Reference no: EM132837758

Need critiques that addresses the following questions: (FROM THIS CASE)

• Does the analysis present key information clearly and effectively?
• Are the recommendations supported by information from the case and/or internal research?
• What components do you feel are most compelling?
• What components do you feel could be more fully supported?
• Overall, were you convinced the recommendations being made were sound?

Planet Orbit Case

Planet orbit is a very ambitious program, the basic purpose of this program is to build a spacecraft with a photometer so that the terrestrial planets present in the universe can be found. According to the scientists involved in this project, this will help them to estimate the life span on different planets, as well as on other parts of the universe. The manager of this program thinks that the program is good enough to fulfill the requirements of the space mission program; it will surely lead to the discovery of so many new ideas. The program might have started almost 10 years ago, but some managerial issues caused an unwanted delay in the functioning of the program.

Eric Anderson has been given the responsibility to handle this program; he has been continuously convincing the space agency for the initiation of such a program for the sake of discoveries for a long period of time. The main vision of this program is to make a device with the help of the transit photometer that can be used to estimate the possibility and the living conditions on the earth and other planets so that future planning can be done more efficiently. The program was working on a single cause in the early stage of its creation, however, several new challenges and missions kept coming into the way of the program, so it became tough for the single manager to handle all the challenges and issues related to the program. That was why the spacecraft laboratory was selected as the assisting partner of the manager so that the mission of the program can be accomplished without any hurdles. A core team was made at the beginning of the work, the core team then selected the team members who were supposed to give the reports about the program progress to Eric Anderson. The members were selected based on merit, experience, and competition; more of the employees were selected from the spacecraft laboratory. The company had a different number of employees at different stages of the program; the company had 25 full-time employees. There were 12 full-time employees and 5 part-timers at the spacecraft laboratory. As the program was being executed at three different places, so communication between the employees was a necessary thing to ensure the success of the program, regular face to face and virtual meetings were arranged by the administration. The program life cycle was divided into six sections, the first phase related to the advanced studies, the second phase was the preliminary analysis, the third was the definition of the program to understand the baseline of the program, the fourth phase was the design phase in which the team members were supposed to complete the designed work, the next one is the development phase In which the team members split the work into smaller tasks, completed the smaller tasks and then integrated those tasks to make it a single project, last but not the least phase is called the operation phase in which the team made sure that whether their designed structure is good enough that it can get the initial targets or not (Strauss, 2017).

All of these ideas and concepts were good, but as we know that there are always some issues in every program taking place around us, same was the case with the planet orbit system. The concept of the virtual meeting did not prove out to be a good communication way between the team members, as they have to go through several network issues which caused so many hurdles in their way of communication, this communication gap was the root of some complications produced in the system. The second issue the administration had to face was the deadline of the order, the initial estimated time for the completion of the program was 36 months, but it took almost 44 months for the completion of the project. There were also some strengths of the system. There was a very good, highly professional team who was leading the members with very high morale, all the persons allocated on the key positions were highly educated and they were very familiar with their respective fields. The team has crystal clear goals and ideas, and they executed very well throughout the process. The program was very well aligned with the scope of science in the upcoming era. The program schedule was a tough task to do, but there were good professionals present in the team who managed it with very great efficiency. The most favorable thing which the company had was the manager, he had all the qualities which a good leader should have, he never wanted to lead the program single headedly, rather he gave equal opportunity to all the team members so that they can also contribute their parts in the execution of the main plan (Schultz, Unwin, 2020).

All these recommendations are made to execute the plan well next time. Project execution is an essential step as it determines the progression and the performance of the project. It is also made sure that all the things happening around are perfectly aligned with the plans of the project management. Project managers use the key performance indicators to have an idea that project management is going in the right way or not. A good project manager will pick the following key project indicators to measure the performance of the project;

• Project objectives: measuring if a project is aligned well with the schedule, and noticing how much budget is being spent on all the operations
• Quality deliverables: this determines whether the special tasks of the projects are done properly or not.
• Effort and cost tracking: project managers check the cost of the budget to determine whether the budget is on track or not. This type of indicator makes it easy to estimate that whether the project under work will be submitted in time or not, it can also be estimated that the budget given to the project will be enough or not.
• Project performance: this examines all the changes which are done throughout the process of project management. This determines the nature of the issues that arise during the process, and also the solutions which were applied to get rid of all the issues.

All these indicators help the project managers to make changes in the project management process according to the requirement of the project. The project managers examine the project at the end of every phase of the project management to make sure that all the required changes are made on time for the best outcome.