Module 1 – Case
PROJECT SELECTION AND INITIATION
Case Assignment
About the Case Study:
In the early morning hours of July 16, 1945, the first
nuclear weapon â an A-bomb, in 20th century parlance — was detonated in the
New Mexico desert. Dr. Theodore Taylor
was one of the project scientists. Here,
minus some technical details, is his description of such an explosion:
When (a bomb) is detonated, the temperature in the core
builds up to several hundred million degrees in one-hundred millionth of a
second. That is many times the
temperature at the center of the Sun.
Pressures build up to 100 million atmospheres, and the core begins to
expand at five million miles per hour. (Every chemical element) is in there;
barium, iodine, cesium strontium, hydrogen, tin, copper, goldâ¦(The initial
fireball is) something 12 inches across, expanding faster than anything in our
Galaxy. Conditions there are quite
different, perhaps, from anywhere else in the Universe, unless there are other people who make bombs. (McPhee, 1973; pgs. 118-9).
Seventy years ago, we saw the birth of something utterly
new;new not only for us humans but also, perhaps, for the entire Universe. That event was a turning point in human
history. It was, perhaps, the beginning
of the end of human history. The rest of
the story is still being written, in places as dissimilar as Pakistan, North
Korea and Iran.
The famous project that produced the A-bomb, which moved
from untested theory to deliverable weapons in the middle of World War Two, was
the Manhattan Project. At its peak, the
project employed 130,000 people, most of whom had no idea what they were doing,
and consumed as much energy and materiel as the American automobile industry. Not only every project manager, but every world
citizen, should know about the Project, because it changed every citizenâs
life.
The Manhattan Project did not run smoothly. Itâs the classic example of a project
succeeding because it had to; it was
simply unimaginable that either Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan would win the
War. Despite its rocky history, however,
itâs worthwhile to examine the evolution of the Project, and compare it to the
stages of an ideal project, both to appreciate what could have been done
better, and to acquire a sense of humility concerning the entire project
management enterprise. It is, after all,
amazing what people can accomplish, either with or without report-generation
software.
The definitive on-line source concerning the Manhattan
Project is provided by AtomicArchive.com (AJ, 2015). For an overview, you should scan the entire
99 page site. The material is voluminous, but well organized, and tightly
edited. The definitive print source is Rhodes (1986; paperback edition 1995),
which is now available used , online, for less than one dollar. Anyone with
even a passing interest in either management, science, technology or history
should own a copy.
About Case 1:
For this case, we will examine the Origination and
Initiation (NY Guide, 2002; Chaps. 3.1
& 3.2) of the Manhattan Project (AJ, 2015; Rhodes, 1995). For information
about these phases of the project, please refer to the Module 1 Homepage.
When contemplating something totally new, the alternatives
are simple; either try to do it, or
donât. In this case, we know which
alternative was selected.
For Case 1, write an essay answering the following
questions:
Q1; What were the
factors that entered into the decision? Describe and explain.
Q2: Since the
decision involved unknowns, risk estimation was highly subjective. What factors (e.g., familiarity,
manageability) played roles in the estimation process? Explain.
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 âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Projectâs history, plus the Background
Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 1 – SLP
PROJECT SELECTION AND INITIATION
While the four Cases track the progress of a major
historical project that succeeded, the four SLPs examine a small fictitious
project that failed.
In the Woody 2000 case study, Wideman (2015) describes a
family-owned woodworking company that needs to expand its manufacturing
capacity. Begin by reading the first
sections of the case: Introduction,
Background, Corporate Profile, Key Players, the Opportunity and Project
Concept. Then, address the following
questions in a short essay. (These are
found at the end of the Case.)
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.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Donât write in checklist form. Integrate your answers to the above questions
into a well-constructed essay.
The Case does not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Case, and the Background Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 2 – Case
PROJECT PLANNING
Case Assignment
The biggest challenge facing the Manhattan Project was the
production of weapons-grade uranium.
There are two types, or isotopes, of uranium, U-235 and U-238, which
differ only in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. The first isotope, which is only 0.72% of
naturally occurring uranium, can sustain a fast fission chain reaction; i.e., a nuclear explosion. The second isotope cannot.
U-235 and U-238 are
chemically identical; a chemical
compound made with U-235 is indistinguishable from one made with U-238. The two isotopes have the same melting and
boiling points. This similarity means that conventional refining methods cannot
separate them. Rather, they have to be
separated atom by atom, taking advantage of the 1% difference in nuclear
mass. There are several techniques, but
all require a massive amount of energy.
They are â
Electromagnetic separation
Centrifugal separation (In the news: Search the Web for
âIran nuclear program.â)
Gaseous diffusion
Thermal diffusion
The first planning challenge facing the Project was to
determine the best way of purifying the uranium, which they solved in a unique,
cost-is-no-object fashion.
