Bluedogs, USA [For Review]

1. What was the role of a project manager before the organization changes described in this
case? What extra duties were PMs performing in addition to straight project management?
Ans.
Before the organizational changes, the activities performed by the project manager were:

1. They were the primary contact in the IT division for all new requests, be it new projects,
bug fixes or operational issues.
2. There was a limited number of project managers in the company and since their role was
not defined properly, they were acting like general managers who are in charge of day to
day activities.
3. “The role of a project manager is distinct from that of a functional manager or operations
manager. Typically, the functional manager focuses on providing management oversight
for a functional or business unit. Operations managers are responsible for ensuring that
business operations are efficient. The project manager is the person assigned by the
performing organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving the project
objectives.” (reference: PMI)
4. In conclusion, I would say that even though the project manager’s activities included
activities of a project manager, their role was more of an operations manager/general
manager who would deal with day to day activities.
5. The project management team was in collaboration with Online marketing divisions and
Third-party vendors.
6. The project managers were also in charge of reporting bugs in old projects and making
sure they were resolved.
7. These activities consumed most of their time and hence the project managers did not get
enough time to work on new projects.

In addition to project management, the project managers were performing the following roles:

1. They were the liaison between the Bluedogs companies and the IT department.
2. They were the communicators between the operations team and the end user.
3. They were the communicators between the bug team and the end user.
4. Communication on issues to provide updates is done by the project manager.
5. Time tracking within the company showed the following

i) Project managers spend 50% of time doing production support.

ii) While it is not generalised, some project managers were spending 60% of their
time coordinating with third parties.
From the above, it can be seen that they had a more operational manager role than a project
manager role.
2. Without the reorganization, what were the issues and risks the company was facing?
Ans.
1. Inappropriate project life cycle model
As described, the project team follows a traditional life cycle. The traditional waterfall life cycle
is characterized with phases in sequence of requirements, design, implementation, verification,
and maintenance. It is not appropriate when adopted in the fast-changing environment of the IT
industry. It could be risky because it is time-consuming, lack of resilience to changes, lack of
authentic controls, little team empowerment, no continuous improvement to process, no
refinement of scope, no prioritization of scope, etc.
2. Lack of PM resources

With the traditional model before reorganization. Project managers have to handle too many
things at the same time. They have to do a lot of communicating, coordinating and
micromanaging work with multiple stakeholders as well as internal team members.

3. Risk of scope creep

The manager works with both the Business line and the 3rd parties with no contract specialists
and no integrated change control process. When a new requirement or issue comes up and is
directed to the 3rd party, it may lead to scope creep and unexpected increased costs.

4. Knowledge transfer risk

The traditional model usually has its key personnel. In this case, Anna is the only person who has
the big picture of outstanding issues and project evolution in her mind. It is difficult to find
someone else as a substitute if she leaves. Even though we could find someone in a short period,
he/she has to start over, which needs a lot of time and effort.

5. Communication risk

As described, the project manager is usually the first point to be contacted by the brands
whenever there is an issue or question regardless whose responsibility it is. It added noncritical
and unnecessary workloads of communication to the PM.

6. No risk management plans

As the customers of the project team are located in different time zones and may need immediate
assistantship during operations. Risks should be pre-identified and recorded in the risk register
for reference of the 24/7 operation team when the PM is not immediately available.

7. Project closure risk

There is no retrospective review or lessons learned process as part of the project closure phase.
As a result, the finished project would not turn into a knowledge base and contribute to the
organizational process assets in the future.
3. What are the benefits and drawbacks of implementing this new organization structure? How
does it help/hurt the project management activities specifically?
Ans.
Benefits
1) The addition of the new help desk Team to the organizational structure has helped the IT
group to move up production support tasks from the project management team. Thus,
involving the new resources in the early phases can improve project control, free up
project management time and ensure that the client business is receiving better & faster
support.
2) The addition of the bug support team to take over for all post-launch follow-up activities
and follow up questions from the client business has helped the project management team
to take on new projects much faster after a launch.
3) By providing additional support and aligning the interests of the project management
team the organization can significantly increase the employee retention rate, reduce
overtime hours and improve employee productivity.
4) The project management team can now focus on implementing better PM practices thus
encouraging personal professional development
5) The organization also promotes a culture of accountability, eg by empowering the help
desk team to make decisions regarding website troubleshooting with the client business.
They are now responsible for communicating status on the incidents to the business and
other stakeholders regularly, and ensure issues are resolved.
6) The organization has also considered the impact of employee replacement and its impact
to minimize WIP tasks by integrating transferable skills with pair-work. e.g. the helpdesk
team and third-party support team initially had one resource manager which later
increased.
7) The organization has also considered strategies for risk opportunities by sharing, that is,
they have outsourced the development of bug fixes to a third-party consulting company
while Bluedogs focused on building new product functionalities.
Drawbacks:
1. In the new organizational structure, the PM has the additional responsibility to ensure that
the knowledge transfer procedure is well structured, documented and understood by the
external teams. Knowledge gap due to lack of understanding could affect the capability to
influence project quality.
2. There can be some amount of “Switching Cost” - how much time it takes to stop what
you’re doing and start something else, faced by PMs to interact with the new teams after
the knowledge transfer.
The new organization structure could help project management activities:
By reducing the PM’s project support task, they can now focus on more projects and improve the
project lifecycle process, by identifying customer requirements, scope and establishing
milestones and deliverables. They can also create a change control plan to prevent scope creep.

