1.   Project Concept and Strategy

a.

Was the Woody 2000 project well conceived? Give reasons for your opinion.

b.

What were Woody's real objectives that could and should have been articulated?

c.

What strategies were there for achieving these objectives? What would you recommend?

d.

Did they consider other solutions? Give Examples.

e.

How would you gauge the project's success? Could success be measured? If so, when?

2.   Project Scope

a.

Why do you suppose renovation of the President and Executive Vice President's offices were included in the project and was that a good idea?

b.

Write a simple project scope statement.

c.

Develop a work breakdown structure.

3.   Project Planning

a.

What should be included in a Woody 2000 project plan? What use would it be?

b.

Evaluate Woody's plans for managing the project, including their approach to contracting for professional services and construction work. What would you have done and would that change for successive phases of the project?

c.

Did the project plan explain how the project and any changes would be controlled? Should this be part of the plan? Give reasons.

4.   Quality

a.

How should quality be approached, and what does it mean?

b.

Why did Leadbetter not invoke the specifications to ensure quality? What was the result?

c.

What is the importance of Quality to a project like this?

5.   Planning and Scheduling

a.

Identify and describe a set of project schedule milestones from project concept to project completion.

b.

Illustrate your milestones on a simple bar chart scaled to the information provided in the Case Study.

c.

Would a good baseline plan have helped to show that the project would not meet its schedule? If so, how?

d.

How should float on the critical path have been managed? Would this have helped to complete on time?

6.   Cost Estimating

a.

Develop a high-level estimate by "guesstimation".

b.

How should the estimate be presented?

c.

Is life-cycle costing a factor on this project?

d.

Cashman kept his cash flow chart a secret. Why, and what would you have done?

7.   Contracting for Engineering and Construction Services

a.

What were the contracting alternatives open to Woody's? Which would have been best and what would that have involved?

b.

How should the contract(s) be organized and tendered?

c.

How should they be administered?

d.

Were the original Woody 2000 project requirements delivered?

8.  Communication and People Management

a.

Draw a project organization chart. What were the real relationships?

b.

Should Leadbetter have been left to run the project? Would training have helped?

c.

How should the Woody 2000 project plan be communicated and when?

d.

What communication (coordination) would you expect to see during execution?

9.  Progress Monitoring and Control

a.

Would a good baseline plan have helped to make up time?

b.

Draw a responsibility chart for effective control.

c.

What would you have done when you saw that the project would not meets its schedule?

d.

Project records were apparently poor. What records should have been kept and how?

10.  Cost Control

a.

Why was EID's first price so high? Was their position reasonable?

b.

When did Woody's know they were in trouble with over expenditure? What was the result?

c.

How should the project budget and expenditures be set out for cost control?

d.

Draw a simple flow chart for processing changes?

11.  Risk Identification and Management

a.

How did EID handle their risks? Was this effective? What might they have done?

b.

List Woody's actual surprises and add other possible surprises. What was, or should have been, done to prepare for and respond to them?

c.

Were there changes? What were the impacts?

12.  Facility Startup and Project Closeout

a.

How was startup managed on the Woody project? How should it have been managed?

b.

The Woody 2000 project was evidently not well run. Why? Give reasons for your opinion.

c.

Develop a list of "Key Success Indicators" that could and should have been measured on completion. Rank them in order of priority for this project.

Footnote

A number of people have asked me what the answers are to these questions. I have no clear answers because they are mostly matters of opinion. That means that they are not black or white, right or wrong, just that some people's answers are better than others. The idea is to provide a basis for discussion. So seek out someone who is also interested and compare your findings, and have fun.