Microsoft, a software engineering and systems development consulting firm, sells a wide assortment of Internet and computer-based solutions for resource planning, administrative, and accounting networks to organisations in health delivery, financial services and hotel management. Typically, a service provider would approach Microsoft with a list of problems it was experiencing and some targets for organisational improvement. Because most of Microsoft’s clients were not themselves computer-savvy, they tended to rely heavily on Microsoft to correctly diagnose their difficulties propose solutions to correct these problems, and implement the new technologies. The industry Microsoft operates in is extremely competitive, forcing successful organisations to make low bids to win consulting contracts. In this environment, project management is vital for Microsoft’s success because poorly managed projects quickly “ate up” the profit margin for any job.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s senior management team has noticed a recent upsurge in their project operating costs and a related drop-off in profitability. In particular, Microsoft’s executives are concerned because the last seven consulting contracts have resulted in almost no profit margin because the software systems were delivered late and required several rounds of rework to fix bugs or correct significant shortcomings in the software. The firm decided to hold a weekend off-site retreat with the project managers responsible for these most recently completed projects in order to learn the reasons why project management was being done poorly.

To a person, the project managers fixed the blame for their problems on the clients. A typical response was made by Amanda Jones, a project manager with over five years’ experience, who stated, “We are put in a very tough position. Most of the customers don’t know what they really want so we have to spend hours working with them to get a reasonable Statement of Work that we can develop the project scope around. This takes time. In fact, the more time I spend with the customer up front, the less I have to get my team to actually develop the system for them. It’s a Catch 22-If I want to get things right, I have to pry information out of them. The better I do getting a sense of their problems, the less time I have to develop and run the project!”

David Brown, another project manager, spoke up. “It doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. My biggest problems are always on the back end of the project. We work like dogs to get a system up that corresponds to the clients demands, only to have them look it over, push a few buttons, and start telling us that this was not anything like what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a system to solve their problems when they don’t know what their problems are? Better yet, what do we do when they ‘think’ they know what they want and then when we create it, they turn around and reject our solutions out of hand?”

After three hours of hearing similar messages from the other project managers. It became clear to the senior management team that the project management problems were not isolated but becoming embedded in the firm’s operations. Clearly, something had to be done about their processes.

Questions

i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimise the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?

ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?

iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?

iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?


i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimize the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?

Without a doubt, the most common reason that projects fail is because of poor scope definition. By that it means the expectations of the stakeholders, and especially the client or sponsor, are different than the expectations of the project team. This is the most difficult problem, but it is critical to the success of the project that it is overcome (Newell, 2002). This underscores the situation being experienced at Microsoft.
Once the project starts, most clients will probably end up asking for more or entirely different work than what was originally agreed but from the statements of David Brown and Amanda Jones, this was not the case.
If the different clients have engaged the project team during the project stages, Scope- change management would have been possible to effect and the final result will be acceptable to the clients.
To solve the issue of poor scope management, therefore, the scope of the project has to be well defined and understood by both the clients and the project team. In addition, having a scope-change process is place is also ideal. The clients should be able to make changes to the project even when the project is in progress. Since its a software oriented projects, prototypes or beta versions should be produced and testing done, corrections made, before the final product is released to the client.

ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?

Scope creep refers to the change in a project's scope after the project work has started. Typically, the scope expands by the addition of new features to an already approved feature list. As a result, the project drifts away from its original purpose, timeline, and budget.
The company’s consulting clients can contribute to scope creep when there is lack of proper identification of the features that are required to bring about the achievement of project objectives in the first place, not being involved early enough or at all or when they underestimate the complexity of the Project.
The customer has to understand that scope creep is a significant risk in software development project and spells doom for the project if not carefully handled.


iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?

In a software project, freezing entails prohibiting further changes to the requirements. These changes are normally made by the clients so the need to inform them about the need to freeze the project is important. Preventing any further change will allow the project team concentrate on the project so that the project can be completed in a timely fashion.

iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?

Configuration Management is often difficult to perform:
• Because the project team has other priorities
• Because Configuration Management is an overhead. Therefore it requires resources which are costly and not easy to manage.

Project change control is the management process for requesting reviewing, approving, carrying out and controlling changes to the project's deliverables. It is difficult to perform because it is usually applied once the first version of a deliverable has been completed and agreed. This underpin the issues experienced at Microsoft.