Lola Simpson

Week 2 Assignment Orion Shield Project

Executive Summary:
Scientific Engineering Corporation (SEC) had decided to compete for Phase I of the Orion Shield Project. The Director of Engineering Henry Larsen, wanted to employ an engineer to the role of project manage instead of an experienced project manager. Enter Gary Allison an experiences Project Engineer with absolutely no formal Project management experience. Gary was known around the organization as a knowledgeable with numerous years of Project Engineer expertise. It appears Henry intentional wanted someone with limited Project Management knowledge in the hopes of being able to easily control the situation and to get his way without much resistance. The …show more content…

SEC did not foresee any problems arises with the project therefore the settled on a fixed contract.
SEC had to spent money for testing the new material that was not called out in the program plan. From the start Gary did not submit the required meeting minutes which resulted in the customer insisting on daily calls to track progress. This caused in more administrative work hours and budget over run.

Project Management Issues:
The management structure for the Orion Shield Project did not allow Gary the project manager full authority over the project and project funding. Gary had limited control over schedule and process of tasks throughout the duration of the project.

Although a balanced matrix structure organization notes the importance for a project manager, giving the project manager total over the project an money does not exist in this model
(PMBOK, 2008, p. 30). At the start of the project Gary had challenges finding appropriate and qualified team members. This critical task during project planning sets the foundation for a successful project. This complication in his staffing management plan was stressful for Gary as a result costing him time and money. For example, since Gary did not have adequate administrator staff we wasted a lot of time doing administer work instead of Project Management work. It is essentially that a project manager communicates with other managers within the company to balance and share resources so the