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APPENDIX A: ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Surname Zuma

First Name/s Charmaine Nompilo

Student Number 145580

Subject Principles of Project Management

Assignment Number 2

Tutor’s Name

Examination Venue Johannesburg

Date Submitted 18 March 2021

Submission (√) First Submission x Resubmission

Postal Address
28 Roets Road Beyers Park

Boksburg

1459

E-Mail Charmie.zuma@gmail.com
(Work)
(Home) 084 824 7503
Contact Numbers
(Cell) 084 824 7503

Semester 2
Course/Intake

Declaration: I hereby declare that the assignment submitted is an original piece of work produced by myself.

Date: 18 March 2021

Signature:
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Table of Contents Page

Question 3
Bibliography 4
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Question 1

1.1 – The Xbox 360 had a lot of technical design flaws or engineering problems which
compromised its functionality and quality. These problems were not managed well because they
were rushing to launch the Xbox 360 console in 2005.
- The Xbox had issues when connecting to the internet.
- The console damaged games disks to a point where they could no longer be used so online gaming
was not working fine.
- The power cords posed a fire hazard
- It had a string of three lights that illuminate on the console when a serious problem is detected.
- Considerable amounts of money had been invested on the console which made it difficult to
reverse it.

1.2 The theory is conservatism and sunk costs trap where new data coming in from the markets
about the product is largely ignored in order to protect the status quo of the business. Sunk cost is
a cause of error in decision making that could result in excessive costs to the business. Microsoft
received a lot of complaints about the Xbox 360, about the technical and engineering faults, design
malfunctions and the 33% return rate however, they chose to ignore these complaints because they
had spent large amounts of money in manufacturing the new console, in hiring and remunerating
the engineering team who worked on it, it took them a while to reverse the bad business decision
they had made. They had failed also to take corrective measures timeously to rectify the issue as
the new division ignored taking responsibility for their failure in producing a defective gaming
system.

1.3 Microsoft should have:

• Done a Risk Assessment- Risk is uncertainty with probabilities attached to each
possible outcome (McTaggart, Findlay and Parkin, 1996,402). A proper risk
assessment and analysis should have been conducted by Microsoft to evaluate the
impact of different outcomes by playing out different scenarios- assuming return rates/
warranty replacement rates of 5%, 10%, 20%, 30% etc., and developing a contingency/
mitigation plan to assist them in containing the risk.
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• Set realistic deadlines- There was no need for Microsoft to hasten into launching a
defective product which is much costly to repair/ rework. They should have rather
opted to delay the product launch in order to ensure that a good quality product is
released.
• Set buffers- There were no buffers set for the deadlines. They should have set at least
set 20% buffers for time as well as costs.
• Plan for a pilot- Microsoft could have planned a pilot where you sell the product only
to a focused group, allow them to use the product for a few months, just as other
consumers would use and then collect feedback from them about the product before
mass producing the products to the general market.
• Use the first feedback- the first round of feedback obtained from the market should not
have been ignored, but should have been used to refine the product and make
adjustments to it while putting the production of the defective product to a halt thus
avoiding cost of $1 billion spent in replacements of the product while ensuring the
production of a good, quality product.

Bibliography

• Kerzner, H. (2017). Project Management: A systems Approach to Planning,

Scheduling and Controlling (12th Edition). New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons
• Lester, A. (2017). Project Management: Planning and Control (7th Edition). United
Kingdom: Oxford.

• Mc Taggart, D. C., Findlay, C., and Parkin, M. (1996, 402). Economics (2nd
Edition). Sydney: Addison Wesley.