«PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT GLOBAL GREEN BOOKS PUBLISHING»

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT GLOBAL GREEN BOOKS PUBLISHING

Name of the Student

Institution affiliation
«PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT GLOBAL GREEN BOOKS PUBLISHING»

Abstract

Global Green Books Publishing is a company that provides its clients with electronic books.

It started out as a small project by the two friends and soon became a successful business.

However, on the third year of functioning, the firm started to face several problems. They were

unable to leverage all new employees effectively, unable to deliver eBooks to their customers on

schedule, unable to provide quality texts and unable to control costs so their business became non-

profitable. As a result they decided to hire a project manager with a hope that it will bring positive

benefits to their company. Project manager Samantha made a few ground braking decisions that

changed the entire situation. In this research we will try to answer the questions like: why the

Global Green Books Publishing began to struggle, what were the specific solutions introduced by

Samantha that worked and will she remain a successful project manager due to the lack of

technological knowledge? The research is also aimed at revealing a project management value for

the business.
«PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT GLOBAL GREEN BOOKS PUBLISHING»

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT GLOBAL GREEN BOOKS PUBLISHING

Project management is the essential part of the entire working process, no matter is it a small

group task or a big project of the huge company. PM has evolved from being just a management

philosophy to a business process which the most companies claim to be a mandatory of the firm

survival. It has become such a big phenomenon in corporative world that even universities are

offering degrees in project management.

PM is a complicated form of corporate behavior and has a decisive impact on the final

results. It consists of several elements and is a mixture of technical and psychological issues aimed

at the best performance and productivity from the company employees. Successful project

management means reaching the project objectives. (Kerzner, 2013)

Global Green Books Publishing is a company that produces and delivers eBooks. It was

founded by two friends Jim King and Brad Mount. From the very beginning they divided their

duties between each other and the business was successful for the first two years. But on the third

years of their work they began to face some serious problems with almost every aspect of their

company life. We will try to find out why it happened by answering certain questions.

Question 1: Why did GGBP struggle?

There were few reasons for that. First of all, on the third year they found a new major

customer for themselves – local college which needed customized eBooks. Jim and Brad were the

only two employees of the company so they couldn`t manage to deal with all the new amount of

work that had to be done. So they hired several part-time employees to help them. Unfortunately,

considering that besides controlling their employees Jim and Brad also had to focus on editing,

sales, marketing, doing electronic assembly and publishing of books-it was hard to leverage their

part-time workers. As a result of weak working discipline, low quality of texts, they`ve spend a lot

of time and money to fix defects in their products which also resulted in a delays with delivering the

books to their primary customer.

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That happened because of the lack of the essential PM elements such as project initiation

project planning, project execution, project monitoring and project control. If one of those parts

missing – the result will be unpleasant. The main project objectives must be reached :

- Within time

- Within cost

- At the desired performance level

- While utilizing resources effectively

- Accepted by the customer. (Kerzner, 2013)

Almost every element there is violated and that is the main reason of why did the Global

Green Books Publishing Struggle. They needed a strong project manager who will be able to meet

all those aspects and who can organize the entire process of company performance and controlling

employees making Jim and Brad able to focus on their particular tasks. Fortunately for them, one of

their part-time employees - Samantha had taken a PM course at the college. She met with Jim and

asked him about all of the issues they faced. Soon after Samantha monitored all of them made some

conclusions and implemented her way of project management to the company. Steps and decisions

she made were very useful and brought stunning results for the company, which leads us to the next

question.

Question 2: What were the specific PM solutions that were introduced by Samantha

that worked?

The most important piece of job done by Samantha was training the employees to get the

work done well. The quality of the texts increased so there was no need to spend money and time

for fixing the defects. As a result - delays were eliminated and customers were satisfied. She made

up a PM manual and introduced project management process which allowed all of the workers to

understand the aims, deadlines and responsibility for their job. Everything was going according to

the plan she implemented so all the deliveries was done on schedule and no surprises or issues came

up.
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There are three main parts that project manager has to take care of: management leadership,

orientation on a result and collaborative environment. Samantha managed to bring all of these

elements into life within the GGBP company. In theory, the benefits of her project management are:

knowing when objectives cannot be met or will be exceeded, improved estimating capability for

future planning, early identification of problems, identification of time limits for scheduling.

