CASE STUDY 5: THE TROPHY PROJECT

I. CENTRAL PROBLEM

The Trophy Project was fundamentally mismanaged from the start. The management
functions of planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and directing personnel and resources
were poorly executed by both senior and project level management. Customer expectations were
not well defined and scope creep was allowed to take place without proper administration. There
did not appear to be a corporate champion for this project who could mentor and resolve
conflicts that were beyond the authority of the project manager. Plus, the project manager
appeared to be inexperienced and was not very adept at negotiating with upper level and
functional management to obtain the proper resources necessary to achieve the project
objectives. They also didn’t appear to honor any form of schedule or business ethics because
they were charging direct labor time to the project while working on other projects. Functional
management appeared to lack leadership and direction across the whole unit.

II. OBJECTIVES
1. To be able to understand the importance of management functions in the Trophy Project
Case Study.
2. To be able to evaluate the role of effective planning and communication in managing a
project
3. To be able to apply the management functions in managing an important project.

III. ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTION (ACA)

1. Reichart needed to direct, organize and control the project effectively.

As the Project Manager, he needed to use interpersonal and communication skills with both
functional managers and his project team to accomplish every task in the project.
Communication is a key factor in any organization or project. In the case of the Trophy project,
there is an existence of communication gaps observed, something which has appeared to have
adverse effects on the project. The organizations behavioral strategy needs to transform from a
bureaucratic to a learning organization where employees operate in high performance teams and
where good communication and free flow of information flourish -In order to resolve some of
these inherent problems, the organization should consider the Organizational Structure.
 ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
1. Strong Communication results high 1. Increased Power Plays
performance Large organizations require a lot of power
The organization will come up effective plays and this is a tedious way to do.
and efficient plans and solutions to the
problem.

2. Free Flow of Information Flourish 2. React quickly to change

Controlling and directing the members of A Project Manager should be efficient in
the organization through free and direct making decisions for solving the problem.
information provides solution to the
existing problems.

2. The organization should have strong strategic planning and should have an effective
leading.

The Trophy project has shown signs of lack of corporate strategy. The stated organization needs
to look at its strategy in all of the aspects before they take on any project. Management needs to
ensure that they are strategically aligned. No project will survive or be successful if it is not
aligned with the strategy of the organization and properly evaluated, communicated and
supported by management.

ADVANTAGES
1. Implementation of Contingency Plan
The organization should have an effective
strategic management in solving the
problems. They should also consider risk
management in their project.
DISADVANTAGES
1. No Proper Work Breakdown Structures
Without strategic plan, the organization is
not able to solve the problem and they is
no paper work breakdown shown.

2. Effective Leadership Skills 2. Customer Negation Fail

As a project manager, you should possess Due to the lack of leadership, customer
leadership skills that would help the expectations are not met.
project successful through leading the
organization.
 IV. CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION

CONCLUSION:

Project success is dependent upon good organizational and behavioral structures which may be
achieved by the use of transformational tools such as the balanced score card. It is imperative
that project objectives should be aligned to the organizational project implementation strategy.

Problems in the Trophy project were attributed to undesirable leadership behavior, dysfunctional
organizational structure, poor interpersonal skills non-structured communication channels, poor
contract administration as well as poor implementation of balanced score card.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
.

1. The organization should apply change management to remedy the matrix type organization
that already exists in their structure. They should move from the lightweight matrix to heavy
weight matrix, where team member from the functional units will be fully seconded to the
project for the whole duration of the project.

2. Communication channels need to be improved in the organization as a whole. They need to

come up with checks and balanced to review their communication strategy. Organizational
improvement, shown could be used by the organization to achieve the strategy transformation.
The behavioral, structural, and operational changes should take place congruently and in
harmony in order to achieve improved performance. This will in turn curb the project cost and
time overruns.