groups?

10. How can the SDI help you personally? socially?

Section II

Sam & Betty Construction (SBC) Case

Sam and Betty's Construction (SBC) is a small business owned by Sam and Betty Smith. The construction firm is located in a typical southwestern town next to a major state university. While attending a national conference for homebuilders in Dallas, Sam and Betty became impressed by the profitability of business carried out by the city's premium homebuilders. Upon returning home, they converted their business into a premium operation. This conversion was a complex process that took over a year to implement.

Almost immediately, profits soared. This increase lead to additional factors in the company's growth. SBC began to market to a higher class of consumer, so these people came from miles around to take advantage of Sam and Betty's unique styles and quality workmanship. Furthermore, the business benefited when two national magazines identified Sam and Betty's town as one of the top 10 places to live in the United States.

The drawback of this success was that local customers could not afford these pricey homes. They no longer sought out SBC. Instead of the local customers, clients came from the east and west coast to look for the ultimate retirement home at a good value.

Sam and Betty observed these changes with mixed emotions. It was nice to see that SBC's new premium products were bringing in more money and customers with greater financial stability. However, customer demands were increasing while SBC's ability to stay ‘on top of market trends' was diminishing. Demands were centered on three issues: more use of floor space for added amenities, higher quality suppliers for home utilities, appliances and furnishings, and a wider selection of unique home designs. Sam and Betty were concerned that their success would backfire on them and that customers would fail to see their homes as different from any other home in the area unless they were able to address these demands.

Sam and Betty discussed these issues. They realized that the future of the construction business was changing. Homes were either becoming cheaper and more discounted or more expensive and tailored to fit individual needs.Sam and Betty realized their new business model had to more successfully target the latter market. Mid-range homes were hard to find in their city, and they also wondered if this was a popular national trend.

Sam and Betty had good working relationships with their customers and this rapport usually resulted in customer satisfaction. However, they decided that they needed to change several things about their current business practices to continue to grow and survive in this tightening construction market. Because of fluctuating interest rates, they had to take on short-term debt more frequently than anticipated to pay their premium suppliers. These setbacks tied up their working resources leaving little wiggle room for them to capitalize on other opportunities. For example, two months ago, a wealthy new customer came into town who wanted an immediate product. Because Sam and Betty had little immediate money to find a second source supplier, they lost the account to a competitor.

Sam and Betty determined that their primary need was finding a new architectural design partner. Sam and Betty sat down with paper and pencil and roughly calculated their requirements: to meet anticipated customer demands with more expensive and tailored homes, they would need to find a business partner from outside the local area. After many hours of research, they concluded that the most attractive firm to partner with was the Swift Trust Corporation.

Sam and Betty met twice with the Swift Trust Corporation to identify what requirements were necessary in order to suit the new kind of homes they were going to build. The Swift Trust Corporation subsequently provided Sam and Betty with a draft set of requirements and project definition worksheet. (note: The Swift Trust Corporation will be referred to as just Swift Trust in the remainder of this analysis.) Sam and Betty were very excited by this initial progress, however, Sam and Betty felt overwhelmed because they did not how to review a draft work statement or project definition worksheet. Thus, your task teams have been hired by SBC to review and revise the attached set of draft contract requirements and project definition worksheet from Swift Trust based on the scenario provided to you by the instructor

Draft SBC Work Statement (from Swift Trust)

1.0 The seller shall fabricate, support local and government inspections, and then deliver architectural designs to the procuring agency. This includes design of beams, joists, rafters, columns, and footings using solid sawn lumber, specification of concrete type, I-joists, tube steel and wide flange steel, operator and maintenance manuals, and any special tools or equipment necessary to support construction in the field.

2.0 The seller shall notify the buyer of any parts, materials and/or processes that could adversely impact the SBC corporation and which will, or potentially could, impact the requirements in this work statement. The primary criterion is the unintentional failure of any physical facilities and physical harm to its users. The seller should provide a list of possible hazards that should also be considered.

2.0 Schematics and project plans shall be prepared in accordance with SBC requirements and universal building codes and submitted for SBC approval. The seller shall perform risk analysis in accordance with the generally approved engineering principles. Compliance with building codes shall be available for SBC review.

3.0 All software should be identified in the analysis of architectural designs. The major thrust of this requirement shall be use by SBC to conduct cost and technical trade-offs between alternative design choices. The seller shall evaluate the design of any new or modified buildings to provide a cost, schedule and technical impact statement to the surrounding environment.

4.0 The seller shall provide all utility and basic appliance hook-ups. The seller shall retain all preservation and packaging materials. The seller shall insure that all utility and appliance owner's manuals are retained and filed for SBC ownership.

