Reference no: EM133595014

Colin Shaw has been tapped to be an accounting project manager for the second time this year. Although he enjoys the challenges and opportunity for personal development afforded to him as a project manager, he dreads the interpersonal problems associated with the position. Sometimes he feels like a glorified baby-sitter handing out assignments, checking on progress, and making sure everyone is doing his or her fair share. Recently Colin read an article that recommended a very different approach for the project manager in supervising and controlling team members. Colin thought this was a useful idea and decided to try it on his next project.

The project in question involved making a decision on whether to implement an activity-based consisting (ABC) system throughout the organization. Colin had once been the manager in charge of implementing a process costing system in this same division, so he felt very comfortable about his ability to lead the team and resolve this question. He defined the objective of the project and detailed all the major tasks involved, as well as most of the subtasks. By the time the first meeting of the project team took place, Colin felt more secure about the control and direction of the project than he had at the beginning of any of his previous projects. He had specifically defined objectives and tasks for each team member and had assigned completion dates for each task. He had even made up individual "contracts" for each team member to sign as an indication of their commitment to completion of the assigned tasks per schedule dates. The meeting went very smoothly, with almost no comments from team members. Everyone picked up a copy of his or her "contract" and went off to work on the project. Colin was ecstatic about the success of this new approach.

QUESTION: Do you think he will feel the same way six weeks from now? What problems, if any, do you see with his current approach? What recommendations might you make to him?