Assignment:
You are a manager at Lectocomp Electronics Manufacturing Company, a company
that produces a number of different computer boards used in various products produced by their customers. At the company's quarterly meeting, the head of marketing described a new product to be introduced in the first quarter of the next fiscal year, approximately twelve months from now. The product will be a device used in different medical products. As a result, any work done on that product falls under various government regulations. This regulation aspect is new to Lectocomp Manufacturing. This product will open new markets for the sales channel, lay the foundation for add-on products, and generate new revenues. You have only seen preliminary sketches of the new product, but you are very excited by it. The product will require participation from most of the company's departments: design, engineering, production, purchasing, shipping, sales, and marketing departments. Lectocomp Manufacturing uses another company to produce the prototype boards; the final boards will be manufactured in-house. Although this is a "mission-critical" project, no additional staff will be added. People will be expected to balance their project responsibilities with their day-to-day work (including other projects). The project manager is to be selected from the engineering department. This is a first, as the project managers normally come form the marketing department. A project of this scale has never been managed by an in-house person before. Historically, a project manager/consultant has been brought in. You were hired as an engineer with Lectocomp three months ago, and this week, you were told that you have been selected to be the project manager. In your prior job, you were a project manager for most of the company's large initiatives-most of which were quite successful. You have experience in manufacturing and medical products butr have not done any product work since you started at Lectocomp. You have been involved in some engineering clean-up activities and have not worked with many people outside your department yet. The company has not historically had strong processed to follow nor has communication been a core competency. However, six months ago, a new CEO was brought on board who has focused on improving the organization's skills in those areas. She is the leader who has insisted on managing the project internally. She is also somewhat familiar with the regulated environment and required that you follow all the strict, formal processes that will need to be implemented as the project progresses. She is in the process of interviewing candidated for a new quality manager position. This manager will be responsible for implementing the required processes, controls, and metrics; you will be working closely with that person.
You are excited to be the project manager for this critical corporate initiative. However, you are aware that several people woho will be on your team feel that you don't have the experience necessary to be successful. You feel confident that you can do an outstanding job on this project because you have a long track record of successes.
You have a team planning meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon; your plan is to review the project charter and start diving into some of the planning details. However, you overheard a conversation between two of your team members where they discussed how they think the project will fail because of your inexperience with Lectocomp--you don't have the internal relationships, you don't know the lingo, and you don't know the suppliers. They also think your lack of experience with this type of product means that you will never be able to gain credibility with the design or production teams. You didn't respond to them or let them know you heard them. Instead, you want to address this during your meeting tomorrow.
Type at least three paragraphs that describe how you will respond to your team members' concerns. Do you believe that your lack of experience with this type of product, with Lectocomp, is a risk to the project? Why or why not? How does your experience as a project manager, along with your expertise with risk management, affect your ability to lead the project? What are you going to do to address this risk (if you think it is a risk)? What are you going to do to address the concerns? How will you address this concern with the project stakeholders, assuming they have the same concern?