...The Blue Spider Project 1) During the 1960s and 70s major organizations had very little control over their internal operations. Parks Corporation was considered to be an organization that had uncontrolled work authorizations, capricious changing of plans, unsupported transfers of actual costs, inability to account for usage of material, and the absence of meaningful organization performance measurement. Park used a militia-disciplinary team where personnel were gathered from other areas of the organization to help with the Blue Spider Project. Gary Anderson was an engineer who was asked to be the project manager for the Blue Spider project; overall he was responsible for the project, but left the performance of the individual phases of the project to be performed by the functional mangers. Gary Anderson assigned, monitored and coordinated the work on the project team, but all of the functional managers, had their own supervisors that had the ultimate say so on what the functional manger could and couldn’t do. Upon program authorization or contract award, upper management should have issued a program directive to Gary. A directive contains the statement of work, the program schedule, the Work Breakdown Schedule WBS, the amount of appropriated budgets and other specific requirements as needed. This would have been helpful because personnel that were assigned to the project were later moved to another project. Because Gary did not have the program directive; it made it easy...
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...Iniciação ao Projeto II Assignment #2 “The Blue Spider Project” 1. If you were Gary Anderson, would you have accepted this position after the director stated that this project would be his baby all the way? Na posição de Gary Anderson teríamos aceitado a proposta de Henry Gable. PRÓS: A ambição de Gary Anderson de querer subir na Empresa, melhorar a sua carreira e passar a ter um papel mais importante era correspondida com a promoção ao cargo oferecido por parte do seu superior; O conhecimento necessário para exercer esta função era comprovado com o MBA que Gary tinha no seu currículo; Vasta experiência e papel de relevo, por parte de Gary, no Departamento de I&D. CONTRAS: Falta de experiência de Gary em gestão de projetos. Esta promoção ao cargo de Gestor de Projetos seria o seu primeiro contributo para a empresa nesta função; Projeto demasiado importante para a Empresa e para o seu superior Gable. Gable teria uma palavra a dizer sobre as acções de Gary resultando numa perda de autonomia e controlo sobre a gestão de projetos. Este projeto era encarado como o “bebé” de Gable; 2. Was Gary qualified to be a project manager? Gary era qualificado para cumprir a função de gestor de projetos, porque tinha uma vasta experiência na empresa, na qual se destaca a sua excelência na produção consequente promoção a cientista sénior, responsável pelos projetos de I&D ligados à área da engenharia mecânica. Além disso, como é referido no caso de estudo, Gary tinha realizado...
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...Blue Spider Case 1) If you were Gary Anderson would you have accepted this project after the director stated that it would be his baby all the way? Despite Henry Gable’s very apparent shadiness I would probably have taken the project too due to the backing that the project has. Even though the project had issues, based on all we have learned in project management, it is rare that a project has the amount of attention and backing from top executives, as well as, strong resources from the functional team. Many of the cases we studied are problematic because they did not have this type of backing and priority which in the end, created other conflicts. Do engineers with MBA’s aspire to high positions in management? I think the ones who have the unique ability and skillset of both a PM and Engineer probably do aspire to have high positions in management. However, in my limited experience, I think that most engineers would gravitate towards being a project engineer where they are experts in their field and are most comfortable with technical details as opposed to the administrative ones. Gary Anderson was a perfect example of this. I feel that many engineers lack the essential administrative and soft skills of a PM to motivate and manage a team to a successful outcome. Was Gary qualified to be project manager? I do not think that Gary was qualified to be a project manager. Just because ‘we can’ does not often mean ‘we should do.’ It was probably very easy for Gary to complete...
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...ESTUDO DE CASO: O PROJETO DE BLUE SPIDER "Isso é impossível! Não dá para acreditar! Dez meses atrás, que eu estava sentado no topo do mundo. A alta administração considerava-me um dos melhores, se não o melhor engenheiro desta fábrica. Agora olhe para mim! Eu estou cheio de olheiras, depois de seis meses sem uma noite de sono decente, e não consigo acreditar que só me resta limpar a minha mesa e ir-me embora. Congratulo-me, com certeza, por voltar para o meu antigo emprego em engenharia. O problema é que nada disso teria aconteciddo se não fosse a promoção a gerente de projeto." História Gary Anderson tinha aceitado trabalhar na Park Corporation recémsaído da faculdade. Com um PhD em engenharia mecânica, Gary estava pronto e decidido para enfrentar e resolver todos os problemas do mundo. Em primeiro lugar, a Park Corporation não ofereceu a Gary muitas oportunidades para fazer pesquisa pura, que este queria, ansiosamente, desenvolver. No entanto, as coisas mudaram rapidamente. A Parks cresceu e tornou-se uma das principais empresas em um projetos estruturais e electrónicos durante o grande "Boom" do final da década de 50 e início da década de 60 quando os contratos do departamento de defesa (DoD) eram abundantes. A Parks cresceu de pouco mais de meia dúzia de engenheiros para se transformar num dos maiores provedores do DoD, empregando cerca de 6.500 pessoas. Entretanto, durante a recessão que marcou o final dos anos sessenta, o dinheiro tornou-se escasso e houve demissões...
