Project Management at MM
âWeâve got a real âwarm puppyâ here,â Brian Smith told
Werner McCann. âMake sure you make the most of it. We could use a winner.
âSmith was MMâs CIO, and McCann was his top project manager. The puppy in
question was Mmâs new venture into direct-to-customer marketing of its green
meters, a product designed to help better manage electrical consumption, and the
term referred to the projectâs wide appeal. The strategy had been a hit with
analysts ever since it had been revealed to the financial community, and the
companyâs stock was doing extremely well as a result. âAt last,â one had
written in his popular newsletter, âwe have a company that is willing to put
power literally and figuratively in consumersâ hands. If MM can deliver on its
promises, we fully expect this company to reap the rewards. âNeedless to say,
the Green project was popular internally, too. âIâm giving it to you because you
have the most project-management experience weâve got,â Smith had said.
âThereâs a lot riding on this one.â As he walked away from Smithâs office,
McCann wasnât sure whether to feel complimented or terrified. He had certainly
managed some successful projects for the company (previously known as Mod Meters)
over the past five years but never anything like this one. Thatâs the problem
with project management, he thought. In IT almost every project is completely
different. Experience only takes you part of the way. And Green was different.
It was the first truly enterprise wide project the company had ever done, and
McCann was having conniptions as he thought about telling Fred Tompkins, the
powerful head of manufacturing, that he might not able to have everything his
own way. McCann knew that, to be successful, this project had to take an
outside-in approachâthat is, to take the end customersâ point of view on the
company. That meant integrating marketing, ordering, manufacturing, shipping
and service into one seamless process that wouldnât bounce the customer from
one department to another in the company. MM had always had separate systems
for each of its âsilos,â and this project would work against the companyâs
traditional culture and processes. The Green project was also going to have to
integrate with ITâs information management renewal (IMR) project. Separate silos
had always meant separate databases, and the IMR project was supposed to
resolve inconsistencies among them and provide accurate and integrated
information to different parts of the company. This was a huge political
challenge, but, unless it worked, McCann couldnât deliver on his mandate. Then
there was the issue of resources. McCann groaned at the thought. MM had some
good people but not enough to get through all of the projects in the IT plan
within the promised timelines. Because of the importance of the Green project,
he knew heâd get good cooperation on staffing, but the fact remained that he
would have to go outside for some of the technical skills he needed to get the
job done. Finally, there was the schedule that had to be met. Somehow, during the
preliminary assessment phase, it had become clear that September 5 was to be
the âhard launchâ date. There were good reasons for thisâthe fall was when
consumers usually became concerned with their energy consumptionâbut McCann worried
that a date barely twelve months from now would put too much pressure on his
team. âWeâve got to get in there first, before the competition,â Smith had said
to him. âThe board expects us to deliver. Youâve got my backing and the support
of the full executive team, but you have to deliver this one.
Six Weeks Later
It was full steam
ahead on the Green project. Itâs amazing what a board mandate and executive
sponsorship can do for a project, thought McCann, who knew how hard it usually
was to get business attention to IT initiatives. He now had a full-time
business counterpart, Raj Sambamurthy. Samba, as he was known to his colleagues,
had come out of Tompkinsâs division and was doing a fantastic job of getting
the right people in the room to make the decisions they needed to move ahead.
The Green steering committee was no Mickey Mouse group either. Smith, Tompkins,
and every VP affected by the project were meeting biweekly with him and Samba to
review every aspect of the projectâs progress. McCann had pulled no punches
when communicating with the committee. âYouâve given me the mandate and the
budget to get this project off the ground,â he had told them. âBut we have to
be clear about what weâre trying to accomplish.â Together, they had hammered
out a value proposition that emphasized the strategic value of the project and
some of the measures they would use to monitor its ultimate success. The
requirements and design phase had also gone smoothly because everyone was so
motivated to ensure the projectâs success. âLinking success to all our annual
bonuses sure helped that! âMcCann had remarked wryly to Samba. Now McCann was
beginning to pull together his dream team of implementers. The team had chosen
a package known as Web-4-U as the frontend of the project, but it would take a
lot of work to customize it to suit their unique product and, even more, to
integrate it with MMâs outmoded back-end systems. The Web-4-U company was based
in Ireland but had promised to provide 24/7 consulting on an as-needed basis.
In addition, Samba had now assembled a small team of business analysts to work
on the business processes they would need. They were working out of the firmâs Cloverdale
office, a thirty-minute drive from ITâs downtown location. (It was a shame they
couldnât all be together, but space was at a premium at headquarters. McCann
made a mental note to look into some new collaboration software heâd heard
about.)Now that these two pieces were in place, McCann felt free to focus on
the technical âgutsâ of the sys-tem. âMaybe this will work out after all,â he
said.
Three Months to Launch
Date By June,
however, McCann was tearing out what little hair was left on his head. He was
seriously considering moving to a remote Peruvian hamlet and breeding llamas. âAnything
would be better than this mess,â he observed to Yung Lee, the senior IT architects,
over coffee. They were pouring over the projectâs critical path. âThe way I see
it,â Lee stated matter-of-factly, âwe have two choices: We can continue with
this inferior technology and meet our deadline but not deliver on our functionality,
or we can redo the plan and go back to the steering committee with a revised
delivery date and budget. âMcCann sighed. Techies always saw things in black
and white, but his world contained much grayer. And so much was riding on
thisâcredibility (his, ITâs, the companyâs), competitive-ness, stock price. He
dreaded being the bearer of this bad news, so he said, âLetâs go over this one
more time. âItâs not going to get any better, but here goes.â Lee took a deep
breath. âWeb-4-U is based on outmoded technology. It was the best available
last year, but this year the industry has agreed on a new standard, and if we persist
in using Web-4-U, we are going to be out of date before Green even hits the
street. We need to go back and completely rethink our technical approach based
on the new standard and then redesign our Web interface. I know itâs a setback
and expensive, but it has to be done. âHow come we didnât know about this earlier?â
McCann demanded. Lee replied, âWhen the standard was announced, we didnât
realize what the implications were at first. It was only in our quarterly
architecture meeting that the subject came up. Thatâs why Iâm here now.â The
architects were a breed apart, thought McCann. All tech and no business sense.
