PRM301 Module 4 Case & SLP latest 2018 September

Module 4 Case

PROJECT CLOSEOUT

The Required Sources with an asterisk (*) are linked to the course, and can be accessed directly. You should read through, and be familiar with, both sources in their entirety. For this Module, however, you should study:

• Barron & Barron (2012), Chap. 23

• New York Guide (2002), Chaps. 3, 5

The Required Sources and the Additional Sources provide good starting points; however, both the Module and the Case topics are extremely well-documented, and you’ll be able to find many links to both governmental and non-governmental sources. Feel free to use whatever seems useful.

Be sure to provide citations and references for whatever sources you use, preferably in APA format.

Required Reading

* Barron, M. & Barron, A. (2012). Project management for all careers. Creative Commons. (the Text)

* New Your Guide (2002). Management’s Guide to Project success. New York State Office for Technology. (the Guide)

Woods, W. (2011). The Apollo flights: A brief history. How Apollo flew to the moon (Chap 2). NY: Springer Praxis Books.

SciAm (July 16, 2009). Down to Earth: The Apollo Moon missions that never flew. Retrieved on 27 May 2017 from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/canceled-apollo-missions/

Optional Reading

Madrigal, A. (2012). Moondoggle: The forgotten opposition to the Apollo program. Atlantic magazine: Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/

NASA (2015). The Apollo Mission (website). Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html

NASA (n.d.) The Apollo program (links). Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html

Case Assignment

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

In this Module, we consider what happens to a project once it reaches the finish line; if it ever does.

Some projects, such as the iPhone, are finished at product rollout. Production, of course, continues at a frantic pace, but the design is frozen, at least for a time.

Other major projects, notably telescopes and particle accelerators, are never finished, at least in the eyes of the developers. Rather, they are taken away from them by the customers, who are anxious to begin work, and convinced that better is the enemy of good enough.

Other projects just sort of wither away. President Reagan’s ballistic missile defense system, popularly known as Star Wars, encountered a plethora of technical challenges and budget overruns. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 decreased the perceived urgency of a missile defense system, and the program has languished ever since. The first full-scale test, to be followed by an operational deployment, was cancelled in 2009.

Despite setbacks and cost overruns, the Apollo Project was successful. America achieved Kennedy’s stated objective of landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth. Yet it did not complete all its objectives, at least in the eyes of the scientific community. The last three lunar landing missions (Apollo 18, 19 and 20) never flew.

Q1: Briefly recap the reasons why the last missions were cancelled, including the factors that argued against that decision.

An important part of any project closeout is the “lessons learned.”

Q2: How did NASA share the scientific knowledge gained from the Apollo program?

Q3: How did the technical lessons learned during Apollo influence the American space program in the years that followed?

Q4: What, in your (informed) opinion, are the most important lessons that any would-be project manager can take away from a study of the Apollo program?

Resources for this Case are listed on the Background Information page. These are starting points; feel free to search the Web for additional information, and use whatever you think is useful. Be sure to provide citations and references for everything you use, including materials linked to this course.

Assignment Expectations

• Integrate your answers to the above questions into a well-constructed essay. Feel free to use tables and bulleted lists, if appropriate.

• The readings do not provide specific answers to every question. You will need to “fill in the gaps,” using your understanding of the Project’s history, plus the Background Information.

• Style and format must comply with the Writing Style Guide (TUI, 2014).

• This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar, and style will be penalized.

• Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (TUI, 2014) is encouraged, but not required.

• There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write.

Module 4 SLP

PROJECT CLOSEOUT

Project closeout is important for both the customers and the project team. The customers need at least two things:

Evidence that their requirements have been met.

Documentation of the project team’s responsibilities, if any, following the end of the project.

Suppose the “project” is buying a new car. Then the first deliverables above would be the keys and title, and the second would be the warranty, which includes the owner’s responsibility to perform prescribed maintenance, and the dealer’s responsibility to repair any defects attributable to vehicle design, assembly, preparation, or delivery.

The project team, on the other hand, should receive a Post-Implementation Report. This can be either a formal document, or an informal briefing, but it should consist of:

Distillation of feedback. What went wrong? What went right? Why?

Lessons learned. In the future, what should be done differently?

Derived best practices. What procedures should be changed, to implement the lessons learned?

Suppose the project was building a house. Feedback might include a comment from the appliance installer, saying that he has been required to remove the attic insulation over the kitchen ceiling before installing the cooker hood, and this task had been a time-consuming nuisance. The lesson learned would be as follows: always install appliances that require ducting before insulating the attic. The best practice might be to either write or revise the construction checklist, specifying that these two tasks must always be performed in the preferred order.

Assignment: Referring to the project you discussed in the previous SLPs,

What was the most significant feedback you received, following project completion? From what sources?

What lessons did you learn from the feedback?

How did the lessons you learned change the way you would approach similar projects, in the future?

SLP Assignment Expectations

Answer the above questions using short, well-constructed paragraphs. Feel free to use tables and bulleted lists, if appropriate.

The readings do not provide specific answers to every question. You will need to “fill in the gaps,” using your understanding of the questions, the Background Information, and whatever additional information you can find on the Web.

Style and format must comply with the Writing Style Guide. (TUI, 2104).

This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and style will be penalized.

Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (TUI, 2014) is encouraged, but not required.

There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write.