Problem Solution: Harrison-Keyes Inc.

“Control is the process of comparing actual performance against plan to identify deviations, evaluate possible alternative courses of actions, and take appropriate corrective action” (Gray & Larson, 2005). A key business process for any project is to know how well it is accomplishing its goals by measuring performance and progress. In reality the theory is not recognized seriously. The Project Management InstituteÐ'® (PMIÐ'®) estimates that the United States spends $2.3 trillion on projects each year. Unfortunately, studies show that most of these projects will not succeed. The Standish Group reports that only 29% of all projects are actually delivered on time, within budget, and to specification. According to the PMI Fact Book, nearly 90% of all companies lack the strategy to manage properly their project portfolio; only 17.6% of companies have standard project management processes in place (Global Knowledge, 2008). Harrison-Keyes’ issues fall into the same categories of “project control process.” In this paper project management control plan will be discussed to find a solution for Harrison-Keyes.

Describe the Situation

Issue and Opportunity Identification

The senior management team of Harrison-Keyes is not unified in support of e-book system. The newly hired CEO, Williams Guardo, who replaces resigned CEO Meg McGill, is not in favor of e-book system, whereas the management team is in the confusion of management direction. The company has a chance to form better relationships with all the stakeholders. Project leadership appears to be lacking. As the project confuses, Jan Peters, Head of Implement Team, appears to be over her head without energizing leadership or skilled management of the details. Jan Peters should take advantage of this opportunity to focus on energizing the team with the strategic vision and delegate the complex details of managing various aspects of the project. "Management is about coping with complexity, while leadership is about coping with change" (Gray & Larson, 2005).

The marketing effort has been ineffective, Harrison-Keyes management is not sure if the company goes for the right market. Original projections were for half-year sales around $16 million. Unfortunately, the company only realized $3 million. This creates an opportunity for new CEO to revisit the original estimates of revenues, and reevaluate the underlying assumptions. "It is well known that a cost or time estimate usually has a better chance of being reasonable and realistic when several people with relevant experience and/or knowledge of the task is used" (Gray & Larson, 2005).

Planning a project but Harrison-Keyes does not have contingency plans, or backup plans, especially when subcontractor Asia Digital was wiped out in a millennium floods. Outsourcing has caused morale problem that leads to a high rate of quitting jobs and that broke the team spirit. New project implementation plan missed many details. The work breakdown structure likely did not provide enough detail and lack of responsibility assignments. Senior managers often rely on others or CEO to make decisions and were not aggressive in making their own decisions.

Sudden 20% reduction of budget would change project scope. Functional departments did not cooperate and likely did not understand the process. Program control methodology has failed for half a year. There were not progress and performance control processes in place. Finally the new CEO put new pressure on Jane Peters to straighten out the project or he would terminate the effort and reallocate funds and resources.

Harrison-Keyes has many opportunities to become successful with e-publishing market when the company straightens out those issues in three main areas of project control process as in the following paragraphs. Expand.

Area #1: Project Control Process

Harrison-Keyes does not have an effective “project control process.” The company had unreliable input from marketing research that may lead to wrong numbers for budget, cost and schedule planning. Senior managers likely do not understand project goals and feel irresponsible. In the industry standard the project control steps for measuring and evaluating project progress and performance are presented below: (Gray & Larson, 2005)

1. Setting a baseline plan: The baseline plan provides management with the elements for measuring performance.” The baseline is derived from the cost and duration information found in the work breakdown structure (WBS) database and time-sequence data from the network and resource scheduling decisions” (Gray & Larson, 2005). Jan Peters, the Head of Implementation Team admitted that the original implementation plan was not thorough and missed many important details. Jan has fixed the plan many times for last six months but the issue has deeper root cause. The status report on each baseline was too different with the plan.

2. Measuring progress and performance: “Time and budgets are quantitative measures of performance that readily fit into the integrated information system. Qualitative measures such as meeting customer technical specifications and product function are most frequently determined by on-site inspection or actual use” (Gray & Larson, 2005). Without a right work breakdown structure and information system CEO and Jan does not have enough information to identify risks that may arise anytime.

3. Comparing plan against actual: “plans seldom materialize as expected; it becomes imperative to measure deviations from plan to determine if action is necessary” (Gray & Larson, 2005). Harrison-Keyes would schedule to monitor and measure periodically the status of the project to compare with what in the plan. The company should find issues soon enough to mitigate risks.

4. Taking action: if there are issues, corrective actions must take place to repair and avoid further damages.

Area #2: Need for an integrated information system

The skeleton for all project control project is an information system. The system will help to collect, maintain, analyze and report essential data of the project. “Typical key data collected are actual activity duration times, resource usage and rates, and actual costs, which are compared against planned times, resources, and costs” (Gray & Larson, 2005). A major portion of the monitoring system focuses on the most important control for managers that are cost and schedule as planned and as actually performed in synchronized time phases. The benefits