Question

Night Tran Construction Company

Night Tran Construction Company specializes in building small power plants, mostly for utility companies. The company was awarded a contract approximately 2 years ago to build such a power plant. The contract stated a project duration of 3 years, after which a 1 percent penalty would be invoked for each additional month of construction. Project records indicate the utility plan is only 50 percent completed and is encountering continuing problems. The owner of Night Tran Company, concerned over the potential losses, investigated the project and found the following: There was an excessive number of engineering design changes; there was a high work rejection rate; and the project was generally understaffed. As a result, she directed the PM to develop a better system of project control and present this method to the board members in 1 week.

Questions

If you were the PM, what characteristics would you be looking for in the new control system? Will a new control system be adequate for the problem? Will it control scope creep? Explain.

Answer 1

Solution -

It is clear from the above extract that the project suffered from frequent scope changes and also that there were some project expectation differences which led to a lot of delays. The project work estimate was also not upto the mark and hence there were resource issues. As a project manager I would like to have the following characteristics in the new control system -

• A complete scope definition of the project along with each milestone clearly outlined.
• A complete list of project metrics and progress of the project.
• A detailed analysis of the budget and the relevant earned value.
• A report mechanism which can help communicate the progress of the project to all its stakeholders

This control system will help to keep a track on the progress of the project and also help to ascertain the change in overall metrics if a new task or change in scope is included. This will allow the project manager to decide if the changes are acceptable or not. A clear scope definition provided in the system will allow for lesser rejections and provide clarity to the project team on the expectations of the stakeholders. The dynamic tracking of progress will allow the project manager to ascertain the requirement of resources at each evaluation intervals. Hence a new control system with the above mentioned characteristics can assist in solving the current issues of the project.