5.0 The seller shall identify to SBC the project manager(s) responsible for all tasks required by this contract. The seller's project manager should be the single focus for reporting all information about the status of the architectural design and subsequent construction. The seller's project manager shall support SBC planning efforts by attending meetings, conferences and reviews and responding to requests for information.

6.0 The seller shall prepare and submit a design status report biweekly commencing five days after contract award. These annual reports should include, as a minimum, the status of all deviations and waivers, any significant problems or issues, current schedule, inspection results, and structural and integrity analyses.

7.0 The seller shall provide an architectural design that minimizes the costs of ownership to SBC. The seller shall specify the source of the cost estimates, techniques, assumptions, analysis methodology, rationale and derivation of the cost estimates.

8.0 The seller shall provide architectural design support services on an as needed basis to SBC to provide trade-off analyses for a period of two months after construction is begun.

Draft SBC Project Requirement's Document (from Swift Trust)

1. Background and summary of project
2. Project objectives
3. Deliverables
4. Key milestones
5. Assumptions
6. Risks
7. Key resource requirements
8. Constraints
9. Stakeholders
10. Reviews
11.Communication plan
12. Change management plan
13. Financial analysis
14. Project rewards for achievement

Scenario 1 (High Trust, Low Distrust)

The draft requirements and project definition worksheet you are to review are Swift Trust's first attempt at defining what will be required of them. As discussed previously, the people at Swift Trust have a positive reputation and this set of requirements is most likely ‘Right on the money.' You expect your trading relationship to continue to grow over time and that new ideas and opportunities will arise as you work together. Your team has the responsibility to define requirements that best fit the trading relationship between SBC and this non-local architectural design firm. Remember, if these requirements are worded adequately, this could contribute to a favorable trading partnership. Your team also needs to report back at the designated time with a tailored set of ‘final' requirements to expedite the formation of a timely contract.

Scenario 2 (Low Trust, High Distrust)

You are considering hiring a new organization called the Swift Trust Corporation as a non-local provider to do work for your firm (i.e. provide architectural design support). You know the reputation of this company and are confident they have written this first draft set of requirements for on-going architectural design support and house construction to exploit your organization. Since you will be moderately dependent on this organization, many employees are wary and watchful of what they have to say and how they act since their reputation indicates a strongly negative past performance. Swift Trust is not a trading partner that makes people in your organization comfortable, but there appears to be no other option at this point.

Consequently, the draft contract requirements and project definition worksheet you are to review need to be thoroughly scrubbed to ensure appropriate checks and balances are in place to protect your organization's interests. To what level of detail you revise these requirements, if at all, depends on how vulnerable you are willing to make your organization. As discussed previously, the people at Swift Trust have a reputation for being underhanded. So this draft set of requirements is most likely ‘Contaminated Beyond Belief.' Since the quality of architectural design greatly affects the perceived quality of homebuilding projects, you may have to cancel this project at any time if perceived quality begins to suffer.

Your team has the responsibility to define requirements that best fit the trading relationship between SBC and this non-local architectural design firm. Remember, if these requirements are worded adequately, the effect could contribute to a favorable trading partnership. Your team also needs to report back at the designated time with a tailored set of ‘final' requirements to expedite the formation of a timely contract.

Scenario 3 (High Trust, High Distrust)

You are considering hiring a new organization called the Swift Trust Corporation as a non-local provider to do work for your firm (i.e. provide architectural design support). You know the reputation of this company and are confident they have provided a good first draft set of requirements for on-going architectural design and house construction. You are also aware that the company you are considering as a trading partner has not been reliable when times have turned bad in the past. For instance, while they have honored the literal sense of contract requirements, they have also tried to steal proprietary company secrets. This organization seems to be a ‘Fair Weather' type of partner and, consequently, you do not want to let them have access to all your practices and processes. However, if terms, conditions, and rules can be defined ahead of time, then this company typically does a very good job in providing excellent products and services.

The draft contract requirements and project definition worksheet you are to review are Swift Trust's first attempt at defining what will be required of them. As discussed previously, Swift Trust is experienced and this draft set of requirements is most likely ‘Right on the money.' You expect, however, that some of the terms of these requirements are purposely vague so as to provide Swift with a loophole if the project goes poorly. You will probably have to spend a lot of time monitoring and haggling with them over the development and enforcement of these requirements once the project is started. Your team has the responsibility of defining requirements that best fit the trading relationship between SBC and this non-local architectural design firm. Remember, if these requirements are worded adequately, the effect could contribute to a favorable trading partnership in good and bad times. Your team also needs to report back at the designated time with a tailored set of ‘final' requirements to expedite the formation of a timely contract.

Reference no: EM131018346

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