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...has to implement a strategic plan for mature project management system. For the new plan the cultural issues in the company are to be resolved and the president of Como appointed a task force for this purpose. Each cultural issue in the company are identified and proper solutions are provided by the task force. The president also listed the advantages of an excellent project management. The time frame determined by the president to attain a project management system was thirty-six months. 1. Ford, to achieve its goal of creating decentralized vehicle development system, gave 24 months of time to the Como Tool and Die Company to improve its processes. Thus, the Como has the only option of accepting project management as a culture rather than relying only on quality. 2. In the case of Como Tool and Die, the pressure and limited time frame given by the Ford influenced the Company in changing its sixty-year culture and made it to implement a project management system. This shows the influence a customer should exert on the contract management. 3. Yes, correcting the cultural issues existing in the company would provide a room to implement project management program. 4. The time frame could be less than thirty-six months. Because the Tool and die company has already got a good reputation in producing quality products. So the only thing the company has to concentrate is to improve the processes by implementing a mature project management...
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... Department of project management TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. AS-IS ANALYSIS OF THE PROJECT 1 3. SWOT ANALYSIS 3 4. EVALUATION OF BLUE SPIDER PROJECT MANAGEMENT 7 4.1. BLUE SPIDER PROJECT 7 4.1.1. Project with strategic emphasis 7 4.1.2. Project management without strategic emphasis 9 4.1.3. Approach of blue spider project 10 4.2. PC AS POO 13 4.2.1. Concept of POO 13 4.2.2. Processes of the Project-Oriented Organization (POO) 15 4.2.3. What Parks Corporation (PC) should do to become a modern POO? 17 5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 20 5.1. CONCLUSION 20 5.2. RECOMMENDATION 23 6. REFERENCE 27 1. INTRODUCTION Project Management deals with the planning, organizing, directing and controlling of company resources for short-term objective which is established to complete specific goals and objectives. It is cross functional teams that are assembled to achieve a specific purpose are the bases of project management. Projects are accomplished usually in specific time and within limited budget. The aim of projects is to produce deliverables. These deliverables which are measurable, tangible outputs come either at the completion or end of life-cycle phase of the project. A person who is assigned as the project manager may very well be assigned based upon the size, nature and scope of the deliverables. To be effective as a project manager, an individual...
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...TCM 750: Advanced Project Management Case Review I: The Blue Spider Project By Sona Ngoh Missouri State University Department of Technology & Construction Management College of Business Administration Spring 2014 Contents 1. Summary of Findings 3 2. Background Information 4 3. Problem Statement 5 4. Analysis of Issues and Alternatives 5 5. Detailed Recommendations 8 6. Implementation and Evaluation 9 I. Bibliography 11 II. Works Cited 12 Summary of Findings The Blue Spider Project is an example of a situation where the project manager show lack of understanding of the life-cycle for project management and the inability to leverage the application of the key skills of integrated cost, schedule and technical performance management to achieve project success. Gray has engineering degree with an MBA, an outstanding record as a production engineer but fails as a project manager because he was unable to get a clear vision of all aspects of his project or capable of focusing on a specific aspect of the project while keeping tab of other aspects as required. Gray’s inability to leverage his newly acquired decision making responsibilities as a project manager with his technical expertise helped to escalate the drawbacks of a potentially valuable project into a near catastrophe, almost losing his job in the process. Background Information Parks Corporation is a Department of Defense...
