LINC, 9172 Topic: Project Management

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LINC, 9/17/2Topic Project Management

• Review Teams (you should now have a worksheet)
  meetings
• Case Study Defining a project
• Goal(s)
• Scope
• Team meetings in class today
• Learning About Project Partners handout
• Thursday Personal Course Archive due (1 per
  person)

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Review Team Meetings

• Chicken Run
• Record - elements of a meeting.
• What are the chickens project goal and scope?
• Find someone you do not know
• Introduce yourself share what you observed

How can you enhance your next meeting?
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The Pimento Paste Project an exercise in goal
setting
Background  Imagine you are working on a project
for a vegetable processing company that makes a
specialty product called "Pimento Paste." It is
a very profitable portion of the business, though
it is made only 2 months each year. The
last step of the process is to cool the 5 gallon,
hot-packed cans of paste. Until this year, the
company has been able to cool the cans in the 0oF
frozen-foods warehouse. But the frozen-foods
portion of the business has expanded, and there
is no longer floor space in the warehouse for the
pallets filled with cans of pimento paste.
Cooling is done because if the cans are not
cooled soon after filling, the product continues
to cook. One desirable characteristic of the
product is the chunkiness, or piece integrity.
If the final product has the proper degree of
lumpiness, it has good piece integrity (think
chunky tomato sauce). If the product cooks too
long, it loses piece integrity and becomes too
runny. By cooling soon after filling, piece
integrity (chunkiness) is maintained.   Question
What is the goal of this project?
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The Pimento Paste Process
Q What is the goal of this project?
Hint Step back from the project
diced pimentos
hot cans
cool cans
paste
Mix Cook
Fill Seal
Cool, 0oF Warehouse
No more space for pallets of pimento paste cans!
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The Pimento Paste Process
The goal of this project is to maintain piece
integrity.
diced pimentos
hot cans
cool cans
paste
Mix Cook
Fill Seal
Cool, 0oF Warehouse
No more space for pallets of pimento paste cans!
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The Pimento Paste Process
Step back from the project
diced pimentos
hot cans
cool cans
paste
Mix Cook
Fill Seal
Cool, 0oF Warehouse
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SMART Goals

• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed upon
• Realistic
• Time framed

The goal of the pimento paste project is to
maintain piece integrity, without using floor
space in the 0o warehouse, and to implement the
solution by next season.
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Project Scope

• Scope defines what you are doing
• Size of the project (people, locations, time
  duration, cost, etc.). Think who, where, when,
  how much
• What will not be included. Think later, by
  others
• All parties need to understand the scope

E.g., Pimento Paste (What is yet tbd) Who
project to be done by your team in cooperation
with the plant production staff, Where pimento
processing line at plant 2, When during spring
shut-down operational July 1, How much budget
not to exceed 2M.
scope creep the tendency for projects to expand
with time
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Learning About Project Partners
A series of mini-seminars to help you learn about
one anothers partners and projects. This should
enhance your own project.
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Some possible tasks for Thursday

• Discuss your project goal(s) and scope.
• Do you need to step back in thinking about your
  goals?
• In what ways might we ?
• Work on STP-2
• Plan your mini-seminar

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LINC, 9/17/2Topic Project Management

• Review Teams (you should now have a worksheet)
  meetings 10 minutes
• Case Study Defining a project 25 minutes
• Goal(s)
• Scope
• Team meetings in class today
• Learning About Project Partners handout
• Thursday Personal Course Archive due (1 per
  person)

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Reflections, 9/18/2
This went ok, though I could have facilitated the
case study better by a graphic showing
concentric circles as areas of focus with
point that finding the appropriate area of focus
is a part of good goal setting. It would have
also been better to have them work in small
groups to develop the goals, rather than
individual with all-class report backs.
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LINC, 9/24/2Topic Project Management (session
2 of 3)

• Review Setting project goals and scope
• The Pimento Paste Project
• Steps in a Project
• Keys to Success

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The Pimento Paste Process
THM In setting goals, step back from the
project
diced pimentos
hot cans
cool cans
paste
Mix Cook
Fill Seal
Cool, 0oF Warehouse
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Gathering Information Asking Questions
Step 1, Set Goal The goal of the pimento paste
project is to maintain piece integrity, without
using floor space in the 0o warehouse, and to
implement the solution by next season. Step 2,
Gather Information What do you need to know to
accomplish the goal? (Try asking yourself who,
what, where, how, and why?) Imagine that you
will be responsible for the total solution of the
problem. What do you need to know? Discuss in
groups and make a list Post on board
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Some Possible Questions
1. Who is in charge of the pimento production?
Are there experts or "keepers" of the process?
How can I contact them? 2. What is the rest of
the process (before and after cooling)? 3. What
affects piece integrity? 4. When will the process
be operating this year? For how long? Do other
processes use the equipment in the off season.5.
Is there space in the 0o warehouse above floor
level? Is there extra cooling capacity? (Are we
sure there is no floor space?) 6. How long (what
time-temperature relationships) does it take to
cause the piece degradation to exceed acceptable
levels?7. Why is piece integrity important?
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Brainstorm Possible Solutions

• Try for quantity get many ideas
• Do not evaluate anything goes
• Borrow from others use a previous idea to
  prompt a new idea
• Do not evaluate stop yourself

