Question

You are working on a project to install 200 new computers for your department. Your sponsor is the CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Although the CTO is your key stakeholder, you know that many other individuals will affect the success or failure of your project. This is the first time you have worked with this CTO, and you have heard that he often changes his mind about the requirements and due date. In fact, you heard that a PM who failed to meet the project deadline was fired by the CTO. On your way to the weekly status meeting with the CTO, you run into a colleague who tells you that the best way to handle the CTO is to avoid confronting him. If the CTO tells you to do 10 push-ups, you do 10 push-ups. If he asks for coffee, do not forget the cream and sugar. In other words, the “Yes-Man” approach works best. You may not like what you hear from the CTO, but at least you will keep your job. In fact, your colleague tells you that the CTO often promotes people who agree with him. Of course, you know what happens to those who fail to follow his recommendations. BBA 4126, Project Planning 3 Provide your response to the following questions: ·

Who are your stakeholders? · How do you plan to communicate with your stakeholders? · You schedule a meeting with managers from the impacted departments, and only seven of the 13 you invited show up to discuss the project. What does this tell you about the potential success of the project? · Because of your failure to coordinate with a vendor, the equipment will arrive 42 days late. How will you notify the sponsor of your serious error? · Your CTO informs you that the deliverable date is now two months earlier. You know what happened to the last PM. How do you handle that new requirement?

Answer 1

Who are your stakeholders? How do you plan to communicate with your stakeholders?

There are many stakeholders involved here but the most important one is CTO. He is the key stakeholder.

Plan to communicate with your stakeholders:

1. Sharing regular project reports to keep them updated about project progress.
2. Organizing sessions where presenting about where we stand currently and what is the road map, displaying all statistics with the help of ppts and impressive presentations
3. Scheduling face to face meetings to have important discussions and taking their feedback regularly.

You schedule a meeting with managers from the impacted departments, and only seven of the 13 you invited show up to discuss the project. What does this tell you about the potential success of the project? ·

If only seven out of 13 managers attend the meeting then it might delay the project as their inputs are important for the regular flow of project. If they are not attending due to time constraint then they should be informed well in advance, will have to start building relationship with them and making the meeting agenda clearer to them, emphasizing its importance to them.

Because of your failure to coordinate with a vendor, the equipment will arrive 42 days late. How will you notify the sponsor of your serious error?

I will be honest and will notify the project stakeholders about the delay. I will share the revised completion date with them.

Your CTO informs you that the deliverable date is now two months earlier. You know what happened to the last PM. How do you handle that new requirement?

I cannot say no to the CTO in this case so I will prepare the data to demonstrate him all the alternative ways to finish project two months early which will involve cost and would require necessary approvals. We would need extra budget to either paying existing resources for overtime or hiring temporary on-contract employees. There are always trade-offs in the project scope, cost, duration or risk for shortening the duration