Case studies in
5
Case studies in
resourCe ManageMent
Resource management in a global environment gets very tricky and
requires continual monitoring. In particular, a global projects bud-
get management can be a constant struggle. Listening to experts
and evaluating input from experienced people outside of your proj-
ect team always helps to avoid pitfalls during the execution of your
global project.
I had a challenging experience with my companys information
technology department in one of my long- term projects. Computer
and information technology was advancing at a mind- boggling speed
at the turn of the century. A computers operating system, processor,
memory, and hard drive capacity became obsolete in six months. I
took it upon myself to improve our information technology depart-
ment in order to save my project in Case5.1.
After two months into a high volume production project, our sub-
contractor in Japan announced that they were shutting down their
operations which produced a critical component for our assembly
in three months. is was quite a shock to me and to my company.
Case5.2 describes the actions that I took to remedy this issue.
While working with leading-edge technology small- sized sub-
contractors during a project, lots of unforeseen issues can pop up.
oroughly understanding the capabilities of the personnel, equip-
ment, and processes being used in these companies can cut down on
undesirable issues as shown in Case5.3.
In dealing with international project teams from dierent coun-
tries, there is always a dierence in adrenaline rush and excitement
for meetings and project tasks. I experienced an adrenaline rush and
excitement toward project meetings and tasks at the higher end of the
spectrum from team members in countries such as Japan and Germany
and at the lower end of the spectrum from team members in countries
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such as Malaysia, Mexico, and countries in the Mediterranean region.
I detail my encounters in dierent countries in Case5.4.
During the execution of a project, always keep the pressure on your
team members, but do not overdo it and burn them out. In this day
and age, continuous connectivity to our team members can be very
hazardous and stressful, if it is not handled with care. Such events are
detailed in Case5.5.
Listening is the greatest virtue of a project manager. When I ran
into trouble while executing a task, I listened to all ideas that would
cure the issue at hand. Such a nagging problem is detailed in Case5.6.
After trying a new interface system for over a month in our wafer fab-
rication lines, we saw signicant increases in wafer yields. Also, wafer
throughputs improved. Holdups for a shutdown process decreased
signicantly. I made this new process engineering shift interface
meeting a standard for our wafer factory.
If a task in a project reaches a re- ghting mode, your decision-
making process to cure the issue accelerates very fast. You are in an
urgent rescue mode. After being in a re- ghting mode for two weeks
to troubleshoot a control panel via telephone conversations in a remote
location in Norway with a novice engineer, I had to take drastic action
as detailed in Case5.7.
In some cases, we have to rescue our subcontractors from a bind. I
tasked two engineers on my team to improve a critical Japanese suppli-
ers falling yields. As a project manager, it was my responsibility to help
my subcontractor in any way that I could. As a result of this urgent
six- week long rescue mission, our products nal test yields improved
immensely and they were steady. ese details are given in Case5.8.
Listening to all of the input regarding your projects tasks and
ltering them down to useful ones is an art in itself. Such input is
detailed in Case5.9.
Some tasks in our global projects require us to deal with foreign
government agencies. Bureaucracy in a foreign government can hurt
your project in many ways. You have to go along with experts to solve
your problems with bureaucrats even if it costs your project an arm
and a leg as detailed in Case5.10.
As global project managers, we have to be on top of all ancillary
tasks such as shipping rules and regulations of our nished products.
If we leave these ancillary tasks alone, they might harm our project
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tremendously in one way or another. In Case5.11, I missed details of
the insurance coverage for my projects nished products shipment.
At the bidding phase of a project, we might have to partner with
other companies in order to strengthen our position. At the beginning
of a project, all project partners look eager and willing to win the bid.
Many unforeseen issues might surface with our project partners dur-
ing the execution phase of the project. As project managers, it is our
responsibility to remedy these project partner issues as fast as we can
without damaging the cost and schedule performance of our project.
An example is given in Case5.12.
Sometimes cost performance of a task might be hit by unexpected
increases in material costs. I had a project to design, build, and test
20 high- load capacity and high- pressure hydraulic cylinders for a cus-
tomer in Brazil. I had to scramble to get my cost performance under
control as detailed in Case5.13.
Monitoring schedule and cost performance of a global project very
closely at regular intervals is a must for a project manager. You have
to bring your companys other departments in sync with your projects
dynamic environment. e challenge is to be able to collect all sched-
ule and cost performance data in a timely fashion from your foreign
project partners as shown in Case5.14.