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...ISSN: 0730-5748 JOURNAL OF UFO STUDIES New Series, Vol. 6 1995/1996 CONTENTS ARTICLES Editorial ..................... ......................... ............................................................ Stuart Appelle Psychotherapy for the UFO Abduction Experience ..... ..... .......... ........ David A. Gotlib The Abduction Experience: A Critical Evaluation of Theory and Evidence ............... .. .............................. ........... ............ ...... ............... ........................ Stuart Appelle Anomalous Images on Videotape from Space Shuttle Flight STS-48: Examination of the Ice-Particle Explanation ................... ............. ......... Jack Kasher The University of Colorado UFO Project: The "Scientific Study of UFOs" ... .......................................................... ....... .......... Michael D. Swords A Reference Guide for the Condon Report ..... .. ... ............... ......................... Willy Smith Donald E. Keyhoe and the Pentagon: The Rise of Interest in the UFO Phenomenon and What the Government Really Knew .............. ................... ........ .......... .. .... ... ........... ....... ..... Michael D. Swords Fewer Sightings in the National Press: A Content Analysis of UFO News Coverage in The New York Times, 1947-1995 .......... ................ John C. Hickman, E. Dale McConkey II, and Matthew A. Barrett COMMENTS AND RESPONSES Robert R. Young, John S. Carpenter ...... ............... ... ......... .......
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...Ufos and People Almost every civilization in history that has kept a written history has recorded the sightings of strange objects and lights in the skies. These objects have been described as glowing wheels, colored balls of light, and disk shaped objects. Today unexplained aerial phenomena are generally referred to as unidentified flying objects (UFO's) or flying saucers. The effects of extra terrestrial sightings can have an adverse effect on people if influenced the wrong way. No solid proof has shown that UFO's are real, but many sightings cannot be proven otherwise. The media, stories, or one's own experience may often influence what one believes. The government once stated that they had captured extra terrestrials. (60 minutes, CBS) On the contrary, most scientists now agree that almost all sightings and stories of extra terrestrials are not authentic. The United States government has records of thousands of UFO sightings since 1948, including photos of alleged UFOs and interviews with people who claim to have seen them. Since UFOs were considered a potential security risk, the report on these sightings was originally classified as secret. (Craig, 917) When the report was later declassified it showed that 90 percent of all UFO sightings could be easily explained. Most of the sightings turned out to be celestial objects, such as stars or bright planets like Venus, or atmospheric events such as auroras or meteors falling through the atmosphere. Many other sightings turned...
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...The UFO phenomenon has become one of the most controversial and culturally embedded supernatural beliefs to emerge in the Western world during the later half of the twentieth century. Reports of strange flying objects in the sky have been recorded from the dawn of human history. The earliest UFO sightings can be found in 4th century Chinese texts, claiming that a "moon boat" hovered above China every 12 years. Other enthusiasts cite the Book of Ezekiel, in which an inquisitive ship dropped from the sky and landed in Chaldea, modern-day Kuwait. A flourish of sightings occurred near Rome in 218 B.C. and again in Germany in 1561. During World War II, Allied pilots coined the term foo fighters for the bizarre orbs of light that flew alongside their planes during combat (Stephey, 2009). Although sightings have been reported for centuries, it was the sighting by American Pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947 that sparked the current public interest in the UFO phenomenon. Days later, the foundations of today’s UFO beliefs were perpetuated by a report that the U.S. Army had recovered alien bodies and a crashed “flying disk” in Roswell, New Mexico. The press originally reported the recovered material was from a UFO, however higher military authority quickly dismissed this report. The United States Air Force (USAF) claims the downed aircraft was a top-secret weather balloon designed to spy on Soviet forces. This retraction from the USAF caused people to question the events that took place in...
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...Evaluating Evidence for the Existence of UFOs Name Institution In the “Perspectives on Evaluating Evidence for the Existence of UFOs”, Edward Condon and Royston Paynter have divergent and convergent views about whether or not UFOs exist. Condon's general contention is that we don't have adequate proof to demonstrate UFO's existence. He firmly believes they don't exist. He expresses that individual perspective focuses or sightings don't bolster a genuine general view that UFO's do exist. He likewise contends that teachings of UFOs are decimating students. The author's principle point is that we have not concentrated on UFOs enough to know whether they exist or not on the grounds that the legislature overlooks the UFOs that are not known. The author clarifies that we could say that UFO' do exist due to numerous sightings by several individuals from various societies around the globe. Paynter's fundamental point is that if we don't have genuine physical proof of a UFO or aliens, then they don't exist. He additionally expresses that if individuals’ claim that they were stole by aliens, then they require genuine evidence proves or supports their argument. For example, uncommon DNA or characteristics, or anything that demonstrates they are from aliens. He additionally expresses that more research should be done on UFOs. Paynter’s argument to some extent holds water since he says that the law of physics will not be violated it were to be said that the aliens visited the...
