Reference no: EM132232848

WorkWheels is a small startup company based in Pasadena, CA; it was established in 2014. The company provides transportation services for employees of local businesses. WorkWheels contracts with local companies to provide transportation for their employees to travel between various destinations, such as; work and home, to and from local appointments, the airport, or various other places.   The company interacts with its clients via a mobile app, much like Uber or Lyft but restricted to the employees of companies that contract with WorkWheels. Drivers are hired and paid on a per ride basis, employees never have to pay for a WorkWheels ride.

WorkWheels was started by Chris the founder and President, and his friend Jessica who served as the app developer and IT support. They won their first contract in 2014 with a local software company of 100 employees, they had an average of 30 rides per week which they could handle by contracting with three drivers paid on a per ride basis. Chris and Jessica needed more clients if the company was going to survive so they regularly went to visit other companies in the area. By 2015 they had obtained 10 new contracts and were providing between about 300-400 rides per week.    Chris found that he had to contract with 10 additional drivers and for the increase in weekly rides. Chris and Jessica were excited about the growth but they were finding that the growth of their business was too much for the two of them and their existing IT infrastructure to handle. They had plans to hire additional staff and pursue a major IT update that included both a new customer management and driver management system.

In December of 2015 a large investment company, Anderson Investments Inc, made an offer to acquire WorkWheels. Chris and Jessica sold the company but agreed to remain available as consultants to help with the transition. Immediately after the sale, Chris and Jessica met with the senior management at Anderson Investments, Inc., to discuss the changes that they felt were needed for WorkWheels to successfully grow. Also at the meeting was Andrew, the new Director of Anderson Investments, Inc.’s new WorkWheels division. Chris and Jessica could not help but notice the “big business” feel of the meeting, a sharp contrast to the small business that they had started. They also noticed that Andrew did not seem to be very happy about the meeting; he seemed to be in a rush to leave.

Chris and Jessica were happy that WorkWheels was now in the hands of an organization with the knowledge, people, and resources to grow the company. They shared the problems that they had encountered because of the limitations of the existing IT infrastructure. The rapid growth in both customers and drivers added a level of complexity that the existing software could not handle. There had been problems with lost customer ride requests and tracking the drivers with the rides they provided which resulted in payment issues and loss of drivers. Jessica recommended two major software updates; 1) a new customer management system, and 2) a driver management system.     When the meeting came to an end Andrew quickly left the meeting. Chris and Jessica said goodbye to the senior managers that had attended and both sides agreed that it would be best if Chris and Jessica remained available as consultants to help with establishing the new WorkWheels division.

The day after the original meeting with Chris and Jessica, the senior managers met with Andrew, the newly appointed Director of the WorkWheels division. Andrew had been in the running for different, and larger, expansion project in Europe but when the WorkWheels acquisition occurred members of senior management felt that his skillset was a better fit for WorkWheels. Andrew would have preferred the European expansion project as it was closer to Anderson Investments, Inc.’s core strategy. Senior management was in agreement that the suggestion for both a new customer management system and a new driver management system were needed.   Andrew was given an initial budget of $1.5 million to set up the division, including; staff, a marketing campaign, and the funds for the new client management and driver management systems.   

Andrew got to work right away. He hired an accounting and finance staff, an IT staff that he thought had the required skills (Andrew had no IT background himself), a marketing staff, and a powerful sales team. He believed that expert sales people was most needed for a successful growth plan for WorkWheels. During the meeting with senior management someone had suggested that he add a project manager to his staff but Andrew didn’t think that one was needed. In his eyes, the project managers that he had worked with before had just gotten in the way and slowed down his initiatives with meetings and paperwork. He felt that he was fully capable of managing the project himself. It was also suggested that he work closely with Chris and Jessica as they were the experts on WorkWheels and its existing IT. Andrew didn’t see what value they could provide; he thought, “If they had been able successfully grow the company they wouldn’t have sold it in the first place.”

Andrew was concerned about the original budget of $1.5 million, he wasn’t sure that would be enough to get WorkWheels off the ground but he decided to go with it for now although he thought he may need to approach senior management for more money in the future. He didn’t want to argue that point now, he planned to go back after he had some success stories to bring with him. The new hires and other expenses (i.e., office furniture, computers, office space, etc.) had immediately consumed half of his budget; he would have to operate efficiently to maximize the remaining $750,000 budget for a marketing campaign and the required IT improvements.

