...Communications and Procurement in Project Management CPM 620- D1 Homework #4 Trophy Project Case Study November 11, 2011 There are three problem areas within this company that really stands out and have contributed to the trophy project’s failures. The conflicting organizational structure, the lack of senior management support, and the project manager all contributed to the failure of the trophy project. Organizational structure problem: The company appears to be operating as a matrix organizational structure with a project manager assigned to this specific project. However, there is a lack of support amongst the project manager, the functional manager, and senior management. Due to the lack of project-oriented emphasis on the trophy project it appears that the company is operating more as a traditional organizational structure. “In the traditional structure, the power spectrum is realized through the hierarchy, whereas in the project structure, power comes from credibility, expertise, or being a sound decision-maker” (Kerzner, 2006, pg. 198). The company should focus on using a pure matrix organizational structure and give the project manager the support and required resources needed to successfully complete the project. Management problems: It was apparent that there was no support from the functional and senior management on this project. There was also a lack of support by the project office and the line managers. The line managers finally realized that they had a...
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...Executive Summary The Trophy Project was fundamentally mismanaged from the start. The management functions of planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and directing personnel and resources were poorly executed by both senior and project level management. Customer expectations were not well defined and scope creep was allowed to take place without proper administration. There did not appear to be a corporate champion for this project who could mentor and resolve conflicts that were beyond the authority of the project manager. Plus, the project manager appeared to be inexperienced and was not very adept at negotiating with upper level and functional management to obtain the proper resources necessary to achieve the project objectives. 1. Did the project appear to be planned correctly? No, the project did not appear to be planned correctly. The project scope, resource requirements, schedule and the budget were not well defined. The project did not describe how the project team would be structured or where authority lines were drawn for tasks priorities and structure units. There didn’t appear to be a clear objective outlined for the project and resources were not efficiently utilized or properly managed. There was a lack of leadership support from senior management. When senior management did get involved, they were threatening instead of constructive and failed to seek a true understanding of the underlying problems that plagued the project. Lastly, the customer...
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...Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 591–600 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman Managing public–private megaprojects: Paradoxes, complexity, and project design Alfons van Marrewijk a,* , Stewart R. Clegg b,1 , Tyrone S. Pitsis b,2 , Marcel Veenswijk a,3 a b Department of Culture, Organization and Management, Faculty of Social Science, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands ICAN Research Center, Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007, Sydney, Australia Received 1 March 2007; received in revised form 25 July 2007; accepted 20 September 2007 Abstract Recent studies show that despite their growing popularity, megaprojects – large-scale, complex projects delivered through various partnerships between public and private organisations – often fail to meet costs estimations, time schedules and project outcomes and are motivated by vested interests which operate against the public interest. This paper presents a more benign and theoreticallygrounded view on what goes wrong by comparing the project designs, daily practices, project cultures and management approaches of two recent megaprojects in The Netherlands and Australia, showing how these projects made sense of uncertainty, ambiguity and risk. We conclude that project design and project cultures play a role in determining how managers and partners...
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...Crown Awards, Inc. v. Discount Trophy & Co., Inc. U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 8540 (2009) Material Facts of the Case: Crown Awards is a retailer of awards and trophies sold through mail order catalogs and via the Internet. Crown designed and sold a diamond-shaped spinning trophy for which it owned two copyright registrations. Discount Trophy is one of Crown’s competitors, and it sold a trophy that was substantially similar to Crown’s Spin Trophy. Crown requested that Discount discontinue the sale of the alleged copy, and when Discount refused, Crown filed suit in the Southern District of New York. Legal and Ethical Issues of the Case: In order to prevail on a claim of copyright infringement, a plaintiff must demonstrate both ownership of a valid copyright and infringement. "To establish infringement, the copyright owner must demonstrate that (1) the defendant has actually copied the plaintiff's work; and (2) the copying is illegal because a substantial similarity exists between the defendant's work and the protectable elements of plaintiff's." Actual copying may be proved directly or indirectly. Indirect evidence of copying includes proof that the defendants had access to the copyrighted work and similarities that are probative of copying between the works." Because direct proof of access is often impossible to adduce, the law permits a plaintiff to carry his burden on this point through evidence that "an alleged infringer had...
