Reference no: EM133825129

Question

Project Execution and Control Peer Review Assignment Background Tom was the project manager for a large IT project. He had managed several such projects in the past and had been able to finish half of those successfully (the others either went over budget or completed later than promised). This new project was more complex, and he was determined to complete it on time and on budget. The project was with a new multinational company and could have led to many more such contracts, should the customer be happy with the results of this project. The company was very supportive of Tom and provided a dedicated team and a large lab where the team could work together. The project had some technical challenges; in principle it was like other projects, but the domain and some of the technology was still experimental. The scaling from Alpha phase to commercial use had many unknowns which could be challenging to the engineers and developers in his team. The project milestones meetings scheduled through the Alpha phase were crucial for keeping the customer satisfied. During these meetings, the team demoed what they had accomplished before moving forward. Tom was hoping for a better meeting which was coming up very soon. This was the Alpha III phase demo meeting, and if it went well, the team would move to Beta testing. To be better prepared and avoid some of the issues they had in the last demo meeting with the customer, Tom had planned for a test run before the actual meeting. His team had to be completely ready for all questions that came their way in the next meeting, as he had said this to them repeatedly. The project team was made of 20 members. Half of the members were working on the hardware side of the product while the other half were working on the software development and integration. The two groups exhibited very different styles of working, decision making, and collaborating. There were also some generational differences. Most of the software engineers were young (twenties and early thirties) while the engineers working on the hardware side were in their late forties or older. Tom observed the differences in their thinking and approaches right from the start of the project during the team building activities that he had hoped would create a strong team identity. He had organized a retreat with this goal in mind at the very start of the project, but at the end of the two days, he understood that creating a strong team identity with these 20 people would require lot more effort. He was not even sure if the retreat did any good, and he had abandoned the idea of having another one. Instead, he decided to be personally more active in bringing the two groups together. He would lead by example! What problem does Tom face?