Eager to get a marketing and sales campaign going, Andrew called his marketing and sales staff to a meeting. He also included members of his accounting and finance team. After he set his marketing and sales initiatives in motion he would get to the IT updates; after all he could probably just purchase that software somewhere – every company had a customer management process and how difficult can it be to track drivers? After several meetings his team had designed marketing and sales initiatives, the upfront costs would be substantial, $250,000, but Andrew felt that the investment was worth it. Now, it is time to get to those IT updates.

Andrew met with his IT staff to discuss the needed updates for the customer management and driver management systems. They had a $500,000 budget for the development of these systems. He asked the members of the IT staff for their input regarding and quickly discovered that his staff did not have experience with designing or developing these systems. They suggested that talking to Chris and Jessica would be beneficial for the initial planning stages of the project, especially defining the scope, defining the technical and business requirements, and whether to develop in-house or hire a vendor. Jessica and Chris were familiar with the business, knew what was needed for growth, and were familiar with the needed IT upgrades. Andrew didn’t want to bring Chris and Jessica in, he didn’t value their input and more importantly he didn’t’ want to pay them – money was tight.   He didn’t see why he and his staff couldn’t take care of the project planning on their own.

During a status meeting with senior management Andrew approached the subject of an increase in the budget, senior management said no. He had agreed that the initial budget was enough when they started the division. He hadn’t actually done anything yet, so why did he need more money? They suggested that he contact Chris and Jessica to help plan the IT updates, it would be costly but they were such a wealth of information that the money would be well spent. Andrew decided against it.

As acting project manager Andrew developed the initial project documents as requested by senior management. A project charter was created along with an initial scope statement that included specific milestones for implementing the new hardware and software required for the system updates. A final completion date was proposed, July 2016. Andrew knew that the initial timeline would be tight but he felt that if he was able to deliver in a short time it would make him look good. The original business case had several loosely defined project risks which were included in the original project documents. A project steering committee was established to serve as the project sponsor role with the Senior VP of Sales and Marketing (Mary) being assigned as the official project sponsor. The project steering committee also included representation of influential managers from various parts of Anderson Investments, Inc., each with differing interests related to the project outcomes, each looking at the potential for a positive impact on their own specific department’s success metrics, and individual career goals.

1. Report your assessment of the current project status; use your knowledge of PMBOK tools and techniques to guide your assessment. Your focus for this question is to specifically identify and describe the problems that emerged from NOT appropriately applying project management tools and techniques (in question 2, you will be asked how you can turn the project around by appropriately applying appropriate PM tools and techniques). In your report you will want to:

Use your knowledge of PMBOK and general project management concepts to construct your report, be sure to identify specific project related problems in the scenario provided above.

Describe how each of these problems emerged as a result of poor project management practices (make sure that your answer incorporates the SPECIFIC project management tools and techniques that we are learning in class) and how the in appropriate use of project management tools and techniques resulted in the problems you describe in your answer.

Your answers should specifically address how each of problems that you identified (in this specific context) are the result of NOT applying appropriate project management tools and techniques discussed in class (remember, be specific).

2. After this experience Anderson Investment’s decided it needed a project manager to oversee the ongoing projects in its WheelWorks division. The organization has hired YOU as the new Project Manager. In this question you are to describe how you will turn the project around by applying specific project management tools and techniques.  

Compare your assessment of the current project (in question 1) with sound project management techniques and make specific recommendations related to the steps the new PM can use to get the project back on track (remember to be specific when describing how you will use specific project management tools and techniques to get the project back on track).

b. Proposed a detailed plan for how you will manage the project going forward. Include any new project management related processes that you feel must be implemented to see the project through to a successful end.

c. Recommend improvements to the Anderson Investment’s/WheelWorks senior management for successful project management of future projects.

3. If you had been member of WheelWorks during the original planning meetings and project proposal (with budget) for this project how would you have handled the situation? Specifically, how would you have handled the inadequate budget issues throughout the project, as well as the decision to forego a project manager at the start of the project? What would you have communicated to senior management and how would you have done it?

4. If a very similar project had to be done again, what attributes and/or skill sets would you recommend in selecting a project manager?