CASE STUDY: The IT Department at Kimble College

As part of the effort to upgrade the IT capabilities at Kimble College, the institution initiated a
program more than five years ago to dramatically increase the size of the IT department while
focusing efforts toward data management and improving administrative functions.

As part of the upgrade, Kimble hired a new vice president of information systems, Dan Gray,
and gave him wide latitude in identifying problems and initiating projects that would improve
the IT system campuswide. Dan also was given the absolute power to determine the
development of new projects, which allowed him to field requests from the various college
departments, determine which needs were most pressing, and create a portfolio of prioritized
projects. Within two years of his arrival at Kimble, Dan was overseeing an IT department of 46
people, divided into four levels: (1) help desk support, (2) junior programmers, (3) senior
programmers, and (4) project team leaders. There were only four project team leaders, with
most of Dan’s staff working either at the entry-level help desk or as junior programmers. In the
past three years, the performance of Dan’s department has been mixed. Although it has been
responsible for taking on many new projects, its track record for delivery is shaky; for example,
well over half of the latest projects have run past their budgets and initial schedules, sometimes
by more than 100%. Worse, from the college president’s perspective, it does not appear that
Dan has a clear sense of the status of the projects in his department. At board meetings, he
routinely gives a rosy picture of his performance. Still, he seems incapable of answering simple
questions about project delivery beyond vague declarations that “things are moving along just
fine.” In the president’s view, Dan’s departmental track record is not warranting the additional
funding he keeps requesting for new equipment and personnel. You have been called in as an
independent consultant to assess the performance of Dan’s department and, in particular, how
it runs and monitors the development of its project portfolio. Your initial assessment has
confirmed the college president’s hunch: The ongoing status of projects in the IT department is
not clearly understood. Everyone is working hard, but no one can provide clear answers about
how the projects being developed are doing. After asking several project leaders about the
status of their projects and repeatedly receiving “Oh, fine” as a response, you realize that they
are not evasive; they do not know from day to day how their projects are progressing. When
you ask them how they determine project status, the consensus is that unless the project team
leaders hear bad news, they assume everything is fine. Furthermore, it is clear that even if the
project leaders wanted to spend more time monitoring their ongoing projects, they are not sure
what types of information they should collect to develop better on-time project tracking and
control.

Questions

As a consultant monitoring this problem, what solutions will you propose? To what degree has
Dan’s management style contributed to the issues?

What types of project status information could you suggest the project team leaders begin to
collect to assess the status of their projects?

How would you blend “hard data” and “managerial or behavioural” information to create a
comprehensive view of the status of ongoing projects in the IT department at Kimble College?
CASE STUDY: The Project That Wouldn’t Die

Ben walked into his boss’s office Tuesday morning in a foul mood. Without wasting any time
on pleasantries, he confronted Alice. “How on earth did I get roped into working on the
Regency Project?” he asked, holding the memo that announced his immediate transfer. Alice
had been expecting such a reaction and sat back a moment to collect her thoughts on how to
proceed.

The Regency Project was a minor legend around the office. Begun as an internal audit of
business practices 20 months earlier, the project never seemed to get anything accomplished,
was not taken seriously within the company, and had yet to make one concrete proposal for
improving working practices. As far as Ben and many other company members were concerned,
it appeared to be a complete waste of time.

And now here Ben was, assigned to join the project! Ben continued, “Alice, you know this
assignment is misusing my abilities. Nothing has come from Regency; in fact, I’d love to know how
top management, who are usually so cost-conscious, have allowed this project to continue. I mean,
the thing won’t die!”

Alice laughed. “Ben, the answer to your question can be easily found. Have you bothered
taking a look at any of the early work coming out of Regency during its first three months?”
When Ben shook his head, she continued, “Harry Shapiro oversaw the early Statement of Work
and other scope development. He was the original project manager for Regency.”

All of a sudden, light dawned on Ben. “Harry Shapiro? You mean Vice President Harry
Shapiro?”

“That’s right. Harry was promoted to the VP job just over a year ago. Before that, he was
responsible for getting Regency off the ground. Think about it—do you expect Harry to kill his
brainchild? Useless or not, Regency will be around longer than any of us.” Ben groaned, “Great,
so I’m getting roped into serving on Harry’s pet project! What am I supposed to do?”

Alice offered him a sympathetic look. “Look, my best advice is to go into it with good intentions
and try to do your best. I’ve seen the budget for Regency, and top management has been
trimming their support for it. That means they must recognize the project isn’t going well. They
don’t want to kill it outright.” “Remember,” Alice continued, “the project may not die because
Harry’s so committed to it, but that also means it has high visibility for him. Do a good job, and
you may get noticed. Then your next assignment is bound to be better.” Alice laughed. “Heck,
it can’t be much worse!”

Questions:

1. What termination method does it appear the company is using with the Regency
Project?
2. What are the problems with motivation when project team members perceive that
a project is earmarked for termination?
3. Why would you suspect Harry Shapiro has a role in keeping the project alive?