What are two important things you learned about working on projects from the case? Why are they important?

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low-income families. The next project was the renovation of an empty
warehouse into eight two-bedroom apartments. Fatma was part of the core
team in charge of scheduling and managing work assignments.
Viktoria and Jasper entered the restaurant together. Viktoria was the first
to move to the Bay Area. She was currently working on the next-generation
neural stimulator (“PAX 2”). Neural stimulators are electronic devices that
doctors implant in patients with wires connected to sources of pain in the
patient’s spine. In the past, patients would have to have an operation to
replace the stimulator battery every 10 years. PAX 2 was being designed to
take advantage of new battery technologies and use a
rechargeable battery. In concept, this battery system would
eliminate the need for replacement surgeries and allow the implanted
battery to be recharged externally. Viktoria’s team had just completed the
second prototype and was entering a critical testing phase. It had been
tricky trying to predict the lifespan of the new rechargeable battery without
testing it in real time. She was anxious to begin seeing the test results.
Jasper was working for a start-up company after doing contract work for
his first nine months in San Francisco. He was sworn to secrecy about the
project and all Fatma and Viktoria knew was that the project had something
to do with sharing economy. He was working with a small development
team that included colleagues from Bangalore, India, and Malmo, Sweden.
After ordering and chit-chatting a bit, Fatma started the discussion. “I
will be glad when this week is over,” she said. “We’ve been struggling
defining the scope of the project. At first glance our project seems relatively
simple, build eight two-bedroom apartments in an old warehouse. But there
are a lot of unanswered questions. What kind of community space do we
want to have? How efficient should the energy system be? What kind of
furniture? Everybody wants to do a good job, but when does low-income
housing morph into middle-income housing?”
Viktoria offered, “Scope defining is one of the things my company does
very well. Before a project is authorized, a detailed scope statement is
developed that clearly defines the project objectives, priorities, budget,
requirements, limits, and exclusions. All of the key stakeholders sign off on
it. It is really important to identify priorities up front. I know on the PAX 2
project that scope is the number one priority. I know that no matter how
long it takes it is imperative that my work is done right.”

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Fatma responded, “That’s exactly what my project manager is preparing
for Friday’s meeting. I guess that one of the things you have to do as a
project manager is end discussions. He is going to make the tough calls and
finalize the project scope so we can begin planning.”
Jasper interjected, “You guys are so lucky; for the most part your scope
remains the same. In my work the scope is constantly changing. You show
the founders a feature they wanted, and they say, well, if you can do that,
can you do this? You know it’s going to happen, but you really can’t plan
for it.”
Jasper went on, “We do know what our number one priority is: time.
There are a lot of players trying to move in to the ‘space’ we are working
on. We have to demonstrate we are ahead of the pack if we are going to
continue to get VC funding.”2
Jasper said that despite the pressure, his project had been a lot of fun.
He especially liked working with his Swedish and Indian counterparts, Axel
and Raja. They worked like a global tag team on their part of the project.
Jasper would code and then pass his work on to Raja, who would work on it
and pass it on to Axel, who would eventually hand it off to Jasper. Given
the time zones, they were able to have at least one person working on the
code around the clock.
Jasper said it was hard at first working with someone he hadn’t met
personally other than on a video screen. Trust was an issue. Everyone was
trying to prove himself. Eventually a friendly competition arose across the
team. The programmers exchanged funny cartoons and YouTube videos. He
showed Fatma and Viktoria a YouTube video about scope creep that got a
chuckle from everyone.
They made plans to meet next at the new Peruvian restaurant on SE 8th
Street.
PART B
The Peruvian cilantro/lime ceviche was a big hit at the next lunch. Viktoria
began their discussion by reporting, “I have good and bad news. The bad
news is that our first prototype failed its tests miserably. The good news is
that I have a smart project manager. She knew this could happen, so she

mitigated the risk by having us working on two alternative battery
technologies. The alternative technology is passing all of the tests. Instead
of falling behind months, we are only days behind schedule.”
This precipitated a discussion of risk management. Fatma reported that
there had been a two-day session on risk management for the renovation
project. They spent the first day brainstorming what could go wrong, and
the second day coming up with strategies for dealing with risks. A big help
was the risk report that was generated after the last project. The report
detailed all of the problems that had occurred on the last renovation project
as well as recommendations. Fatma said, “I couldn’t believe how much
time and attention was devoted to safety, but as my project manager said,
‘all it takes is one bad accident to shut down a project for weeks, even
months.’”
Jasper reported that on his project they spent very little time on risk
management. His project was driven by a build-test mentality. “Everybody
assumes that daily testing eliminates problems, but when it’s time to
integrate different features, that’s when the real bugs will emerge,” Jasper
said.
Jasper went on to say that things were not going well at work. They had
missed their second straight milestone, and everyone was feeling the
pressure to show results. “I even slept by my cubicle three nights ago,”
Jasper confessed. Fatma asked, “How many hours are you working?” “I
don’t know, at least 70, maybe 80 hours,” Jasper answered. He went on to
say, “This is a high-stakes project, with a BIG upside if successful. I am
doing some of my best programming and we’ll just have to see what
happens.”
Jasper showed them a cartoon that was being circulated across his team.
The caption read “When did you want it done? Yesterday.”
Fatma turned to her friends and said, “I need some advice. As you
know, I’m responsible for scheduling work assignments. Well, some of my
colleagues have been pretty aggressive lobbying for choice assignments.
Everyone wants to work alongside Bruno or Ryan. Suddenly I am
everyone’s friend, and certain people are going way out of their way to do
favors for me. I am sure they think it will influence my decisions. It’s
getting awkward and I am not sure what to do.”
“Quid pro quo,” answered Jasper, “that’s how the business world works.
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Within reason, I don’t have a