Theyâd lost almost three months because of this. âBy the way,â Lee
concluded,âWeb-4-U knew about this, too. Theyâre scram- bling to rewrite their
code. I guess they figured if you didnât know right away, there would be more
chance of you sticking with them. âThe chances of that are slim to none,
thought McCann. His next software provider, whoever that was, was going to be
sitting right here under his steely gaze. Seeing an agitated Wendy Chan at his
door, he brought the meeting to a hasty close. âIâm going to have to discuss this
with Brian,â he told Lee. âWe canât surprise him with this at the steering
committee meeting. Hang tight for a couple of days, and Iâll get back to you.âOK,â
said Lee, âbut remember that weâre wasting time. âEasy for you to say, thought
McCann as he gestured Chan into his office. She was his counter-part at the IMR
project, and they had always had a good working relationship. âI just wanted to
give you a heads-up that weâve got a serious problem at IMR that will affect
you,â she began. Llamas began prancing into his mindâs eye. âTompkins is refusing
to switch to our new data dictionary. Weâve spent months hammering this out
with the team, but he says he wasnât kept informed about the implications of
the changes, and now heâs refusing to play ball. I donât know how he could say that.
Heâs had a rep on the team from the beginning, and weâve been sending him
regular progress reports. âMcCann was copied on those reports. Their pages of
techno-jargon would put anyone to sleep! He was sure that Tompkins had never
got past the first page of any of those reports. His rep was adweeb, too,
someone Tompkins thought he could live without in his daily operations. âDamn!
This is something I donât need.â Like all IT guys, McCann hated corporate
politics with a passion. He didnât understand them and wasnât good at them. Why
hadnât Samba and his team picked up on this? They were plugged into the
business. Now he was going to have to deal with Chanâs problem as well as his
own if he wanted to get the Green project going. Their back-end processes
wouldnât work at all unless everyone was using the same information in the same
for-mat. Why couldnât Tompkins see that? Did he want the Green project to fail?
âThe best way to deal with this one, âadvised Chan, âis to force him to accept these
changes. Go to John Johnson and tell him that you need Tompkins to change his
business processes to fit our data dictionary. Itâs for the good of the company,
after all.â Chanâs strong suit wasnât her political savvy. âYouâre right that
we need Tompkins on outside,â said McCann, âbut there may be a better way. Let
me talk to Samba. Heâs got his ear to the ground in the business. Iâll speak
with him and get back to you. âAfter a bit of chitchat, Wendy Chan left McCann
to his PERT chart, trying again to deter- mine the extra cost in time if they
went with the new technology. Just then the phone rang. It was Linda Perkins,
McCannâs newly hired work-at-home usability designer. She was one of the best
in the business, and he was lucky to have snagged her just coming off maternity
leave. His promise of flexible working hours and full benefits had lured her
back to work two months before her year-long leave ended. âYouâve got to do
some-thing about your HR department!â Perkins announced. âTheyâve just told me
that Iâm not eligible for health and dental benefits because I donât work on
the premises! Furthermore, they want to classify me as contingent staff, not
mana gerial, because I donât fit in one of their petty little categories for
employees. You promised me that you had covered all this before I took the job!
I gave up a good job at Life Co so I could work from home. âMcCann had indeed
covered this issue in principle with Rick Morrow, ITâs HR representative, but
that had been almost eight months ago. McCann had indeed covered this issue in principle
with Rick Morrow, ITâs HR representative, but that had been almost eight months
ago. Morrow had since left the firm. McCann wondered if he had left any
paperwork on this matter. The HR IT spot had not yet been filled, and all of
the IT managers were upset about HRâs unreceptive attitude when it came to
adapting its policies to the realities of todayâs IT world. âOK, Linda, just hang
in there for a day or two and Iâll get this all sorted out,â he promised.
âHowâs the usability testing coming along? âThatâs another thing I wanted to
talk with you about. The teamâs making changes to the look and feel of the
product without consulting me, âshe fumed. âI canât do my job without being in
the loop. You have to make them tell me when they âredoing things like this.
âMcCann sighed. Getting Perkins on the project had been such a coup that he
hadnât given much thought to how the lines of communication would work within
such a large team. âI hear you, Linda, and weâll work this out. Can you just
give me a few days to figure out how we can improve things? âHanging up, he
grabbed his jacket and slunk out of the office as quickly as he could before
any other problems could present themselves. If he just kept walking south,
heâd make it to the Andes in three, maybe four, months. He could teach himself
Spanish along the way. At least the llamas would appreciate his efforts! MM
could take its project and give it to some other. Poor schmuck. No way was he
going back! He walked furiously down the street, mentally ticking off the
reasons he had been a fool to fall for Smithâs sweet talk. Then, unbidden, a
plan of attack formed in his head. Walking always did the trick. Getting out of
the office cleared his head and focused his priorities. He turned back the way
he had come, now eager to get back in the fray. He had some things to do right
away, and others he had to put in place ASAP.
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