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Assignment 1 asks us to consider several questions concerning NBT, a large satellite development project which primarily services the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The case focuses on the plight of Sarah, recently hired as the project’s Deputy Project Manager for Resources (DPM/R). Sarah faces many issues as she takes over the beleaguered project, including an Inspector General audit involving a year’s worth of uncosted residual funds from nine previous fiscal years which has come under congressional scrutiny.

Question 1. In the NBT case, how realistic is the budget request that was given to NOAA prior to Sarah’s arrival on the project? Describe how you would determine the actual budget based on the facts given and drawing upon the tools and techniques from your prior project management courses:

The budget request given to NOAA prior to Sarah’s arrival on the project is not necessarily unrealistic, in my opinion, despite the positive residual funds from recent years. NBT could benefit from the implementation and commitment to earned value project management. Sarah must follow the steps in developing an earned value project baseline, as defined by Quentin W. Fleming and Joel M. Koppelman in their book, “Earned Value Project Management”. Those steps are:
• Define the project scope
• Plan and schedule the work
• Allocate the resources
• Form the project baseline
In order to carry out these steps, Sarah must gain the commitment of vendors such as Acme Space Company to update the detailed schedules and drawings so that the contractor’s master schedule would reflect the true status of the project. As Fleming and Koppelman point out, “earned value is dependent upon the project’s scheduling system to provide the mechanism for measurement of performance. A project scheduling system will, by definition, reflect the project’s scope of work, and then place all the defined works tasks into specific time frame for execution” (Fleming & Koppleman, 2010). These activities lead to the establishment of the Performance Measurement Baseline and allow for the management of reserve funds.

Question 2. How could a well organized Project Management Office (PMO) have avoided the problems that arose in the NBT Project? In responding to this question draw upon the various strategies and best practices for PMOs discussed in Kendall and Rollins. Explain how as a Program Manager you would have structured your PMO so these problems could have been identified and dealt with early on. Would you recommend an Authoritative PMO as discussed in chapter 2 of Kendall and Rollins, or would another type of PMO work better? How would you convince your CEO that a PMO would have prevented the problems that arose in the NBT project?

The problem with the greatest potential to cause the largest overrun for the project, in my opinion, is the lack of commitment to proper earned value management of the project by the Acme Space Corporation and individuals such as Sam, the NBT Deputy Project Manager. There is not one single issue, but a number of them that feed into this problem. These issues include Acme’s master schedule not always reflecting the true status of the project, the lack of documentation of outstanding engineering changes that should have been facilitated by Sam, NBT’s Deputy Project Manager, and the fact that Acme Space Company would not reflect proposed changes in the performance measurement baseline until they were negotiated. Referring to Fleming and Koppleman, “controlling a baseline requires both information and an information retrieval system. Each action that alters or potentially alters the approved baseline needs to be carefully tracked, so that the project manager may make a conscious decision to approve or reject each change” (Fleming & Koppleman, 2010, p. 109). As stated previously, Sarah must gain a commitment from all parties involved to log any changes that may impact the project’s performance baseline. In order to gain this commitment, Sarah must rely on her collaborative relationship with project sponsorship in order to leverage the required behavior from Acme. Authors Ian Sutherland and Kevin McGreal define the leadership component of project sponsorship as the use of “influence, power and authority to facilitate the resolution of strategic issues and risks that the Project Manager is unable to control or mitigate” Further, sponsorship can assist in, “defining the expected values and behaviors that should guide the management of the project” (Sutherland & McGreal, 2005).
Question 3. NBT lacks what Kendal & Rollins describe in their book, Advanced Project Portfolio Management and the PMO: Multiplying ROI at Warp Speed, as “a centralized organization dedicated to improving the practice and results of project management” (Kendall & Rollins, 2003 p. 7). The project relies on individual management – with little or no collaborative effort designed to facilitate the management of projects on one level, and improvement of management of the entire enterprise in order to afford an organizational focus on improving the management of projects, programs, and portfolios. NBT requires a cultural change throughout the organization (Crawford, 2011). Kendall & Rollins point toward the importance of looking at “the entire collection of an organization’s projects (the project mix) and how it is linked to achieving the goals of the entire organization, not just one functional area” – this is an area where NBT is lacking (Kendall & Rollins, 2003). With this consideration in mind, I would structure a Project Management Office primarily with the task of facilitating access to and communication between NBT Leadership and the Project Managers – and the Project Managers and the Functional Managers within the vendor organizations. It is clear that the project lacks maturity with respect to project management tools and, with respect to this fact, the PMO should emphasize commitment to development of a work breakdown structure and earned value management. Considering the issues that NBT has experienced, particularly the uncosted residual funds, structuring the PMO with an emphasis on through-put, rather than cost containment, would have a better chance of bringing the project back on track.
NBT’s problems are, most likely, not unusual for large-scale projects and illustrate a common lack of commitment to the procedures, methodology, and standards for managing a project. The principle obstacle that Sarah faces is the difficulty in effecting a cultural change within NBT in order to establish commitment to the monitoring and controlling aspects of project management.