(Kerzner, 2013)

Question 3: What kind of suggestions would you give to Brad and Jim if you were the

PM?

If I were a project manager to GGBP I would rather recommend Jim and Brad to concentrate

on their own duties within the company and not to divert on the responsibilities of other people.

That is something a project manager has to do. Since they are responsible for hiring new employees

to the firm Jim and Brad must set up a small test for everyone who wishes to work at GGBP. That is

an important part of hiring right people who will do the job well and on time. Also, they have to

make up a strong hierarchy within the company. Jim and Brad are at the head of the firm, project

manager is accountable to them, and all of the other employees are organized by him. So it makes

project manager the most responsible person in the company and the entire success of their business

depends on one person skills. It is easier to control one person and dismiss him in case of his

incompetence than to deal with large amount of workers.

Question 4: Are you aware of other similar start-up businesses that struggle in a

similar manner? How did they overcome the challenges?

I have a friend James who decided to start his own clothing brand called «Maple ST» with

two of his other friends. For the first two month they were looking for the places of sewing t-shirts

and making the design of their logo which had to be printed on their clothes. They found the right

people and started a production process. Once the first batch of t-shirts were ready for the selling,

they`ve started a promotion of their brand in the internet using Facebook and Instagram.
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They found customers really quickly and started selling their clothes. For the first year

«Maple ST» was doing really well because people liked the design and quality of the clothes.

However the profit was not big due to the small manufacturing strength of the business and inability

to interest a big number of people. In addition the designer that worked for my friend decided to

quit because he lost any interest in making clothes.

Unfortunately, soon after that the brand was closed because it was unable to produce new

products and the money they earned was not enough for sewing new shirts and for any serious

promotional needs. James decided to concentrate on the college study and left the business. Sadly

they didn`t overcome the challenges.

Question 5: Global Green Books Publishing is a technology intensive business, but

Samantha is not technically knowledgeable, will she continue to be a successful project

manager?

Samantha`s main task is to organize the whole process of company business. The technical

side of preparing texts and eBooks is beyond her competence, it is Brads responsibility. The main

aim she is after is to make sure there will be no delays or unpleasant surprises. She has all of the

qualities a true project manager needs to have: detail-oriented, communicable and has high

interpersonal skills. Samantha already proved her professionalism while leading GGBP out of a

crisis during 9 month of work which also means she has a necessary experience and is able to make

right decision in the critical occasions. However, she`ll be even more effective and useful if she`ll

become advanced in the main product of the company-eBooks, because there are many obstacles

while reaching the project benefits such as:

- Project complexity

- Customers special requirements

- Changes in technology. (Kerzner,2013)

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Conclusion

Project management is the most essential part of the working process organization. It is

irreplaceable by its nature and the person responsible for that has to be chosen carefully and

considering personal skills and qualities. Starting up a business requires serious attitude and wise

planning. Project manager is a perfect help in those types of cases. He will organize employees,

motivate them, take into account all of the risks and threats. Project management is made for a

better use of company resources by making the work flow within the firm. Project manager is also

responsible for tracking progress, comparing actual outcome and predicted income, analyzing

variances and impacts, making adjustments. (Kerzner, 2013)

The case of Global Green Books Publishing is a great example of how important is project

manager to the business and how effective is the job he is doing. From the very beginning Jim and

Brad made a mistake by hiring to much people without testing their abilities for the required work

and due to the big number of their own duties they were unable to control the process of text-

writing which resulted in low-quality products, time and money-waste and serious delays with

eBooks delivery to the customers. They had to find a PM from the very beginning, and it would

save them lot of resources. Fortunately they found Samantha who was some kind of savior for their

business.
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References

Harold R. Kerzner., Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling,

and Controlling (2013).

