Case 11.

1 Cybersonic Project
Nicholas, John M.; Steyn, Herman. Project Management for Engineering, Business and Technology (p. 426). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition

Miles Wilder, project manager for the Cybersonic project, considers himself a “project
manager’s project manager.” He claims to use the principles of good project management,
starting with having a plan and using it to carefully track the project. He announces to his team
leaders that status meetings will be held on alternate Mondays throughout the expected year-long
project.

All 18 project team leaders must attend and give rundowns of the tasks they are currently
working on. All the team leaders show up for the first status meeting. Seven are currently
managing work for the project and are scheduled to give reports; the other 11 are not yet working
on the project (as specified by the project schedule) but attend because Miles wants them to stay
informed about project progress. The meeting is scheduled for 3 hours; the team leaders are to
report on whatever they think important. After 4 hours of reports by five of the leaders, Miles
ends the meeting.

Several major problems are reported that he tries to resolve at the meeting. Specific
actions to resolve some of them are decided, and Miles schedules another meeting for 2 days
later to address the other problems and hear the remaining two reports. Some of the team leaders
are miffed because they’ll have to change their schedules to attend the meeting. Miles arrives an
hour late at the next meeting, which, after 3 hours, allows enough time to resolve all the
problems but not enough for the two leaders to give reports. Miles asks them if they are facing
any major issues or problems. When they respond “no,” he lets them skip the reports but
promises to start with them at the next meeting 2 weeks later. A few of the team leaders are
assigned actions to address current problems. Some of the attendees feel the meeting was a waste
of time.

Before the next meeting, some of the leaders inform Miles they cannot attend and will
send representatives. This meeting becomes awkward for three reasons.
 First, several new problems about the project are raised and, again, the ensuing discussion
drags out and there is insufficient time for everyone to give a status report; only six of a
scheduled eight team leaders give their reports.

Second, some of the leaders disagree with Miles about actions assigned at the previous
meeting. Because no minutes had been taken at that meeting, each leader had followed his/ her
own notes about actions to take, some of which conflict with Miles’ expectations.

Third, people at the meeting who are “representatives” are not fully aware of what
happened at the previous meetings, do not have sufficient information to give complete reports
or answer questions, and are hesitant to commit to action without their team leaders’ approval.

The next several meetings follow the same pattern: they run over schedule; fewer team
leaders and more representatives attend; status reports are not given because of inadequate time;
people disagree over problems identified and actions to be taken. The project falls behind
schedule because problems are not addressed adequately or quickly enough. Miles feels that too
much time is being wasted on resolving problems at the meetings and that many problems
should, instead, be resolved entirely by the team leaders. He instructs the leaders to work out
solutions and changes on their own, and to report at status meetings only the results. This reduces
the length of the meetings but creates other complications: some team leaders take actions and
make changes that ignore project dependencies and conflict with other leaders’ work tasks.
Everyone is working overtime, but the Cybersonic project falls further behind schedule.

Questions
1. Why is Miles’ approach to tracking and controlling the Cybersonic project ineffective?
2. If you were in charge, what would you do?