#35602 Milestone 2

Graded Case Study 2, Part II

Performance Measurement

Shortly after resolving the defective component issue, Schaller asked Varga to calculate a performance measurement baseline (PMB) at the current point (month 12) in preparation for an upcoming checkpoint meeting between ECO-Trans and SRT. The client was anxious to remain within the implementation budget and liked to keep abreast of any cost variance. Varga asked her assistant to provide her with the project's earned value (EV) to date, and she added the EV curve to her original cost baseline curve (planned value). She then emailed this to Schaller to include in his presentation for the checkpoint meeting.

Project Resource Management

Since the beginning of the ECO-Stream project, Mark Osborne, SRT's Transportation Department Training Manager, has expressed concern that the end user training occurs too late in the plan. Varga has heard from him and others at SRT that many of the locomotive engineers are complaining that they have not been involved in the process and are not prepared to use the equipment when it comes on board. Their union representative has repeatedly brought this issue to SRT management and has asked them to change the project timeline to initiate training earlier.

In early October, Varga learned of a change on another ECO-Trans client project that pushed its training schedule back several weeks. As a result, two key ECO-Trans training specialists, Dominic Vonn and Marielle Beauchamp, were now available for a two-week window to be reassigned temporarily. An internal member of the project team suggested that Varga assign Vonn and Beauchamp to do some preliminary end user training at SRT the following week. When Varga reviewed her schedule, however, she saw that the team would be heavily involved in activities to configure the operating system, and she did not want to disrupt her plans to kick off training.

She also remarked that the locomotive engineers have been resistant stakeholders throughout the project. In general, these employees are averse to change of any kind, especially if they view it as adding any incremental burden to their jobs. Osborne, on the other hand, has been a vocally supportive stakeholder for the project. He has repeatedly offered to help positively influence the engineers' perception of ECO-Stream and to convince them it will actually make their jobs easier. He has asked Varga to attend one of his training blocks to give the engineers a demo, but she has not yet taken the time to make this happen.

Although Varga knows that she is way too swamped to deliver a demo for SRT's locomotive engineers, she pulls up her resource calendar to QSO 640: Project Management

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check the resource allocation in the Product Management Department, which is staffed with a team of product specialists who routinely prepare and present product demos and presentations. Maybe she could send one of them to do a demo?

Project Mgmt Resource

Constraints Total Hours Needed

October November December 10/6 10/13 10/20 10/27 11/3 11/10 11/17 11/24 12/1 12/8 12/15 12/22

Vin Siedek Max 10 hours per week

45 3 h 2 h 8 h 4 h 2 h 9 h 5 h 3 h 3 h 3 h 3 h

Rohan Singh Max 20 hours per week

61 2 h 12 h 15 h 20 h 12 h

Frank Hermann Unavailable in Nov. 50 5 h 5 h 5 h 5 h 10 h 10 h 10 h

Susanne Weitz Max 10 hours per week

36 3 h 3 h 12 h 3 h 3 h 12 h

Eva Fischer Unavailable 12/8 - 12/26

20 5 h 5 h 5 h 5 h

While looking at the calendar, Varga noticed some potential problems with upcoming resource allocation, but she didn't think it was necessary to resolve them at this point. She assumed that the product specialists would be willing to do whatever it took to make the SRT implementation a success.

Before you move on to the next section of the case study, identify the problems and/or issues that you'll need to include in your analysis. Document this information, and consider how you will integrate it into your evaluation of the project.

QSO 640: Project Management Copyright &copy; 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. <br>PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI

Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.