In what ways might we solve the pimento paste
problem? -- or -- accomplish the project
goal (maintain piece integrity)?
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Stuck? try Component Analysis
Components of your project are the major elements
or factors in a system. You can find them by
asking What can be changed? (You may have
assumed that you would have to change the cooling
portion of the process. That is the most obvious
component in this case, but it is not the only
one.)   There are four major components in this
pimento paste project (1) the raw materials, (2)
the process, (3) the final product, and (4) the
customer.
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A Possible Sequence of Steps

• Define project goal and scope
• Gather Information ask questions get answers
• Brainstorm solutions (use component analysis,
  etc.)
• Apply constraints determine feasible solutions
• Analyze remaining alternatives choose a best
  solution a back-up solution
• Develop plan, implement, adapt as needed

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Project Steps a comparison
Osborn/Parnes CPS
Critical Thinking

• Visioning objective finding (desiring)
• Fact finding (what is?)
• Opportunity/idea finding (what might be?)
• Solution finding (what should be?)
• Acceptance finding (what could be?)
• Taking action (what will be?)

• Define goals scope
• Gather info ask questions get answers
• Brainstorm solutions
• Apply constraints
• Analyze remaining alternatives, choose
• Plan, implement adapt

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Community-based Action Research

• Look
• Gather relevant information (Gather info)
• Build a picture to describe the situation
  (Define)
• Think
• Explore and analyze What is happening here?
  (Analyze)
• Interpret and explain How/why are things as they
  are? (Theorize)
• Act
• Plan
• Implement
• Evaluate

Recurring process Look, think, act, look, think,

Stringer, Earnest T., Action Research, Sage
(1999)
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Six Phases of a Projectan alternative view

• Wild enthusiasm
• Disillusionment
• Total confusion
• Search for the guilty
• Punishment of the innocent
• Promotion of the non-participants

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Keys to SuccessTriple Constraints of Projects
Budget
Success
Schedule
Performance
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Keys to SuccessQuadruple Constraints of Projects
Client Acceptance
Budget
Success
Schedule
Performance
Implications of scope creep
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1. Project mission define project goals,
directions, and scope clearly
2. Management support obtain resources and
authority for action
3. Schedule plans create and keep a detailed set
of action steps
4. Client consultation communicate with, consult
with, and actively listen to all parties
impacted by the project
5. Personnel convince non contributors to drop
course and persuade most effective friends to
register for next semester
6. PA appeasement insure that your instructor is
happy
7. Client acceptance sell final product to
users
8. Monitoring and feedback provide information
at each stage
9. Communication establish and use networks
with all key actors
10. Troubleshooting handle unexpected crises and
deviations
Top Ten Critical Success Factors for
Projects Adapted from Smith (60)
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Skills for Effective Project Managers

• Communication listening, persuading (84)
• Organization goal setting, planning, analyzing
  (75)
• Team building empathy, motivation, esprit de
  corps (72)
• Leadership creativity vision, humility,
  resolve (68)
• Coping flexibility, patience, persistence (59)
• Technological expertise, project knowledge (46)

Percentage of respondents who listed this as a
part of what it takes to be a good project
manager. (Smith, 58)
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LINC, 9/24/2Topic Project Management (session
2/3)

• Review Setting project goals and scope (5)
• The Pimento Paste Project
• Step 2, Gathering information (10)
• Step 3, Brainstorming solutions (10)
• Steps in a Project (10)
• Keys to Success
• Triple/quadruple constraints (5)
• Critical success factors (5)
• Skills for effective project managers (5)

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LINC, 10/1/2Topic Project Management (session
3 of 3)

• The Pimento Paste Project (20-25)
• review project steps
• Steps 4, 5, 6, (10)
• Project plan, Gantt chart, (20-25)

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A Possible Sequence of Steps

• Define project goal and scope
• Gather Information ask questions get answers
• Brainstorm solutions (use component analysis,
  etc.)
• Apply constraints determine feasible solutions
• Analyze remaining alternatives choose a best
  solution a back-up solution
• Develop plan, implement, adapt as needed

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Pimento Paste Project, cont
You are just ready to launch into step 4, when
you are contacted by the plant engineer at the
vegetable company. He is the person who hired
your consulting team, and he is very enthused to
talk with you!
I have some great news! he says. I just got
off the phone with a friend who manages a
shipping company. She can rent us two
refrigerated semi trailers for 35 of the going
rate during the two month period when we are
processing pimento paste. We could park the
trailers at the 0o warehouse dock, run
some electrical lines to the refrigeration units
on the trailers, and essentially use the space
as an extension of the warehouse cooling
pallets of paste inside the trailers! It will
be cheap and easy, and if we want to do something
different in the future, we have not invested a
lot of capital!
Observations? Reactions? Response?
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Observations/Reactions/Responses to the Plant
Engineer
Observations The plant engineer seems to be
quite excited. He has been working some on the
project. He has several reasons to use
refrigerated trailers as the solution.
Reactions Why is he so excited by this
alternative? How much has he been working on the
project what else has he done? Will the
refrigerated trailer option work? Are there other
tasks to be done with the trailers besides
parking and wiring?
Responses You certainly seem enthused! (reflect
emotion) How much is the rental cost? (to show
interest and get some details) Have you
considered other options? (to see what else hes
done ) Could we meet to discuss this? (to
address will it work, other tasks, )