Case5.1: Dependence on Other Departments
During the execution of a project, a project manager depends on
performances of other departments in the company. e purchas-
ing department is the key player in purchased components for
the project and in establishing contracts for subcontractors and
consultants joining the project team. e accounting department
has to execute correctly and in a timely fashion the projects pay-
ables and receivables and charges to project charge numbers. e
drafting department has to prepare and release drawings, manu-
facturing process instructions, and quality assurance instructions
according to promised schedules. e sales department has to
coordinate with the project manager closely for a projects con-
tract extension and for related competitive bids to a project. Every
department in your company contributes to your project in one
way or another during the execution phase.
I had a challenging experience with my companys informa-
tion technology (IT) department in one of my long- term projects.
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Computer and information technology were advancing at a mind-
boggling speed at the turn of the century. A computers operat-
ing system, processor, memory, and hard drive capacity became
obsolete in six months. You had to improve your computers per-
formance at most in a year in order to keep up with the changing
world. In parallel to improved computer performance, software
that was used in my projects was going through revisions to uti-
lize enhances in hardware performance. I had an IT department
in my company, as the saying goes, that always liked to squeeze
the lemon to the last drop. ey dragged their feet in upgrading
my teams hardware, software, and communication tools. is
type of mentality aected the performance of my engineers who
always wanted to be in sync with leading-edge technology. When
I made an upgrade request, it took them two to four weeks to
respond. I had several meetings with the head of our IT depart-
ment regarding timely upgrades to our IT tools. I told him how
demoralizing the situation was for my engineers. I told him that
if our IT tools were not at the leading edge of technology then
our company could not stay at the leading edge for long. He kept
complaining about his budgetary and personnel issues. He did
not change his style of service a bit to my requests. After two
months of frustration, I went up the ladder to his boss. I called a
meeting with the IT manager and his boss. I went over all hard-
ware, software, and communication, especially videoconferenc-
ing, issues. I sensed during the meeting that the IT manager was
being protected by his boss. Changes were not going to happen as
swiftly as I liked. eir vision was to reduce the IT departments
budget and use all IT tools that we had as long as possible.
en I went and discussed the IT department issues with other
department heads. All department heads had similar complaints
to mine, but their complaints were not as urgent as mine. I con-
vinced all department heads that something had to be done fast
to change the existing IT department mission. Two of the other
department heads and myself agreed to take our case a notch
higher to the president of the company. I called a meeting with
our president and also invited the IT department managers boss
to the meeting.
e meeting with the president, the IT department managers
boss, two department heads, and I lasted over two hours. I pre-
sented all my teams IT department issues that I encountered dur-
ing the execution of my project. e other two department heads
presented their issues too. e IT department managers boss
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was continually in a protective mood. At the end of the meet-
ing, our president promised to take constructive action immedi-
ately to improve the situation. A week passed and I got the news
that our IT department head had resigned or been let go. ere
was also reshuing of responsibilities in upper management.
e IT department started to report directly to the president. e
company searched and hired a new vice president of IT from a
well- known computer technology company. After six months of
continual struggle, my engineers and I started to see a bright light
at the end of the IT tunnel.
e execution of a project can be bogged down and sometimes
a project manager can experience long delays and cost overruns to
his projects tasks due to poor performance by other departments
in a company. Taking immediate action to correct issues at hand
with other departments is a must. e whole company has to run
smoothly and eciently on all cylinders in order to complete a
project successfully.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
e IT department is a very crucial segment of your
company in this day and age.
Getting consensus with department heads to solve an
issue gathers momentum and helps you to achieve your
goal in a timely fashion.
All departments in your company have to function well
in order for your project to succeed.
Case5.2: Subcontractor Announcement
of Shutting Down Operations
We were qualied and were running a high volume production
of computer subassemblies for a U.S. computer manufacturer. A
critical component for our computer subassemblies was being sup-
plied by a sole source Japanese subcontractor. After two months
into the high volume production, our subcontractor in Japan
announced that they were shutting down their operations that
produced the critical component in three months. is was quite
a shock to me and to my company. At that time, I was head-
ing the engineering team for volume production of computer
subassemblies. I immediately had several telephone conversa-
tions with our subcontractor to understand the reasoning behind
their unexpected shutdown. Apparently, the critical component
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manufacturing was not protable enough for them and the new
president of the company decided to end this divisions operations.
My company proposed several options to keep them going until
high volume production of computer subassemblies for our U.S.
computer manufacturer continued. To qualify a new subcontrac-
tor for this critical component would be a tremendous undertak-
ing at this stage of the game. My company oered to help them
nancially or even buy their division out to no avail.