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...Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 3 2. Major problems Experienced in the Trophy Project 4 2.1. Synopsis of the Trophy project case study problems 4 3. List of Problems 4 3.1. Operational 4 3.2. Behavioural 5 3.3. Structural 5 4. Leadership at Top Management and functional management levels of the Organisation 7 4.1. Initiation Structures 8 4.2. Dysfunctional roles of Functional Manager 8 4.3. Lack of Senior Management Support 8 4.4. Reactionary Management style 10 4.5. Implementation strategy 10 4.6. Lack of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 11 4.7. Internal Processes perspectives 11 4.8. Lack of Innovation and Learning (Learning and Growth) Perspective 11 5. Reichart’s Leadership and Managerial Abilities 12 5.1. Planning 12 5.2. Organizing 12 5.3. Staffing 12 5.4. Leading 13 5.5. Controlling 13 5.6. Major Skills lacking in Reichart’s leadership 14 6. Recommendations 14 6.1. Implementing a Strategic Transformation and Change Management Programme 15 6.1.1. Strategic transformation planning 15 6.1.2. Creating a Climate for Change 17 6.1.3. Continuous Organisational Improvement 17 6.1.4. Risk Management 18 6.1.5. Control 18 6.1.6. Stage–Gate Model 18 6.1.7. Balanced Scorecard 19 7. Conclusion 19 8. References 20 9. Annexure 22 9.1. Planning, Control, organising, & leading 22 9.2. BS – PM Learning Organisation Value Chain Schematic 23 9.3. Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change 23 9.4. Strategic transformation process 24 9.5...
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...showing up to work? No, so why should a kid get a trophy for just showing up to a game? According to the "Trophies for all" policy, youth athletes are being awarded with participation trophies. Everything in life should be earned. Also, there is too much money spent on the trophies. Instead of awarding all the time, do it when a youth athlete does something right. The problem is that youth athletes are entitled to getting the awards and you don’t want them to grow up that way. Some people think participation trophies motivate youth athletes. Participation awards shouldn’t be given to youth athletes. Everything in life should be earned as stated in "Trophies...
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...MODULE 2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT: PROGRAMME MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE AND INNOVATIVE IMPROVEMENT CASE STUDY: “TROPHY PROJECT” GROUP ASSIGNMENT 05 JUNE 2012 We the undersigned hereby declare that this assignment is our own work. It has not been previously submitted for any other examination. Nocawa Johnson________________________________ Nolusindiso Mitani_________________________________ Welhemina Mnguni_________________________________ Content 1. Executive Summary………………………………………………………….....2 2. Body (Problems and Causes)……………………………………………….....3 2.1 Poor Planning…........................................................................................3 2.2 Programme behind schedule….................................................................4 2.3 Fruitless expenditure……………………………………………………...….4 2.4 Lack of Leadership………………………………………………………..….5 2.5 Lack of Communication……………………………………………….….….6 2.6 Lack of teamwork (no cohesion)……………………………………….……6 2.7 No goals and no objectives…………………………………………………..7 2.8 Conflict and Resistance………………………………………………………8 2.9 No Programme Management Office…………………………..………….….8 2.10 No required skills..........................................................................9 2.11 Lack of Technology……………………………………………….…9 2.12 Lack of Authority……………………………………………………10 3. About leadership in the top and functional management levels of the Organisation…………………………………………………………………...
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...I find myself searching for trophies as well. I choose people from history or celebrities who share my political or moral beliefs, and I would use them as affirmation of my ideals. This use of “trophies” is a safe guard, but at the same time it’s a handicap device. Like Coates, I realized trophies and trophy cases handicap us to a specific dream and prevents us from listening to conflicting evidence that could contradict our ideas. Trophy cases closes the mind to other ideals and prevents growth, therefore stunting social...
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...to view how social environments are directly affected by the issue and to look at a media campaign that it relates to it considering constructionism, claims making and framing. And then to conclude, having viewed all points, what my new (if at all different) assumptions are. Hunting, to survive, has been a part of human culture for centuries, in the past it has been a necessary tool and skill, however, today most people live in a world where it is no longer a required in order to provide basic needs to our families. Trophy hunting, as a sport, can be dated as far back to the early 1800s in southern and central Europe. Hunters would kill game for the sole purpose of its pelt or head for display purposes and no other parts of the animal were used and were wasted. The oxford dictionary recognizes the word trophy as a representation associated with or symbolic of recognition or reward and / or anything serving as a token or evidence of victory or skill. Today, trophy hunting is a game of animal versus machine and limited skill is actually required. The issue...
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...Ulrich von Gradwitz are alike in the following ways: Both men engaged their prey on his own land, both men stalked a human being, and both men met their demise prematurely. Both men hunted on their own land, searching for a trophy unlike any other. One of the common characteristics between these two men were the fact they chose their own land as their hunting grounds. General Zaroff scoped in on a big game hunter, Sanger Rainsford, and his desire for this trophy outweighed all his other trophies combined. On the other hand, Ulrich von Gradwitz chose vengeance over a trophy. He longed for justice and wished to have all his land undisputably. If both men were to receive what they longed for, they must take the life of a fellow man. This led to the attempted murder of two men, one...
