INFS 620 – Managing Information Organizations – Prof.

Bouthillier
Week 9– Project Management
Group Discussion

When the Board of Directors of the Community Literacy Center hired Karl Dukir as the
director, everybody was thrilled. A recent graduate from the MBA program at Burnaby
University, Dukir was perceived as the perfect fit for organizing a massive funding
campaign for the center, which is highly in need of new money. The mission of the center
is to foster various types of literacy among children and adults. While the center was
established with an endowment many years ago, it depends now mostly on public funding
from the government, donations from the public, and various partnerships with
foundations. Dukir was initially very motivated to organize the campaign, and prepared a
plan which was approved by the Board. The success of the project was in part related to
the hiring of a temporary assistant, to help with the various aspects of the campaign. The
recruitment process was launched, and many candidates applied.

During the same period, Dukir accepted to write a book for the MBA students association
at Burnaby to explain the potential professional paths for MBA graduates. Soon, writing
became his priority, and he postponed the interviews scheduled with candidates, thinking
that the hiring could be slightly delayed without any major impact. The funds for hiring
had been approved with a constraint: it had to be spent by the end of February, if not, this
would be considered as a surplus and reinvested in the endowment fund, as stipulated in
the endowment policy. Now in March, busy with his publication, Dukir did not realize
that the funds were no longer available, and another cycle of approval had to be put in
place. Being creative, the director suggested to the Board to solicit municipalities in the
region to obtain funds, as they usually have discretionary money, that could be used for
hiring. They may see literacy as an important issue for their citizens. He managed to
have a short meeting with mayors at their regional conference and after explaining the
budget situation and the need for the funding campaign, Dukir felt that the mayors’
reaction was more than lukewarm. Some of them suggested that with the massive
adoption of technologies by the population, the need for fostering literacy was
decreasing, and they even questioned the raison d’être of the center. This reaction took
Dukir by surprise as he was not prepared to argue about the importance of the center in
the community. He left the meeting without much hope about getting funding for hiring
nor for the center.

What should be the next steps for the Center?