I told our president that we should not inform our U.S. cus-
tomer until we had a detailed solid plan to qualify alternate
sources for this critical component. Our president agreed with me
and assigned me to prepare the qualication plan in three work-
ing days. After the internal review of the qualication plan, we
were going to go to our customer and present it in person.
I had three alternate subcontractor choices for this critical
component. One was in the Bay Area. e second one was again
in Japan, and the third one was in Malaysia. I immediately went
to our purchasing director and asked him to nd out in two days
their available production capacities for this critical component
and their pricing. ese were the two most important inputs to
start our qualication plan. It turned out that the sum of any
two of the subcontractors production capacities could satisfy our
needs. We ranked these three subcontractors with the purchas-
ing manager using several critical criteria such as quality control,
product reliability, stability of the subcontractor, pricing, and
capacity. e subcontractors in the Bay Area and in Japan came in
on top. We decided to prepare qualication plans with these two
subcontractors and present them to our customer.
I called our customers project manager immediately and
explained the unfortunate upcoming snag to our volume produc-
tion. I detailed our course of action with two new subcontractors.
I also detailed the qualication plans that we would be pursuing
in the next three months. I emphasized their involvement in the
qualication process. Our customer had to evaluate 200 computer
subassemblies, 100 from each new subcontractor, with new criti-
cal components in two weeks. Our customers project manager
agreed to do his part on time so that we would not disrupt the
volume production process.
I sent two engineering teams, one to each potential subcon-
tractor, for a detailed qualication process. Major areas of concern
were operator training, product change control, quality control,
and incoming material control. It took the teams one week to
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evaluate these two potential subcontractors. Both teams had
very promising reports about these two new subcontractors. We
decided to bring both subcontractors on board on equal footing.
We did not want to rely heavily on one of them. Both subcontrac-
tors provided us with qualication components with measured
critical parameters in four weeks. en we built computer sub-
assemblies for qualication using these new critical components
in ve weeks.
I hand carried the qualication lots to our customer. ey
tested 200 computer subassemblies in their computers while
I watched over their shoulders. Fortunately, there were no sur-
prises. Our customers project manager gave us the green light to
use the new critical component in our computer subassemblies as
promised in two weeks.
is surprising change to our product came without adequate
warning. I had to adapt to this change fast. I had to also con-
vince my customer about the steps I was taking to deal with this
change. We were lucky that there were other alternate solutions
to this problem. My mistake was originally to go with a single
source for the critical component. I should have qualied at least
two subcontractors for this critical component at the beginning of
the volume production process.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A surprising event can occur unexpectedly at a reliable
subcontractor.
Prepare a detailed and complete alternate plan before
approaching your customer with a way out of the
showstopper.
Always qualify multiple sources for critical components
of your project.
Case5.3: Subcontracting to Small Leading-Edge
Technology Companies
Subcontracting to small leading-edge technology companies can
be very tricky and time consuming during the execution of a
global project. Continual monitoring of such companies is a must
in order to assure that they are always up to a high level of opera-
tional standards and their personnel turnover does not hamper
your projects progress.
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I was leading a team of engineers to supply high-volume mag-
netic recording sensors to our customers around the globe. Our
supply chain originated in our wafer fabrications in California
and branched into higher assemblies in South Korea, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Puerto Rico. Surfaces of our read- write sensors
had to be free of any contaminants before being installed into
disk drives. Our nal operations were performed in class-10 clean
room environments. We were supplying thousands of sensors a
week to dierent customers. Our major sensor lot rejection cause
by customers was contamination. Several lots per week were put
on hold or rejected by our customers for sensor surface contami-
nation. I had a subteam whose mission was to identify surface
contaminants, track down their sources, and eliminate them from
occurring again.
For U.S. customers, we brought contaminated sensors to our
material evaluation laboratories in California. We did failure
analysis using advanced state of the art auger spectroscopy, energy
dispersive x- ray spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. We
had well- trained technicians in all three shifts. We were able to
get surface analysis reports in a day to respond with our correc-
tive actions to our customers. Fast turnaround in corrective action
was a must in just- in- time supplier chain requirements from our
customers. I had to set up failure analysis laboratories for our cus-
tomer centers in Singapore, Japan, and Europe.