References:
Crawford, J. K. (2011). The strategic project office. (2nd ed.). CRC Press.
Fleming, Q. W., & Koppleman, J. M. (2010). Earned value project management. Project Management Inst.
Kendall, G., & Rollins, S. (2003). Advanced project portfolio management and the pmo: Multiplying roi at warp speed. J Ross Pub.
Sutherland, I., & McGreal, K. (2005). Defining effective sponsorship for complex projects. Paper presented at Pmi global congress proceedings, Edinburg, Scotland

One of my favorite quotations associated with projects and project management is a passage in author James P. Lewis’ book, “Fundamentals of Project Management, Developing Core Competencies to Help Outperform the Competition” in which Lewis refers to quality expert Dr. J. M. Juran’s definition of a project as “a problem scheduled for solution”.  Juran’s definition refers to the temporary nature of a project, but it also touches upon what I believe to be one of the fundamental, underlying strengths of project management:  its ability to solve problems.  We know through popular culture that NASA’s project to save the crew of Apollo 13 began with the fateful words, “Houston, we have a problem”.  Lewis reminds us that “a problem is a gap between where you are and where you want to be, with an obstacle that prevents easy movement to close the gap” (Lewis, 2002).   Project management can be viewed as a methodology that utilizes knowledge, tools, and skills to help avoid the obstacle and a stakeholder as anyone with an interest in the opportunity gap being closed. Indeed, project management utilizes project risk management principles in order to help reduce problems, thereby ensuring a stakeholder’s investment in a project is fully maximized (Kanabar & Warburton, 2008).

Strong leadership is a necessary attribute that a successful Project Manager should possess, and one can demonstrate leadership by being an effective problem-solver, among other things. There are a number of problems, or obstacles, encapsulated within the microcosm of the project that must be effectively handled, whether they be logistical, cost-associated, or interpersonal. Certainly, every manager is faced with these constraints. In order to evaluate a given strength of project management, one must accept that it is a means to an end.  Each stakeholder recognizes that a gap exists between where the organization is at present and where it wants to be (the problem).  Not all problems are bad – was it Bob Maynard who said, “All problems are opportunities in disguise”? So, project management becomes a means to achieve the desired outcome. Like a journey from one destination to another, PM provides a clear and concise road map. It maps out the intended route, the conveyance that will be utilized to make the trip, and a metric for determining when the destination will be achieved and how successful the team was in achieving it. All of this folds back into my very generalized analysis of strength as success factors that help determine whether the gap is closed and the desired outcome is achieved.

Kanabar, V., & Warburton, R. D. H. (2008). Mba fundamentals project management. New York: Kaplan.

Lewis, J. P. (2002). Fundamentals of project management, developing core competencies to help outperform the competition. AMACOM/American Management Association

Project managers and project teams that function globally must develop a sound communication strategy in order to ensure success. Author Jean Carlo Binder, in his book, “Global Project Management: Communication, Collaboration and Management Across Borders”, extols the virtues of developing a good strategy early on in order to “reduce misunderstandings between stakeholders from different country and company cultures communicating over distance. The main interested parties must work together to define this strategy, creating the project communications management plan”(Binder, 2007). Binder lists the three main steps to prepare a global communications strategy as “identifying the types of information to be communicated, gathering the communication requirements from the key stakeholders, and determining how the communication will effectively happen” (Binder, 2007).  Just as organizations have learned that “effective communication among people from the same culture is often difficult; ours and other businesses must accept that it is extremely difficult when attempting to communicate with people from a different culture who do not speak English, and have different attitudes, ideas, assumptions, perceptions, and ways of doing things. One’s chances for miscommunication increase enormously “(Adekola & Sergi, 2007).

Adekola, A., & Sergi, B. (2007). Global business management: a cross-cultural perspective. (p. 173). Ashgate Publishing Group.

Binder, J. C. (2007). Global project management, communication, collaboration and management across borders. (p. 101). Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, Ltd.