Museum Expansion Case Study

And Final Reflection

Jennifer Getts
OGL322
Professor David Corlett
October 8, 2021
PART 1 – SPONSOR LETTER REGARDING MUSEUM EXPANSION CASE

Dear Project Sponsor,

My name is Jennifer Getts and I am the new acting Project Manager over the Museum Expansion
Project. I am looking forward to working with you as we ensure a timely and worthwhile project.

When I step into a project that is in the middle of the execution phase, I try to assume a few
things. I am assuming that there is a good reason as to why the previous project manager felt the
need to walk away. I am assuming that there are high levels of tension. I am assuming that your
project team may also be considering to walk away from this project. I am assuming that the
culture of this project team is very poor and team members are placing blame on each other.

I have spent a healthy amount of time looking at the project documents that were forwarded to
me. I am assuming that these are reliable. So far, I have two options that I would like to suggest
to you. Preferably, I would like to move forward with option one as it will help mend burning
bridges and take care of the health of our team.

My first option is a combination of Rescheduling activities in the project as well as crashing

other activities. My recommendation is to completely nix carpeting the lobby of the museum
during this project. These areas tend to have high foot traffic, so not carpeting this area of the
museum will not only save time and money on this project, but as well as ongoing maintenance
over the long-term. However, if you prefer to have carpet, you could always reschedule carpeting
the lobby in the future. This could be done in late spring when visitors won’t be tracking in snow
or mud. This activity should not take more than two weeks. I would also recommend adding
labor for activity 13 and activity 18. Ideally, we would trim activity 13 down to eleven days and
activity 18 down to eighteen days. This would allow your project team to completely take off
Thanksgiving week, as well as have one week of margin at the end for inevitable mistakes.
Again, I mentioned that the project team assumably has a poor culture. Giving them the week of
Thanksgiving off would give them incentive to work hard up until then. It would also give them
rest for their mental health and to finish the final stretch of this project strong.

A second option is to reschedule the flooring by leaning into an industrial décor in the museum
lobby. We would spend more time on pouring concrete to finish and seal the cement. We could
add some rugs to dampen the sound, but this would allow the project to finish early with a week
of margin at the end. This option does not require overtime, but it also does not allow for the
project team to have the entire week of Thanksgiving off.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jennifer Getts
Project Manager
PART 2- PERSONAL REFLECTION ON PROJECT SCHEDULING

When I first saw that this course was a requirement for my degree program, I chuckled. I
chuckled at the idea of having time management as a class. Of course, this class is geared toward
project management, but I still thought the idea of it was comical. I feel that time management is
something we grow up being expected to have mastered once we hit college age, but it’s
something that’s not really taught. Having had taken this course now, I am extremely thankful.

Taking this course helped me learn a bit about myself that I didn’t know before. I learned that I
need a lot more work on time management than I thought. While I don’t have experience as a
project manager, these skills absolutely carry towards other areas in life.

Over the course of this class, I was tasked with a project at my job, Starbucks. I was told that we
are closing our location for a day and a half, and I needed to clean the store. At my disposal were
5 partners (employees) that I could use at my discretion. In a very short amount of time, I had to
strategize, prioritize, and create a plan of action that would maximize the impact of this limited
amount of time and people. What I learned in this class guided me greatly. I started out creating
an informal WBS of all the possibilities of tasks that we could complete. I then thought of my
deadline and resources and had to adjust the scope of this project to keep it on schedule. In the
execution process, I was constantly controlling the scope and monitoring the status. I did do
some work on my own, but I mostly did things that would propel the team to make the biggest
impact possible. I kept telling my manager, “I’m trying to prioritize well”. We weren’t going to
get everything accomplished that I wanted to, but because of the material from this class, I think
that I prioritized well and the project was a success! The district manager even came to observe
my leadership and to offer me encouragement on my excellence.

I feel that determining the critical path was my biggest revelation in this class. Again, this can
translate to so many more situations because it really does help a lot. When I first read about
what the critical path was and how to determine it, I easily grasped it. However, as I was
working on the Museum Expansion case study, I realized just how vital it was. I was excited to
have determined the critical path before I noticed the note hinting that the Lobby included the
critical path in its segment!

I think my biggest hurdle that I still need time to grasp is knowing when to crash and when to
compress. I hope I did that well in my final case study, but it’s something I’m not super
comfortable with yet. I also am not comfortable with making firm decisions without having all
the information. As I reflect, I think this is something that will never change. I will always be
navigating projects with missing pieces. I hope that over the course of this degree program, that
is something we will dive into more.

All in all, I thought this was a fantastic course that I had a lot of fun with! If there are more
classes with David Corlett, I am signing up! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into
this class.
Lobby

Original Network Diagram

10 14 15 15 22 20
54 5 59 59 5 64

0 11 10
44 10 54
64 23 74
10 15 16 64 10 74
68 6 74

15 20 24 64 24 74
55 9 64 64 10 74
0 12 15
40 15 55
15 21 18
71 3 74 55 19 64
55 9 64

0 13 15 15 16 20 20 17 30 30 18 55
0 15 15 15 5 20 20 10 30 30 25 55
Lobby

Network Diagram Option 1

10 14 15 15 22 20
54 5 59 59 5 64

0 11 10
44 10 54
64 23 74
10 15 16 64 10 74
68 6 74

15 20 24 44 24 54
55 9 64 64 10 74
0 12 15
40 15 55
15 21 18
71 3 74 35 19 44
55 9 64

0 13 11 11 16 16 16 17 26 26 18 44
0 11 15 15 5 20 20 10 30 30 18 55
Lobby

Network Diagram Option 2

10 14 15 15 22 20
14 5 19 19 5 24

0 11 10
2 10 22
24 23 34
10 15 22 24 10 34
22 12 34

15 20 24 24 24 34
15 9 24 24 10 34
0 12 15
0 15 15
15 21 18
31 3 34 55 19 64
55 9 64

0 13 15 15 16 20 20 17 30 30 18 55
0 15 15 15 5 20 20 10 30 30 25 55
Store/Café/Kitchen

Network Diagram

22 2 32
22 10 32

0 1 22
32 7 35 35 8 45
0 22 22
32 3 35 35 10 45
22 3 27
27 5 32
45 9 51
45 6 51

0 4 18 18 5 23 23 6 33 45 10 55
12 18 30 30 5 35 35 10 45 45 10 55
 Lecture Hall
Network Diagram

0 36 5 5 31 25 25 37 31
25 5 30 30 20 50 50 6 56

16 33 36 36 32 56
16 20 36 34 42 44
36 20 56
0 25 16 41 10 51
0 16 16
44 44 51
16 39 23 23 40 26 26 41 34
51 5 56
31 7 38 38 3 41 28 8 41
34 43 41
2 27 7 7 29 12
46 5 51
46 5 51 51 5 56

0 26 2 2 28 17 17 30 42
14 2 16 16 15 31 31 25 56

2 35 7 7 34 12
46 5 51 51 5 56

0 38 8
48 8 56