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problem with someone taking advantage of her position to garner favors
and build relationships.”
Viktoria said, “I disagree. You don’t want to be seen as someone whose
influence can be bought. You need to think what’s best for the company.
You need to ask yourself what Bruno and Ryan would want you to do. And
if you don’t know, ask them.”
After much discussion, Fatma left the restaurant leaning toward
Viktoria’s advice, but she wasn’t sure what the guidelines should be.
PART C
It took two months for the Hokies lunch group to get together again. Jasper
had canceled the last meeting because of work, so Viktoria and Fatma saw a
movie together instead.
Jasper was the last person to arrive and it was clear from the look on his
face that things were not going well. He sat down, avoiding eye contact,
before blurting, “I’m out of work.” “What do you mean?” Fatma and
Viktoria cried. Jasper explained after months and months of work they had
been unable to demonstrate a functional product.
Jasper went on to say, “Despite our best efforts we couldn’t deliver. The
founders couldn’t get an ounce of second-round venture funding, so they
decided to cut their losses and kill the project. I just spent the best six
months of my programming life for nothing.”
Fatma and Viktoria tried to comfort their friend. Fatma asked Jasper
how the others were taking the news. Jasper said the Swedish programmer,
Axel, took the news very hard. He went on to say, “I think he was burning a
lot of bridges at home with the long work hours and now he has nothing to
show for it. He started blaming us for mistakes we never made.” Raja, his
Indian counterpart, was a different story. “Raja seemed to shrug his
shoulders.” Jasper added, “He said, ‘I know I am a good programmer. There
are lots of opportunities here in Bangalore.’”
Fatma broke the silence that followed by saying to Jasper, “Send me
your resume. My company is always looking for top-notch programmers
and it is a really great company. Can you believe it, the two founders, Bruno
and Ryan, are working side by side with everyone on renovating the

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warehouse? In fact, people were amazed at how good Bruno was with sheet
rock. A big part of my job now is scheduling their time so they can work
with as many different people as possible. They really want to use the
project to get to know their employees. This hasn’t been easy. I have had to
juggle their calendars, their abilities, and work opportunities.”
Viktoria interjected, “You’re using Microsoft Project to do this?” “Not
really,” responded Fatma. “At first I tried scheduling their work in
Microsoft Project, but it was too cumbersome and time consuming. Now I
just use the Project master schedule and each of their calendars to schedule
their work. This seems to work best.”
Viktoria added, “Yeah, Microsoft Project is a great program, but you
can get lost trying to get it to do everything. Sometimes all you need is an
Excel sheet and common sense.”
Viktoria felt awkward, given what had happened to Jasper. She was just
wrapping up the successful PAX 2 project. She was also getting ready for a
well-deserved holiday in Vietnam paid for by her project bonus. “I hate
closing out a project,” Viktoria said. “It’s so boring. Document, document,
document! I keep kicking myself for not tracking things when they
happened. I am spending most of my time scouring my computer for files. I
can’t wait to take off to Vietnam.”
Viktoria went on to say, “The only thing I liked doing was the project
retrospective.”
Jasper asked, “What’s a project retrospective?” Viktoria answered, “It’s
when the project team gets together and reviews what went well and what
didn’t and identifies lessons learned that we can apply to future projects.
For example, one of the things we learned was that we needed to bring the
manufacturing people on board a lot sooner in the design process. We
focused on designing the very best product possible, regardless of cost. We
found out later that there were ways for reducing production costs without
compromising quality.”
Fatma added, “We do that, too, at the end of our projects, but we call it
an audit.”
Fatma asked Viktoria, “Do you know what your next assignment will
be?” “No,” she replied, “I will probably go back to my department and do

some testing. I’m not worried. I did good work. I am sure someone will
want me for their project.”
Jasper chimed in, “I sure hope someone wants me for their next
project.” Fatma and Viktoria immediately went into action, trying to lift
their friend’s spirits.
A little while later, they walked out of the restaurant and gave each
other hugs. Fatma reminded Jasper to send her his latest resume.
1. For each part (A, B, C), what phase of the project life cycle is each
project in? Explain.
2. What are two important things you learned about working on projects
from the case? Why are they important?