GBMG 1005 Project Management

Assignment Three: PMI Mini-Case Study: 3P Books Publishing – eBook Operations

Assignment three is a case study involving a digital book publishing company that is experiencing
operational challenges in the growth of their business. Your task is to carefully analyze the relevant
case details, assess the current state and identify needed changes and improvements in
operations using the project management techniques you have learned in the course.

The case study story line is divided into three parts each with their own tasks and questions.

Case Study - Part One: Defining Operations Projects

3P Books Publishing is a successful printing and publishing company in its third year. It has
survived the bringing on a large new customer and all the challenges of new work that this
customer needed in a very short time.
Much of this work for the college is customized eBooks. As the first term progressed with 3P
Books making customized eBooks for this college, there were several issues that affected the
quality of the eBooks produced and caused a great deal of rework for the company. The local
university was unhappy as their eBook products sometimes reached campus late for use by
professors and student. In some cases, the books were a week or two late.
The management of 3P Books was also challenged by these projects. The college expected
them delivered on-time and at a low cost, and the company was not always doing that.
Accounting was having difficult tracking the costs for each of the books, and the shift supervisor
were often having problems knowing what tasks needed to be completed and assigning the right
employees to each task.
Some of the problems stemmed from the new part time employees. Since many of these
workers had flexible schedules, it wasn’t always clear which tasks they were supposed to be
working on when they came into work. Each book being produced was indeed a book; but that
was all they had in common. Each book had different production steps, different contents and
reprint approvals required, and different layouts and cover designs. Some were just collections
of articles to reprint once approvals were received, and others required extensive desktop
publishing. Each eBook was a complex process, but was going to be made just once, as these
eBooks were all customized for each professor and course each semester. Each eBook had to
be produced on time and had to be made to match just exactly what the professors requested.
Understanding what each eBook needed had to be clearly documented and understood before
starting production. 3P Books had been told by the college how many different printing jobs the
college would need, but they weren’t all arriving at once, and orders were quite unpredictable in
arriving from the professors at the college. Some professors needed rush orders for their
classes. Some orders arrived as projected, but some came later than anticipated. When 3P
Books finally got all their orders, some of these jobs were much larger than they had thought
they would be.
Each eBook needed to have a separate job order prepared that listed all the steps that needed
to be completed, so that tasks could be assigned to each worker. These job orders were also
becoming a problem. Not all the steps needed were getting listed in each order. Often the
estimates of time for each task were not completed until after the work was done, causing
problems as workers were supposed to move on to new tasks but were still finishing their
previous tasks. Some tasks required specialized equipment or skills, sometimes from other
groups within 3P Books. Not all the new student hires were trained for all the
printing and binding equipment used to print and assemble to books.

3P Books wanted to start developing a template for job orders. This template should list all the
possible tasks that should be performed in producing an eBook for the college. These tasks
could be broken down into the different phases of the work.

In the Receive Order phase, the order should be received by 3P Books from the professor or the
college, it should be checked and verified, and a job order started. In checking and verifying
each order, the customer representative should make sure that they have the requester’s name,
email, and phone number; the date needed, and a full list of all the contents.

They should also verify that they have received all the materials that were supposed to be
included with that order and have fully identified all the items that they need to request
permissions for. Any problems found in checking and verifying should be resolved by contacting
the professor.
In the Plan Order phase, all the desktop publishing work is planned, estimated, and assigned to
production staff. Also, all the production effort to collate and produce the eBook are identified,
estimated, and scheduled, and assigned to production staff. Specific equipment resource needs
are identified, and equipment is reserved on the schedule to support the planned production
effort.
In the Production Phase, permissions are acquired, desktop publishing tasks (if needed) are
performed, content is converted, and the proof of the eBook is produced. A quality assistant will
check the eBook against the job order and customer order to make sure it is ready for production,
and once approved by quality, each of the requested eBook formats are created. A second
quality check makes sure that each requested format is ready to release to the college.
In a Manage Production Phase, happening in parallel with the Production Phase, a supervisor
will track progress, work assignments, and costs for each eBook. Any problems will be resolved
quickly in an attempt to not have any rework or delays in releasing the eBooks to the college.
Each eBook will plan to use the standard job template as a basis for developing a unique plan for
that eBook project.

Case Study – Part One - Questions and Tasks: (Total 20 Marks)

a) Identify the stakeholders in these eBook projects? Describe how the stakeholders are
involved in or affected by an eBook project? (5 Marks)

b) Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for an eBook project. (5 Marks)

c) Create a Gantt chart for the European History eBook showing the major operations project
phases, and dependencies. (10 Marks)
Case Study - Part Two: Cost Estimation at 3P Books Publishing
The Accounting department in 3P Books was having difficult tracking the costs for each of the
books.

Each eBook had a separate job order prepared that listed all the steps that needed to be
completed, so that tasks could be assigned to each worker and costs estimated. With the existing
job orders, estimates of time required for each task were sometimes not completed until after the
work was done, causing problems as workers were supposed to move on to new tasks but were
still finishing their previous tasks. Some tasks required specialized equipment or skills, sometimes
from other groups within 3P Books.

Along with its template for job orders, 3P Books wanted to start developing a project estimate for
each new eBook project. This cost estimate should capture direct costs and indirect costs. The
direct costs for an eBook project include labor costs for those in the company working on the
project, materials costs (if any), subcontractor or outside labor, and equipment and facility costs.
Material costs for these eBooks include any permissions costs for content and images used in the
eBook. Indirect costs for these eBooks include computer support costs and sales commissions for
each eBook project.

