Case Scenario
LSS is engaged in flood relief support nationally and has been asked to do several international Camp Noah projects. Last year the French government asked for resources for children in Southeastern France who had been affected by floods; LSS responded within 15 weeks with a French Camp Noah curriculum that met many of the project objectives. The Board of Directors of LSS commended the effort; international expansion was added to this year’s strategic objectives for the LSS organization.
The French Camp Noah project was not completed on time, the scope had to be reduced to meet even the delayed time frame, the cost was 30% higher than expected, and quality control measurements indicated that there were many small disappointments within the project. During the French Camp Noah project, the project manager had been unable to keep the team focused on the planning process. Initiation took longer than expected, and executing work on the project was well under-way before detailed planning even began. Many team members skipped planning meetings in favor of just using the time to do the project work. The gap between the plans and the execution became so large that the project manager finally just started having ad hoc meetings and documenting the notes from the meetings, and stopped looking at the plans.
At a post-project review meeting, the team agreed that, although they felt they had done everything possible given the short time-frame, they would not want to repeat the experience without improving the project management process. Many of them had missed family and other commitments while responding heroically to this challenge; they were stressed-out, burned-out, and feeling overwhelmed from the French Camp Noah project.
LSS announced that it was funding a six-month-long project to proactively create a Latino Camp Noah that can be deployed in any Spanish-speaking country. To avoid tight deadlines and scrambling, the Latino product will not be available until the end of the project, whether or not a flood occurs in a Spanish speaking area. The project called "Campamento de Noé" was chartered, and by the end of the first month, detailed planning was completed. Two months ago, the team started executing the project plan and they expect to complete the project on time by completing the remaining tasks to be executed within two months.
In general, the great planning paid off. Many things are working smoothly and the work is getting done. There are, however, a few problems that Amina, the project manager, would like your help within the Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closure stages of the project. Changes to the project scope, cost and schedule on the "Campamento de Noé" project have become troublesome and Amina is worried about the potential for scope creep. Amina is uneasy about the level of team performance and team communications - at some level, everyone just isn’t working together smoothly.
Question:
About one-third of the team members on the "Campamento de Noé" project had participated in the French Camp Noah project. However, two-thirds of the team members are new to the project. Amina recently left a team meeting feeling surprised at the level of disagreement between team members: it feels like storming, not performing. For example, during a meeting, Ben, who manages ongoing Camp Noah operations, was surprised to hear that he needed to integrate the new Latino products into his operation – he thought the "Campamento de Noé" team would continue to support the product indefinitely. After that uncomfortable and unproductive meeting, Amina’s manager suggested that she come up with better approaches to dealing with conflict. a) How do you recommend that Amina deal with conflict as it arises during meetings? b) Describe the steps to implement an ongoing issue log and the rationale Amina could use to help her team understand the purpose and value of an issue log.