Q1: What did they do?
As the program continued, the advantages and disadvantages
of the various techniques became clear.
Q2: What were the
advantages and disadvantages of each?
List and discuss.
Near the end of the program, some of the purification
techniques were combined, and some were eliminated.
Q3: Explain.
Obviously, the sort of brute-force approach applied to the
Manhattan Project, by a rich nation involved in a total war, isnât the sort of
approach one would recommend to a private company developing (say) a new
phone. Just the same —
Q4: What, if any,
lessons are there for a company working on the cutting edge of science and
technology?
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 âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Projectâs history, plus the Background
Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 2 – SLP
PROJECT PLANNING
Continue to read the Woody 2000 case. (Wideman, 2015) case,
paying particular attention to Planning, and Design. Then, address the following questions in a
short essay. (These are found at the end
of the Case.)
1. 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.
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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?
5. 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?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Donât write in checklist form. Integrate your answers to the above questions
into a well-constructed essay.
The Case does not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Case, and the Background Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 3 – Case
PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
Case Assignment
The Manhattan Project was unique in at least one
respect; a major industrial enterprise
was built in support of a totally new, untested product â one that it may not
have been possible to build. Although
scientists knew that heavy atoms like uranium spontaneously disintegrated,
producing energetic radiation, it was by no means certain that the process
could be scaled up to produce an explosion.
The only way to find out was to try â and the only way to try was to
first separate kilograms of U235 from tons of U238. (A parallel project was aimed at producing
fissionable plutonium; both proceeded in
parallel, because it was by no means certain that either project would
succeed.)
The massive work of uranium separation and plutonium
production took place concurrently with basic scientific research and technical
weapons design. The first employed
thousands of workers, most of them laborers with no scientific background
whatsoever. The second employed hundreds
of the greatest scientific minds of the day, including (in a supporting role)
Albert Einstein.
The production work and the theoretical work required vastly
different control mechanisms. The
greatest need on the production side was secrecy. The mere fact that the United States had made
uranium separation a high national priority would tell scientists in other
countries much more than the American government wanted them to know.
The greatest need on theoretical side was the free exchange of
information among the scientists. If
Physicist A wanted to discuss an idea with Physicist B, he wanted to talk to
him directly â not draft a report, to be read, classified, and hand-delivered
by Military Intelligence.
The solution was to create two entirely different
organizations within the Manhattan Project;
one managed by military officers, the second by a distinguished,
charismatic physicist.
Q1: What were the
organizations?
Q2: Who were the managers?
How well were they suited to their jobs?
Based upon your detailed knowledge of modern project
management techniques,
Q3: Could the control problems have been anticipated?
Q4: What, if
anything, should have been done differently at the beginning of the Manhattan
Project?
At the risk of giving too much away, we should note that one
of the organizations still exists: Los
Alamos National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy. Feel free to visit the website. No scientific organization in the world has a
more interesting history, or a more distinguished pedigree.
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 âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Projectâs history, plus the Background
Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is encouraged,
but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 3 – SLP
PROJECT EXECUTION AND CONTROL
Continue to read the Woody 2000 case. (Wideman, 2015b) case,
paying particular attention to Construction, Startup, and Control. Then, address the following questions in a
short essay. (These are found at the end
of the Case.)
1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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?
5. 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?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Donât write in checklist form. Integrate your answers to the above questions
into a well-constructed essay.
The Case does not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Case, and the Background Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 4 – Case
PROJECT CLOSEOUT
Case Assignment
âThe past is never dead.
Itâs not even past.â
—–William Faulkner
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 as 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 development
teams. Rather, theyâre 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 Reaganâs 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.
The Manhattan Project was enormously successful, yet it
stalled at the end of WWII. The US had a
monopoly on nuclear weapons, which it wanted to safeguard; yet after the tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946,
the stockpile of A-bombs was exhausted.
The propeller-driven B29 bomber continued to be the only delivery
system. The elite team of physicist at
Los Alamos dispersed to institutes and university faculties. Although the âFat Manâ bomb was a massive,
inefficient device, no new design work was undertaken.
Obviously, nuclear weapons did not go away. In addition to weapons development, a host of
ancillary industries have come into being, such as nuclear power
generation. The newest generation of
thermonuclear weapons, with yields in the megaton range, can be carried in
backpacks. What happened?
For this Case, please trace the evolution of the American
nuclear weapons program from VJ Day (Sep 2, 1945) through dissolution of the
Manhattan Engineer District in 1947. Be
sure to address the following questions:
Q1: What steps were
taken to consolidate and safeguard the knowledge gained during execution of the
Project; that is, to benefit from
âlessons learned?â
Q2: What decisions were made concerning the sharing of that
knowledge?
