Chase Opportunity has selected you as the project manager to oversee their lates
ID: 425521 • Letter: C
Question
Chase Opportunity has selected you as the project manager to oversee their latest project – Chase Retail Complex. Chase’s vision is to build four (4) 10,000 square foot buildings (see concept drawing below). Within each building, suite sizes may vary per customer rental agreement (estimating five (5) 2,000 square foot areas per building). Chase has the funds to cover the total project costs and they have already purchased the land for construction. Chase wants to start construction January 2, 2007 and complete the project as soon as possible.
Identify three (3) conflicts that may arise during this project. Then provide a solution to each conflict using Steps 1-7 of Gido and Clement’s Nine-Step Approach to Problem Solving.
Explanation / Answer
Answer: The various conflicts that may arise include:
- Each customer might have diferrent requirements which might have evolved over time and there might be requirement changes from the client in the middle of the project or thee mght be requests for last minute changes . Accomodating some change requests mght alsi tantamount to structural changes in the layout of the entire building which other clients must agree to as well for implementation of change request.
- There might be issues with resource allocation and levelling. In case of shortage of skilled labourers or resources the labour cost may also increase thereby reducing the profit margins or delaying the project completion schedule. The availability of raw material will also have a similar impact.
- Thee might be isues in obtaining the required approvals from various state departments, agencies , NOCs( No objection Certificates) and hence may delay the project milestone schedules. This might in turn lead to escalation of cost of raw mateial and increase the budget to completion.
The conflicts can be resolved using Gido-Clement's nine step approach as follows:
- Frame a robust agreement and bake in the agreement clauses through regular face to face joint meetings with all the stakeolders that the inclusions and exlusions are clearly defined. All change management scenarios should be contemplated and reslutions clearly defined and agreed. For any incremental work or change request cost reimbursible model should be proposed
- Prepare WBS and refine and validate the cost estimates and schedule by taking into consideration the optimistic , most likely and pessimistic estimates for both time and cost
- Avoid sub contractors and make provision for contingencies in the scenario of labour strikes and disruption of raw material supplies
- Avoid sequential prcocess of constructing the customer premises .Meaning at least till the bare shell structure, plan the construction of premises in parallel so that the delivery can be done for all the customers almost at the same time.
-Regularly monitor the progress , cost vaiances ,schedule variances and share the progress status with the customers
-Rather than overcommiting , consider sufficient buffer for resolving administrative issues and approvals