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...doing projects for the Department of Defense. Parks Corporation has changed it’s focus over the years from predominantely R&D business to a low-cost production facility. The recession resulted in the company retrenching a number of employees, the staff compliment going from 6700 to 2200. In 1975, the corporate strategy changed again with the upturn of DoD spending. Parks began to beef up it’s R&D engineering staff. Owing to the salaries that Parks was offering their access to experienced engineers was limited so they opted to employing mainly young inexperienced engineers, straight out of college, like Gary Anderson. Gary was an outstanding production engineer and was promoted to senior scientist responsible for all R&D acitivities performed in the Mechanical Engineering department. In January 1978, Parks Corporation decided to bid for Phase I on the Blue Spider Project, with Lord Industries as the prime contractor for the Army’s Spartan Program. The project was to improve structural capabilities and the age life of the short range tactical missile, which was exhibiting fatigue failure after 6 years in the field. The criteria for a subcontractor was not only a low bid, but technical expertise and management performance. Parks Corporation felt that they had a distinct advantage over most competitors, as they had worked on other successful projects for Lord Industries. From the beginning of the project the following problems were evident. • • • • • Project Kickoff...
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...Blue Spider Problem: Gary was given the opportunity to be the Project Manager because of his R&Dbackground, but he doesn’t have the experience or skills to manage a project. Technicalbackground itself will not make an efficient project manager. Major Issues: 1. Gary focused too much on R&D works or administrative paper works without abalance.2. Error on financial planning.3. No standby schedule when the formal one was interrupted by predictably possiblechanges.4. Lack of communication with the Lord since the beginning which leaded to cost morethan double time on communication after that.5. Gary can not find Gable when he needed support. And Gable intervene the projectseveral times without noticing Gary, which makes the project management worksmore chaos, it leaded to reschedule or re-do works at the last minute. Recommendations: 1. Paul’s job is to take most responsibility for the R&D works. Additional staff can takeresponsibility for additional administrative paper works. Gary can spend most of histime on managing the whole project through managing other people.2. Discussion with Elliot will be useful before submitting any plan to top managers.3. Make a standby schedule for different stages and hand out to every department withthe formal schedules. Standby schedule can be made based on slack time or differenttime for specific task.4. Meet with Lord at every stage of the project. Can use electronic detailed schedule andtask sheets and...
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...Blue Spider OM761 Zhiyun(Kevin) Kuang Problem: Gary was given the opportunity to be the Project Manager because of his R&D background, but he doesn’t have the experience or skills to manage a project. Technical background itself will not make an efficient project manager. Major Issues: 1. Gary focused too much on R&D works or administrative paper works without a balance. 2. Error on financial planning. 3. No standby schedule when the formal one was interrupted by predictably possible changes. 4. Lack of communication with the Lord since the beginning which leaded to cost more than double time on communication after that. 5. Gary can not find Gable when he needed support. And Gable intervene the project several times without noticing Gary, which makes the project management works more chaos, it leaded to reschedule or re-do works at the last minute. Recommendations: 1. Paul’s job is to take most responsibility for the R&D works. Additional staff can take responsibility for additional administrative paper works. Gary can spend most of his time on managing the whole project through managing other people. 2. Discussion with Elliot will be useful before submitting any plan to top managers. 3. Make a standby schedule for different stages and hand out to every department with the formal schedules. Standby schedule can be made based on slack time or different time for specific task. 4. Meet with Lord at every stage of the project. Can use electronic detailed schedule and task sheets...
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...THE BLUE SPIDER PROJECT Q1. If you were Gary Anderson, would you have accepted this position after the director stated that this would be his baby all the way? Ans. I was Gary Anderson, I would have also accepted the position of project manager. Although the director mentioned that the project would be his baby all the way, but the success of the project, which was no doubt very challenging, would have given the boost to my career for which I have pursued MBA. Q2. Do engineers with MBA degrees aspire to high position in management? Ans. Yes, engineers with MBA degrees do aspire for higher position in management. The reason for this is * MBA provides you with a bigger picture of business. * MBA is considered to be an expensive education so students try to maximise their return on investment. * MBA is very much theoretical and it is important to work in a bigger role to put those theories to practice. * The basic need for an MBA is learning and sometimes the desire to rise up the management ladder. Q3. Was Gary qualified to be a project manager? Ans. Gary was well educated with an MBA degree in is portfolio. He was one of the best engineers that his company had but he didn’t had any experience of working in projects. He was technically very good at his work but his skills in managing people and performing under pressure was not tested. Some previous experience of working in small roles in projects or important roles in smaller projects may have helped...
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