4. What would have been the alternatives to solve the issues faced by the organization without
changing the organizational structure? What would be the drawbacks and benefits?

Ans-
Alternatives to solve the staffing and organizational issues could be-

● It appears that all project communications were happening through the PM. This could’ve
vastly bottlenecked exchange of knowledge. A simple communication plan that bypassed
the PM wherever not necessary or inconclusive, would’ve made work much simpler for
all stakeholders.

● Issues arising from the current organizational systems should have been properly logged
and analyzed for improvements. A dynamic model of improving the management
structures through retrospectives and a thorough feedback process after each sprint could
have saved the lost year and delays in the projects.

● A power interest grid would have been beneficial for clarity of authority among the
senior management and the staff. The VP- Mike had seemed to think that the PM wasn't
responsible for as much as he was on a certain project. If this tool was presented to the
senior management for each project, it would have helped them identify the stakeholders
better and hence they’d have had a clearer picture of how much the PMs had on their
plates and inferred that some distribution of power was in order before clogging began.

● A lot of resources were being exchanged from the IT E-comm division, especially from
engineering. These trade-offs could have been done better with some uniformity in time
management throughout Bluedogs USA, France, UK, etc. Project managers should be
consulted before resources are requested to share time on multiple projects so that
discrete schedules and plans for any project are not compromised while the PM of that
resource’s primary project is in the dark.

● Some sporadic shift of focus from projects to internal regulations can also help Bluedogs
in delivering more efficiently. Work only happens where managers lay focus and so if
they actively voice their interests in improving methods, all employees will engage in the
process and factor progressive systems in making decisions.
 ● Processes need to be constantly challenged. Are the data that they collect truly reflective
of performance and progress? Or are they just following traditionally popular reporting
habits. Since data drives major decisions, it's important to be conscious of the relevancy
of these numbers. Important measures must not be neglected.

Drawbacks-

● There will always be some time and energy spent on these processes, establishing
standards for them and maintaining their regulation once launched. Only time will tell
their cost v/s benefit.

● Although quality of delivery will be increased, quantity of delivery may be reduced in

this effort. Managers will have to sometimes compromise one for the other.

Benefits-

● All the processes mentioned above will generate a dynamic model of refinement
throughout the IT E-Comm sector of Bluedogs, substantially eliminating the need for
untimely drastic changes.

● Transparency among all stakeholders through the use of formally descriptive documents
like the power interest grid, and an all-inclusive process of time-sharing resources helps
everyone involved on the project be on the same page which is imperative for smooth
functioning.

● Agile PMs act as needed. Internal process refinement will help them identify the need to
act.

● All the suggestions above will consistently give a more accurate idea of the company’s
capacity to deliver. This will let the senior management know in advance about what
projects to commit to and a timely advance on the need to recharge staffing.

5. What are your key takeaways from this case?

Ans.

In this case John is trying to convey to senior management the actual extent of the Project
managers duties and how they go beyond the substantial project completion. With the iterative
nature of this project, it is key to manage the backlog and ensure that problems are resolved
regularly before they compound into future releases. This technical debt needs to be resolved
before the new project can start. He is also trying to get them to appreciate how resources are
allocated and function effectively. Senior management needs to appreciate that specialized
resources are not interchangeable and often have limited availability. He goes on to debunk
myths such as the mythical man month in trying to bring more resources to initiate or scale the
project. The PMs are more expensive resources but they deliver significant value to the
organization, especially when it comes to project monitoring and controls. This is exemplified by
how John worries that the new PM will have to do a lot of coordinating and micromanaging,
indicating that this project relies heavily on monitoring and controls in order to be successful.

John has, to his credit, realized a risk in Anna leaving the firm and is making sure that she does
sufficient reporting on her knowledge on third-party reportiture so the experience remains within
the organization. This mitigation action is often more effective than trying to repair the damage
after the threat has occurred, however it could have been realized earlier on to prevent the
bottleneck which was occurring. The knowledge transfer is an essential part of the PMs duty and
we see this being emphasized in the reorganization with the addition of the new bug support
team. However, with the new organizational structure, we see that the PMs are still spending
most of their time coordinating with the third-party vendors which serves to show the PMs role
as a facilitator is still vital and should be used effectively to make the most out these resources.