My team and I searched and sourced three leading-edge technol-
ogy contamination evaluation laboratories in each location. I sent
my engineers to these laboratories for qualication. We explained
our failure analysis requirements for surface contaminants on our
sensors. We checked their operations, nancial stability, measure-
ment costs, type of equipment they had for measurements, equip-
ment downtime, equipment repair structure, equipment spare
parts situation, their technicians measurement training and expe-
rience, sample preparation techniques, measurement prioritization
and turnaround time, failure analysis reporting time table, and so
on. After a thorough comparative analysis, we chose one labora-
tory at each location to be our failure analysis center.
My team and I had to check on these three leading-edge tech-
nology laboratories periodically. We had to make sure that they
were upgrading their equipment to the most advanced ones that
provided accurate elemental and chemical compositions of con-
taminants on the surfaces of our sensors. We had to make sure
that they were not losing their experienced technicians. We had
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some issues with lost sensors and miscommunication. We were
constantly discussing how to improve and how to expedite our
failure analyses within our partnership.
Several times while the failure analysis was going on, I had to
send one of my engineers and a couple of inspectors to my cus-
tomers facilities to sort our sensors. We had to separate good sen-
sors from contaminated ones under high- powered microscopes in
a Class-10 clean room environment so that my customers auto-
mated assembly lines would not slow down or come to a halt due
to the lack of our sensors.
In a just- in- time high- volume relationship with our customers,
I had to form such a global failure analysis group with leading-
edge technology small laboratories. It took my team and me six
months to form our failure analysis network, but in the end it
worked out very successfully for many years to come. Our cus-
tomers were very satised with our response time and corrective
actions to contamination issues in our magnetic recording sensors.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
To qualify small leading-edge technology companies for
your project will require extensive scrutinizing and will
take more time.
To set up a global network for a crucial project task is
always a challenge for a project manager.
Case5.4: Latitude versus Attitude
When dealing with international project teams from dierent
countries, there was always a dierence in adrenaline rush and
excitement toward meetings and project tasks. I experienced
adrenaline rush and excitement toward project meetings and tasks
at the higher end of the spectrum from team members in coun-
tries such as Japan and Germany and at the lower end of the spec-
trum from team members in countries such as Malaysia, Mexico,
and countries in the Mediterranean region.
I dealt with team members from Malaysia, Mexico, and
Southern Turkey who often claimed that they never committed
to completing a given task on a mutually determined completion
time. eir behavior was inconsistent and uncooperative, and they
ignored my multiple requests and task deadlines. ey had to be
micromanaged and pushed to complete a task with quality. ey
had a lackadaisical work behavior. Of course this behavior was not
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true for all team members from those regions, but most of them
had lower concentration and negative behavior. I attributed this
kind of behavior to the warm and humid climate in those coun-
tries and to their traditional work ethics.
In colder climates such as in Japan and Germany, people devel-
oped survival intelligence, they became practical, aggressive, and
competitive. Science and technology mushroomed from these
kinds of behaviors in the Western world.
For example, during my projects in Malaysia, I had issues with
my team members coming to meetings late and not being pre-
pared. Some team members walked into the conference room 10
or 15 minutes late. Some of them did not have a clue as to what
they had to present or what to contribute at that meeting. ey
obviously did not read their meeting invitation e- mail in detail.
I constantly reminded my team members that meetings were not
for kicking back and for being in another world. Everyone had
to be on their toes and contribute during a meeting even if it was
not their turn to present their part. I joked with the latecomers to
the meetings that I was going to charge a U.S. dollar per minute
that they were late to the meeting so that we could all go out and
have a feisty lunch every week. I kindly asked the latecomers to
be on time to the meetings with no success. en I went to their
supervisors and asked them kindly to correct the situation by talk-
ing to their people. e supervisors discussions with their people
helped the situation a little, but it was dicult to get rid of bad
habits. en I went up to the general manager of the company
and asked him to issue a stern memorandum for timely attendance
and well preparedness to all meetings. e stern memorandum
did the trick and all my team members got the message. After two
months of determination, my team meetings got into a productive
and a precise rhythm.
I also had issues with promised action item completion times
in countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, and countries in the
Mediterranean region. If I were given an action item completion
time by a Japanese engineer, the task was done before or right at
the promised completion time. If a Japanese engineer had prob-
lems with completing his task, he came and asked me for help or
for an extension to complete the promised action item. However,
in Mexico if an engineer promised me an action item completion
time, he came with his results a day to a week late. In these warm
regions of the world, the only way to keep my team members on
their toes was to micromanage them. I had to talk to them daily
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
or even hourly to push them and to monitor their progress in a
given task.
Most of my team members in these warmer regions of the world
also had a relaxed behavior toward our customers and our subcon-
tractors. I emphasized that when a customer or a subcontractor
visited our plant we had to be well prepared and had to be sharp.
