Project Mismanagement free essay sample

Among the many adverse decisions and mistakes made by Gary was his lack of communication and honesty with the stakeholders involved with the project. If Gary would have been more forthcoming with all parties involved (including the Space Technology Institute, the function manager, the team representative from the production department, and the production team as a whole), many problems would have either been avoided or rectified more smoothly. Henry Larson should have also been reprimanded for his involvement and contribution to the project over-run and mismanagement of funds.This would have been the case if Gary would have upheld his integrity and simply communicated to the SEC about Henry’s involvement from the beginning of the project. Yet, among many other erroneous decisions that Gary made, he decided to be covert about Henry’s involvement, which ultimately led to Gary taking on the complete responsibility and accountability of all the problems and failures that oc curred throughout the project. His miscommunication, poor decisionmaking, and mismanagement of funds not only negatively impacted the stakeholders of the project; it also negatively impacted Gary’s career. |Page T. Glenn/AMBA 640/Week 2 Introduction Project management is a skill that requires a great depth of experience and expertise in some very critical areas. Some of those skills include administration, planning, budgeting, and risk assessment. The Orion Shield Project was by far no exception to these essential requirements which is why this project was poorly managed from the beginning stages to the end. Poor time management, lack of proper documentation, mismanagement of funds, and miscommunication were among the many factors that proved to be detrimental to the project.According to Schwalbe, â€Å"Project managers must not only strive to meet specific scope, time, cost, and quality requirements of projects, they must also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of the people involved in or affected by project activities† (2010, p. 8). As the project proceeded, it became evident that Gary was not meeting the expectations of the stakeholders. Is Gary the right person for the position? First of all, Henry Larson, the Director of Engineering, made a bad decision in hiring Gary Allison to be project manager for the Orion Shield Project.Gary’s inexperience to project management caused a great deal of problems for the Orion Shield Project. The Orion Shield Project had a contract worth over $2 million. Hiring Gary to be the overseer of this project proved to be detrimental to the company. It would have been more suitable for him to gain experience by being an assistant manager for first, working and learning from an experienced and seasoned project manager for the Orion Shield Project.Hiring Gary not only negatively impacted the company; it also negatively impacted his career. Conversely, it would have benefited Gary more to refuse this position for lack of experience and request an assistant manager position before being responsible for an entire project for which he is not qualified to handle. According to Hodgson, Paton, and Cicmil, in the International Journal of Project Management, â€Å"organizations operating in the fields of engineering and other technical domains are particularly likely 2|PageT. Glenn/AMBA 640/Week 2 to rely, explicitly or implicitly, on a cadre of professional project managers, largely drawn from among the ranks of technical specialists, often on the assumption that a level of technical expertise is essential for the effective oversight of the technical aspects of the work process† (2011, p. 374). However, it is this kind of assumption that ultimately leads some projects to failure. As Hodgson et al. further argued, selecting a person to be a project manager simply because he or she as technical expertise is not a good en ough reason for a person to bear the sole responsibility of an entire project, which requires and highly demands a number of different skill sets in addition to technical expertise in order to achieve its successful completion and satisfaction with all stakeholders affected by and/or involved with the project. Technical Expertise versus Administrative Skill Moreover, among many of the mistakes that Gary made was his neglect of the necessary administrative details of the project.Gary is a technical minded person; therefore, his focus was only on the technical details of the project. While his technical expertise is useful, his administrative responsibilities cannot be neglected at the expense of him focusing all of his time and energy to the technical side of things. Project management consists of a substantial amount of business administration, which includes documentation of meeting minutes and data processing. As Schwalbe suggested, it would have been a good idea for Gary to have an â€Å"administrative assistant† a part of his supporting staff (2010).The result would have been a happier customer and a lessened administrative burden on Gary. Moreover, by neglecting the administrative side of the project, Gary was well on his way toward a breach of contract with his customer. This could have very well resulted in a termination of the contract, a failed project, a dissatisfied customer, and possible legal action against Scientific Engineering Company (SEC). If neglect of the administrative duties would have persisted, a law suit would not have been far reaching for STI to pursue against SEC. As project manager, Gary has the responsibility of ensuring that 3|PageT. Glenn/AMBA 640/Week 2 all contractual requirements are met. With proper planning, proper staffing, and proper communication, this breach of contract could have been more easily avoided. Ethics and Miscommunication Furthermore, miscommunication was an issue within the core team of the project. Gary neglected to inform his function manager of the new material (JBX-3) being tested in the lab. This caused a chain of events to occur. It caused a substantial amount of time to be wasted by the project team working on material that was not going to be used for the finished project.As a result, the team had to start all over, working on the JBX-3 instead of the material that they were previously directed to work on for two months; this was because Gary neglected to tell them about the change of direction in a sufficient amount of time. This miscommunication was not entirely Gary’s fault however. Paula Arnold, the chief project engineer, and Henry Larson should have also maintained open lines of communication with Gary about the new products that they were testing in the lab.This miscommunication caused the project to experience a budget over-run because it would cost the company more money, more labor hours, and more time to finish the project. As Schwalbe outlined in regards to project management, communication is one of the â€Å"four facilitating knowledge areas of project management† because thereby, project objectives are achieved (2010). Also, Gary was wrong to heed the advice of Henry Larson to lie about the financing of the new materials. This indeed caused an already rocky relationship with Space Technology Industries (STI) to become worse.In order to both increase and sustain trust with STI, Gary’s best option was complete honesty with them, especially about matters of finances. Gary’s decision to listen to Henry’s advice was unethical. Although he was being pressured by the man who hired him to be dishonest and covert about their spending, the ultimate responsibility and blame fell upon Gary’s shoulders because he was the project manager, and he was the one who withheld this critical information from STI, one of the major 4|Page T. Glenn/AMBA 640/Week 2 stakeholders in this project.Gary should have taken ethics into serious consideration before making the decision to conceal the budget issues and Henry’s involvement. â€Å"Managers’ self-interest as well as their level of moral reasoning can have a significant effect on their project evaluation judgments† (Chang Yen, 2007, p. 348). By listening to Henry’s erroneous advice, Gary was attempting to look out for his own career rather than the collective good of all the stakeholders. Moreover, it would have been wise of Gary to be informative to STI about Henry’s involvement with the project.Henry’s manipulation and dishonesty should have been exposed before more bad and costly decisions were made. In fact, it was Gary’s lack of communication with STI, SEC, and his team that caused the project to be a painful and frustrating endeavor. Many of the problems that occurred throughout the project could have either been avoided or rectified if Gary would have been more informative and less covert about his plans and actions. Open lines of communication with all stakeholders is key to success in a project. This necessity is also essential to minimizing the amount of stress, frustration, and labor hours involved with the project.It also increases trust between him and all who are involved with the project. Yet, because Gary neglected this essential and useful attribute, workers’ hours were extended, job related stress was significantly increased, and major distrust between Gary and the stakeholders were experienced. Conclusion In conclusion, Gary’s mismanagement of the Orion Shield Project was an eye-opener for him. It showed him that project management involved a greater depth of skill, ability, and responsibility than being a project engineer.It would benefit Gary to either receive training or higher education in business administration before taking on another project if the opportunity ever arises. It would also benefit him to make sure that his decisions were ethical instead of being influenced and pressured into making faulty decisions by such a dishonest stakeholder as Henry Larson. Most of Gary’s problems were caused 5|Page T. Glenn/AMBA 640/Week 2 by his lack of unethical decision-making. His lack of communication also contributed greatly to the everoccurring problems that the project faced.