CASE: PETRIE’S ELECTRONICS - SOLUTION

Jim Watanabe, the assistant director of information technology at Petrie’s Electronics, a Southern California–based electronics retail store, walked into his building’s conference room. It was early in the morning for Jim, but the meeting was important for him. Jim was going to put together his team for the customer relationship project he had just been named to manage. It was Jim’s first big project to manage at Petrie’s, and he was excited about getting started.

“Hi Jim,” said Ella Whinston, the chief operations officer. With Ella was a guy Jim did not know. “Jim, this is Bob Petroski. I’ve asked that he be on your project team, to represent me.”

Jim and Bob shook hands. “Nice to meet you, Jim. I’m looking forward to working with you on this project.”

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“And Bob knows how important this project is to me,” Ella said, “so I expect him to keep me informed about your progress.” Ella smiled.

Great, Jim thought, more pressure. That’s all I need. Just then, John Smith, the head of marketing walked into the conference room. With him was a young woman Jim recognized, but he wasn’t sure from where.

“Jim,” John said, “Let me introduce you to Sally Fukuyama. She is the assistant director of marketing. She will be representing marketing, and me, on your ‘No Customer Escapes’ project.”

“Hi Jim,” Sally said, “I have a lot of ideas about what we can do. Even though I still have my regular job to worry about, I’m excited about working on this project.”

“Hi Jim,” Sally said, “I have a lot of ideas about what we can do. Even though I still have my regular job to worry about, I’m excited about working on this project.”

“Who else will be on your team?” Ella asked.

“I am bringing Sanjay Agarwal from IT,” Jim said. “He is in charge of systems integration in the IT department and reports to me. In addition to myself and Sanjay and Sally and Bob, we will also have a store manager on the team. I’m trying to get Carmen Sanchez, thmanager of the store in Irvine (California). Like the rest of us, she is really busy, but I think we have to have a store manager on the team.”

“Irvine?” Ella asked. “That’s one of our top stores. Carmen should have a lot of insight into the issues related to keeping customers, if she is managing the Irvine store. And you are right, she is going to be very busy.”

“So,” John asked, “When is your first meeting?”

1. What qualities might Jim possess that would make him a successful project manager?

2. How do you think Jim should respond to Ella’s implied pressure about the importance of the project to her?

3. What strategies might Jim employ to deal with a very busy team member such as Carmen Sanchez?

Now that the “No Customer Escapes” project team has been formed and a plan has been developed for distributing project information, Jim began working on the project scope statement, workbook, and baseline project plan. He first drafted the project scope statement and posted it on the project’s intranet (see PE Figure 4-1). Once posted on the intranet, he sent a short e-mail message to all team members requesting feedback. Minutes after sending the e-mail, Jim’s office phone rang.

“Jim, it’s Sally. I just looked over the scope statement and have a few comments.”

“Great,” replied Jim, “it’s just a draft. What do you think?”

“Well, I think that we need to explain more about how the system will work and why we think this new system will more than pay for itself.”

“Those are good suggestions; I am sure many others will also want to know that information. However, the scope statement is a pretty high-level document and doesn’t get into too much detail. Basically, its purpose is to just formally announce the project, providing a very high-level description as well as briefly listing the objectives, key assumptions, and stakeholders. The other documents that I am working on, the workbook and the baseline project plan, are intended to provide more details on specific deliverables, costs, benefits, and so on. So, anyway, that type of more detailed information will be coming next.”

“Oh, OK, that makes sense. I have never been on a project like this, so this is all new to me,” said Sally.

“Don’t worry,” replied Jim, “getting that kind of feedback from you and the rest of the team will be key for us doing a thorough feasibility analysis. I am going to need a lot of your help in identifying possible costs and benefits of the system. When we develop the baseline project plan, we do a very thorough feasibility analysis—we examine financial, technical, operational, schedule, legal and contractual feasibility, as well as potential political issues arising through the development of the system.”

“Wow, we have to do all that? Why can’t we just build the system? I think we all know what we want,” replied Sally.

“That is another great question,” replied Jim. “I used to think exactly the same way, but what I learned in my last job was that there are great benefits to following a fairly formal project management process with a new system. By moving forward with care, we are much more likely to have the right system, on time and on budget.”

“So,” asked Sally, “what is the next step?”

“Well, we need to do the feasibility analyses I just mentioned, which become part of the project’s baseline project plan. Once this is completed, we will have a walkthrough presentation to management to make sure they agree with and understand the scope, risks, and costs associated with making ‘No Customer Escapes’ a reality,” said Jim.

“This is going to be a lot of work, but I am sure I am going to learn a lot,” replied Sally.

“So, let me get to work on the feasibility analyses,” said Jim. “I will be sending requests out to all the team members to get their ideas. I should have this email ready within an hour or so.”

“Great, I’ll look for it and respond as soon as I can,” answered Sally.

“Thanks, the faster we get this background work done, the sooner we will be able to move on to what the system will do,” replied Jim.

“Sounds good, talk to you later. Bye,” Sally said.

“Bye Sally, and thanks for your quick feedback,” answered Jim.

1. Look over the scope statement (PE Figure 4-1). If you were an employee at Petrie’s Electronics, would you want to work on this project? Why or why not?

2. If you were part of the management team at Petrie’s Electronics, would you approve the project outlined in the scope statement in PE Figure 4-1? What changes, if any, need to be made to the document?

3. Identify a preliminary set of tangible and intangible costs you think would occur for this project and the system it describes. What intangible benefits do you anticipate for the system?