The Never Ending Story (End Case Study)

Q1. Identify the issues in the project initiating phase ?

During the initiation phase difficulties that interfere will slow down a project movement. Many different ideas leading to what the project should be and produce will be confusing. Because here ideas and concepts are much easier to integrate and implement when the project team is considering something solid.  

In this case study, progress related reports only reflected the top management expectations more than pointing to delays. Which led to defensive reports that came from both sides to hide any wrong doing and look better. Also, we can notice a lack of commitment from  the management part, while on the other side the project team is not providing sufficient and formal feedback about the project status. This resulted in the lack of open and clear reporting against predefined milestones.

The Indonesian project managers were not used to big change management process and ignored the request of the international CEO of c-consulting to implement formal procedures regarding time performance and progress. 

Q2. How could the scope creep have been avoided?

Based on the first question answer we can also add that when BIG decided to request some changes to the software several times concerning the information workflow a lot of done work was redundant. Undocumented Changes resulted in a wide modified scope, and of course, with no fees granted.

To avoid scoop creep, breaking down the project into minor milestones will be a good option. Minor milestones should not go for more than one month. Also, when working with international project staff and while determining the required task duration, leaving more room for error will put the project under budget and ahead of the schedule for more enhancements.

Also it's better to collaborate with the client and produce a plan. Because a clear and a defined scope that is agreed on, and understood by both parties is so important to keep the client satisfied and aware of what is included and what's not. Hence, the client will not go into a project with unpredicted expectations of service delivery that don't match the scope of work and result in a wide creep.

Q3. Where do you see the impact of national cultures in this case?

When dealing with international projects, organizations have to adopt globalized requirements to cope with other international joint projects outside their home markets. Thus, successful business management should deal perfectly with complex challenges that are caused by cultural factors and other influences.

I believe that in this case, the project dealt with different cultural backgrounds that raised two types of managements (Task Management) that focuses on formal reports and to-do lists, and a (Relationship Management) that relied on networking and relationships rather than planning and going by the book. Both managements interfered negatively and impacted the planning and the implementation process.