For an incoming eBook order for an eBook for a European History course, the following internal
labor costs are projected during the Plan Order Phase:

Labour
Rate
Operations Phase Operations Task Staff Category Hours
($)
Code
Customer Service
Receive Order Receive Order CSR-1 16.00 .33 *
Representative – L1
Customer Service
Receive Order Check Order CSR-1 16.00 .50 *
Representative – L1
Customer Service
Receive Order Verify Order CSR-2 20.00 1.0 *
Representative – L2
Plan Order Plan Work Supervisor – L1 SUP-1 28.00 1.0
Plan Order Assign Work Supervisor – L1 SUP-1 28.00 1.0
Plan Order Estimation Supervisor – L1 SUP-1 28.00 1.5
Plan Order Reserve Equipment Supervisor – L1 SUP-1 28.00 .50
Production Acquire Permissions Publishers Liaison PL 25.00 .2
Production Desktop Publishing (DTP) DTP Specialist – L2 DTP-2 25.00 12.5
Production Content Conversion DTP Specialist – L1 DTP-1 16.00 4.0
Production Produce eBook (Proof and Final) DTP Specialist – L2 DTP-2 25.00 5.0
Quality Technician
QC 16.00 3.0
Production Quality Checks
Customer Service
CSR-1 16.00 1.0
Representative – L1
Measure and Monitor
Manage Production Supervisor – L1 SUP-1 32.00 3.0
Production
During the Plan Order Phase, the hours for the Receive Order phase (marked with an *) are
actual times, as this work has already been performed.

In addition to these internal labor costs, the Production Supervisor has estimated that the
European History eBook will incur these costs:
a) An overhead rate on all direct labor of 1.50.
b) Material costs of $1,000 for each permission needed
c) Equipment costs of $800 for unique equipment needed for this project (a special
oversize map scanner)
d) Subcontract labor of $500 for installation and training in the use of the oversize map
scanner
e) Computer support costs of $600
f) Sales commission of 20%

In addition to direct and indirect costs, 3P Books targets a 25% profit margin on each project,
and budgets for a 10% contingency on labor and 20% contingency on permissions.

Case Study - Part Two - Questions and Tasks: (Total 18 Marks)

a) Create a simple project budget for the European History eBook operations project –
summarizing direct, indirect costs with contingency estimates itemized. (10 Marks)

b) What are the total costs by major phases of work for making this European History
eBook? (8 Marks)
Case Study - Part Three: Implementing Project Management Systems

3P Books Publishing was started two years ago by two friends, Bill Knight, and Carol Hill, who met
in college while studying in Boston, USA. In the new business Bill focused on editing, sales, and
marketing while Carol did the electronic assembly and publishing of books for 3P Books. Their
business was successful and profitable in the first two years, largely due to contracts from two big
businesses.

In their third year of operations, they got very busy thanks to a third major customer, a local
college that needed customized eBooks. They hired several part time employees to help them
with their publishing business.

But by the end of third year of operation, 3P Books started experiencing critical problems.

They were:

• unable to deliver eBooks to their customers on schedule

• unable to utilize all the new employees effectively
• pricing challenges for changes in author content
• deteriorating quality —time and money were being spent fixing defects in their products
• unable to control costs—their business was not profitable in the third year.

3P Books saw a significant rise in issues, a lot of unpleasant “surprises” were cropping up;
business was down as new resources were hired, also some of the projects were poorly
estimated. The local college was unhappy as their eBook products reached campus late for use
by professors and student. In some cases, the books were several weeks late. Since the courses
must start on schedule and students need their books at the beginning of their courses, the new
lucrative college customer was unhappy.

One of the new part-time employees hired by Bill and Carol – Sonya - had taken a project
management course at college. Sonya was excited about the discipline of project management
and had intentionally selected a job with 3P Books Publishing as she saw an opportunity to apply
and improve her project management skills.

One day, Bill invited Sonya, for a lunch meeting. He was aware that Sonya was familiar with
project management and wanted to hear what she had to say about the problems Carol, and he
were facing with 3P operations and profitability. Over lunch he questioned why their small
business which had operated and implemented projects so successfully over the first two years
was being challenged significantly now. He specifically listed the problems they were facing and
asked for input to solve them.

Sonya asked for more time to research all the issues but noted that 3P Books, while being
innovative, completed projects without a roadmap or a project plan and lacked a disciplined
approach to project management. She noted that Bill and Carol did not use any project software
for scheduling, and they did not use tools or techniques to estimate, budget or to communicate
with stakeholders. Finally, they had no processes in place to manage project risks and quality.

Impressed with this and other conversations, Bill Knight asked Sonya if she would consider joining
them as a project manager on a full-time basis to help them introduce project management
practices and help them stabilize the eBook operations.
Within nine months Sonya had fully turned things around. Due to proactive risk analysis and risk
response planning - surprises were reduced. Team building, standard work practices and software
were implemented to improve estimating, scheduling, and communications with stakeholders.

Case Study – Part Three: Questions: (Total 12 Marks)

a) Why did 3P Books Publishing struggle? (2 Marks)

b) Itemize the specific project management solutions that were introduced by Sonya,
categorized by technical and sociocultural dimensions? (8 Marks)

c) 3P Books Publishing is a technology intensive business, but Sonya is not technically

knowledgeable, will she continue to be a successful project manager? Explain. (2 Marks)

Case study content adapted from Project Management Institute (PMI): Academic Project
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