Mini-Case Study: Developing Project Managers at Global Green Books Publishing Global Green

Books Publishing is continuing to grow. They now have three large customerstwo in traditional

print-based work and the third is a local college. They produce customized eBooks for this local

college. This newest line of work is growing, as other customers hear of their work, and the account

managers are speaking with several other colleges and professional associations about taking on

additional projects in electronic publishing. As they have grown, they have had to start

implementing some project management concepts to plan and manage their work. The founders

hired Samantha as a project associate or project manager on a full-time basis to help them introduce

project management practices and help them tide over the crisis they were experiencing with rapid

growth. Within the first three months in her new role as PM, she introduced formal project

management processes, created a PM manual and trained the employees to get the work done well.

Within a year, the company was delivering projects on schedule, the quality processes worked—and

customers were happy with the products! This success was leading to possible new work and

greater opportunities to bring on new customers.

As the growth continued, Samantha was now feeling the pressure. She was only one person. And

there was so much more to still do. Using her project management skills, she had implemented

more formal project management processes, created a PM manual and trained the employees to get

the work done well. One area where she especially felt stretched thin was in supporting the

supervisors. As the eBook business grew, there were more and more demands on the supervisors.

Many were great print technicians who had caught the eye of the founders for their attitudes and

customer service ethic. But today, they were being called on to do more complex tasks than merely

running a highly automated print copier. Supervisors are interacting with customers, as well as with
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internal account managers and customer service representatives. They are managing employees

with a diverse set of skills, backgrounds, and motivations. It is increasingly hard for them to ask

employees to take on hard challenges when they themselves do not have those skills and have not

done the eBook publishing that the business is increasingly moving to.

Many of the supervisors have had a bit of project management mentoring from Samantha, but still

know that they have to be both leaders and managers. As project teams come together to work on

eBooks, there are challenges. Some of the challenges have to do with knowing the status of the

work, as part-time employees come in and hand a piece of a project off to another worker. Some

deal managing conflicts as they arise – both technical issues as permissions are delayed and content

cannot yet be incorporated, leading to scheduling changes, and interpersonal issues among staff.

Some of these conflicts occur between a mostly young, part-time contingent of student workers and

the full-time employees.

Supervisors are often drawn into mediating or resolving these conflicts. They really need to meld

together their staff to create highly capable, productive project teams for these fast-paced eBook

projects. The staff needs to trust each other and their leadership to be fair and to balance work

priorities with the times that they are available. Supervisors need to provide leadership, to provide

inspiration for their team, and to be good motivators of their team members, as well as be a good

manager, worrying about the day-today and minute-by-minute accomplishment of the project’s

goals. Being a good motivator also means that the supervisors must be good listeners to understand

what issues are confronting their team members and the needs of their team members.

The supervisors were realizing that as a group they needed two things. One was a greater grasp of

people skills, or so-called “soft” skills, to help make them more effective. The other was more

support in project management as they needed to better track the details of the work, and the task
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level scheduling and rescheduling that was happening as team members come and go for their work

shifts and as permissions sometimes take longer to obtain than planned.

Samantha is starting to discuss with her management and with the human resources and training

group how they can meet some of these needs. Perhaps some leadership development training for

supervisors could be arranged. And she is talking with her management about setting up a project

management office (PMO) to have project management staff available to help the supervisors with

some of their work tracking and scheduling challenges. She hopes that addressing these two issues

will make their eBook delivery much smoother.

Comment on the following aspects of the case study:

a) What are some of the challenges facing supervisors?

b) What skills do you think the supervisors need to be effective project managers? Why do they

need these skills?

c) Are there skills that team members need to be effective team members in a project? If so, what

are these skills?

d) Which characteristic or skill do you think is the most significant characteristic of an effective

project manager?

e) What steps could project managers take to help make their teams more effective?

f) What advice would you give Samantha about setting up a project management office? What roles

could these staff perform, and how could they interact with the existing projects?
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g) Can you describe oth