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...Trophies are come in many forms. It may be given in the form of a shiny cup that is awarded as a prize for a victory or an extremely nice promotional at one’s work, but also could be rewarded to one in a miniscule way as well. A professor saying “good job on the paper” or a mom cooking one’s favorite food for helping her out that day, trophies are ultimately rewards in order to honor individuals for their successes and achievements. Although, trophies have both beneficial and also potentially harmful consequences to not only receiving them, but giving them as well. Personally, I believe that trophies are essential for success. Although, I do not think trophies in the sense of being rewarded a physical object is what leads to success, instead, it is through showing delayed gratification toward individuals who actually deserve to be acknowledged for...
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...of the bow is pulled back and aimed at its target. The feline unknowing of the next course of events, begins to pant in the sun. The string is released and the poor lion is hit. Within the next 40 hours the great predator of Africa has now become the prey. Cecil the Southwest African lion thought it is just another day in paradise, but Walter Palmer had another plan. Trophy hunting is a serious issue in many countries. Big-game hunters go out and try to find rare animals to bring home as a trophy. Many of these hunters have rooms full of taxidimed animals....
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...Children, after receiving rewards over and over again, may become too scared to fail. Psychologists and researchers alike, have found that children enjoy hearing praise, however after all the praise, they become too scared to fail and would rather cheat in order to avoid it. These professionals also say, “after such praise of their innate abilities, they collapse at the first experience of difficulty… recent eye-tracking experiments… those who heard praise suggesting they had an innate talent were then twice as fixated on mistakes” (Merryman 6-7). Participation trophies do exactly this, and despite children not being fooled by these plastic figurines, they are still not being encouraged to identify their mistakes and improve, which in turn,...
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...Case Overview The ill-fated Trophy Project was in trouble right from the start. Reichart, who had been an assistant project manager, was involved with the project from its conception. When the project was accepted, Reichart was assigned as the project manager. From day one, the schedules slipped and expenditures were excessive.Reichart found out that functional managers were charging direct labor time for “pet projects” to the Trophy Project resources. When he complained about it, he was told not to meddle in functional managers’ resource allocation and expenditures. After approximately six months, he was requested to present a progress report to the corporate and division staff. Reichart took this time to bare his soul. The report substantiated that the project was forecasted to be one year behind schedule and estimated cost at a 20% overrun. The project staff supplied by line managers was inadequate to stayed at the required pace let alone make up lost time. This was his first opportunity to present project problems to people in position to correct the situation. As the result of his frank and candid evaluation, nonbeliever and line managers realized that they had a role to play in the completion of the project. Most of the problems were out in the open and could be corrected by providing adequate staffing and resources. Corporate staff ordered remedial action and staff support to provide a chance to bail out his program. Reichart’s report yielded unexpected results...
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...MODULE M2 GROUP ASSIGNMENT CASE: The Trophy Project DATE: 13 March 2013 We hereby declare that this assignment is entirely our own work, and that it has not previously been submitted to any other Higher Education Institution. We also declare that all published and unpublished sources have been fully acknowledged and properly referenced. This includes figures, tables and exhibits. Where modified by us, this has also been indicated. Name | Signature | ID Number | Dorothy van Heerden | | 7003230015080 | Delareze Joubert | | 7911030059084 | George Klopper | | 6510115056089 | Morne Grobler | | 8006265241082 | Salome Cilliers | | 8502170130089 | Tammy Pieterse | | 7811030086089 | Thabi Qaqane | | 7812220436084 | Andre Henn | | 7807285013083 | * Index Index 2 1 Executive Summary 3 2 Introduction 4 3 Problem Identification 5 3.1 SWOT Analysis of the Trophy Project 5 3.2 Problem Analysis 6 3.2.1 STRUCTURAL 6 3.2.2 Behavioural 7 3.2.3 Organisational 13 4 Recommendation 15 4.1 Organisational Effectiveness 15 4.2 The Balanced Score Card Approach 15 5 Conclusion 18 6 Bibliography 19 Executive Summary This document, by means of a thorough analysis of the case study, reveals that the Trophy Project is in a state of disorder. It identifies problematic behavioural structural and organisational issues within the company and discuses leadership problems that the company experiences throughout the execution of the trophy project. The company is experiencing...
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