Q3: Most American officials were convinced that âthe secretâ
of the A-bomb could remain an American monopoly, given adequate security. Was that realistic? Why or why not?
Q4: How did the organizational legacy of the Manhattan
Project, particularly the strong link between basic scientific research and
national security, affect American policy going forward?
Q5: With the benefit
of hindsight, and modern project management techniques, how could the end of
the Manhattan Project have been managed more effectively?
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 âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Projectâs history, plus the Background
Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and
style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 4 – SLP
PROJECT CLOSEOUT
Read the remainder of the Woody 2000 Case (Wideman,
2015). You will now address the topics
of Project Closure and Assessment.
Please answer the following questions in a short essay.
1. 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.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Donât write in checklist form. Integrate your answers to the above questions
into a well-constructed essay.
The Case does not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to âfill in the
gaps,â using your understanding of the Case, and the Background Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling,
grammar and style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
Module 1 discussion
Projects and Personalities
First, some background.
There are at least two all-encompassing theories of history. According
to the âGreat Manâ theory (Carlisle, Nietzche et al.), human history is created
by people like Napoleon. According to
the sociological theory (Spencer, Marx et al.), history is merely the
inevitable unfolding of events put into motion by social forces.
Letâs discuss those ideas in terms of projects. Where do Big Projects come from? Take the iPhone as an example. Would it have never existed without ruthless brilliance
of Steven Jobs? Or was it an invention
that was âwaiting to happen,â and Jobs happened to be in the right spot at the
right time to make it happen?
Scan the Web, and your memory, for a well-defined sequence
of events that can be described as a âproject.â
It should be something that happened in the past 20 years or so, and
which had an appreciable effect upon your own life. Did it arise from the inspiration of some âgreat
(person),â or would it have happened anyway?
Describe and explain.
Module 2 discussion
Planning vs. Doing
When your Course Developer was a boy, his mother had a
canned response to his various ridiculous requests (e.g., a pony, when we were
living in an apartment). She would smile
brightly and say, âWell, weâll think about it.â
It took him years to discover that this actually meant, âWeâll think
about it for ten seconds whenever you mention it, but it is NOT going to
happen.â
This is a small instance of a larger truth. Although a good plan is essential to a good
project, planning can be an attractive alternative to actually doing
something. In Washington, as in
industry, itâs common to âstudy a problem to death.â
Can you describe an instance from your own experience? Did
planning take the place of doing something, did good planning result in doing
something successfully, or did inadequate planning result in a disaster? Explain.
Module 3 discussion
Do it, or write about it
The word âreportâ has six letters, yet for many managers, it
falls into the category of âfour letter wordsâ â epithets uttered in anger,
derision, or disgust. A common sentiment
concerning reports is, âDo you want me to actually DO my job, or spend my time WRITING about it? Just go away!â
In many instances, such as the corporate annual report to
stockholders or the military efficiency report,
writing the report is a required exercise. Everyone knows how the game is played; whatâs
to be taken seriously, and whatâs mere boilerplate. But project reports are a bit different. In most cases, theyâre optional â which makes
them an even greater nuisance, when theyâre seen to be performing no useful
function. Please see Widemanâs article,
âIs it time to scrap project status reports?â listed on the Background Info
page (Wideman, 2014).
Please reflect upon your own experience as a producer of
reports. It would be a project report,
an efficiency report, or something as mundane as writing report cards for a class
of schoolchildren. Does Widemanâs (2014)
critique resonate with your experience?
Why or why not?
Module 4 discussion
An important âtake awayâ of the project closure process are
the lessons learned. What should have
been done differently? What should be
done differently, in the future?
Reflect on a major project youâve been involved in. It could be something personal, like building
a house, or job-related, such as creating a new product, preparing for an
acquisition, a divestiture, or (in the case of a military organization) a major
inspection. Was there an after-action
process to capture the lessons learned?
Were those lessons useful? Did
they actually have an effect on future projects and operations? Describe and
explain.
Module 4 Reflective Discussion
What’s hot? What’s not?
Please review the course as a whole. This is for your benefit, and also for
ours; reviewing the topics covered in
this course will help you fix them in your mind, and integrate them with what
you already know. Reviewing the topics
with a critical eye, and sharing your observations and suggestions, will help
Trident improve the course, and provide a better learning experience for those
coming after you.
Address the following points in a short posting. Review and comment on the postings of your
fellow students.
The extent to which you met your learning expectations.
The perceived usefulness of the topics covered, and of the
course as a whole.
The relative difficulty of the various topics. Which were the most challenging? The least?
Please explain.
How the topics could have been presented differently. How could we make this course better? Please explain, in detail.