I want to emphasize that these lackadaisical behaviors surfaced
in the majority of my team members and not in all of them. It is
very dicult to change human behaviors in other countries. You
have to be exible, adjust, and learn how to deal with the situation
at hand. Jimmy Buetts song lyrics describe project team mem-
bers behavior in dierent countries well. With these changes in
latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a global project environment, work habits and atti-
tudes vary vastly from country to country.
Changing well- ingrained habits in your global team
members can take lots of patience and continual guid-
ance on your part to correct.
Case5.5: Stress from 24/7 Connectivity
Internet and cell phone connections are getting faster, cheaper,
and more reliable every day. ese wireless connections are
achieved from anywhere on Earth, even ying at 35,000 feet
above the ground or while vacationing on a remote Tahitian
island. Continual advances in e- mailing, tweeting, cell phoning,
text messaging, ease of data transfer, videoconferencing, and wire-
less networking make the life of a global project manager much
easier. Anyone on your project team can instantly work with their
les, programs, and networks from anywhere on Earth just as if
they were at their own desks. A global project manager has to lay
down ground rules for 24/7 communication with all team mem-
bers, including subcontractors and customers around the world, at
kicko meetings of a project.
During the execution phase of a global project, a team member
can get inundated by e- mails, cell phone calls, text messages, and
so forth. ese 24/7 communications can occur during lunchtime,
dinner time, sleep time, or even during weekends, holidays, and
vacations. A conscientious team member will try to respond to all
messages in a timely fashion while sacricing his or her personal
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Project ManageMent case studIes
life. ese kinds of 24/7 connections can cause overload and burn
out team members and the project manager fast. A 24/7-con-
nected environment will bring good things to a global project, but
the global project manager has to orchestrate and apply a fair bal-
ance between continuous connectivity and the private life of every
team member so that stress levels stay at normal levels during the
execution of a global project.
A good engineering friend of mine was working on an interna-
tional companys restructuring project team. He was a very con-
scientious worker. He checked his e- mails every half an hour from
the time he woke up until he went to bed. He always answered
his cell phone. One Saturday night we agreed to go out to dinner
together. He made a reservation at a good Italian restaurant, which
was very hard to get into. He brought his girlfriend. I brought
my wife. We were about to sit at our reserved table and his cell
phone rang. He answered his phone and ran out of the restaurant
to talk to the caller. We sat down at our table and waited for my
friend to return. After ve minutes he returned with a very sul-
len face. He told us that the call came from his project manager.
His project manager urgently wanted a couple of graphs from him
during the next hour. My friend told his project manager that
he was at dinner with us, but his project manager insisted on his
untimely demand. My friend had to excuse himself from dinner
and go home to his laptop. I learned later that his project manager
was a workaholic and was very rigid with his untimely demands.
He sometimes called my friend at midnight and during weekends
with excessive requests. My friend worked on that project team
for a month and then gave his notice to leave the company. He was
totally stressed out from 24/7 connectivity to his team and from
an unreasonably demanding project manager. My friend immedi-
ately started his own company and became quite successful. In a
way he was thankful for his previous project managers unaccept-
able behavior.
Interactive design and development by teams around the globe
are also an integral part of a global project. I was the project
manager of a chip design team in California that was constantly
interfacing with our German counterparts. Eight hours of time
dierence between the two design locations made me structure
feasible meeting and interaction times in order to reduce work
stress on both parties. I even allowed two of my design engineers
to work the night shift in California for two months in order to
have real- time interaction with their German counterparts. e
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
proposal to work the night shift in real time with the Germans
during the design of the chips software was suggested by my engi-
neers. Real- time interaction between two design parties reduced
time and error in completing their design tasks.
A project manager colleague of mine was working with a sub-
team in India to manufacture computer components. A twelve
and a half hour time dierence between India and California
required him to take several steps to reduce work- related stress
from continuous connectivity. He set up videoconferencing from
7:30p.m. to 9p.m. California time on every Monday. He asked
his California team members not to call their Indian teammates
from 6:30a.m. to 7:30p.m. California time during the work week
and during weekends. He also listed all Indian holidays when
communication was to be stopped. e project manager had to
establish these communication rules for his project during the
kicko phase of his project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Stress levels of your global team members can increase
exponentially in a 24/7-connected environment.
24/7-communication rules between your global team
members, your global customers, and your global sub-
contractors have to be laid out by you at the kicko meet-
ings of a project.
Case5.6: Engineering Interface
among Wafer Fabrication Shifts
Wafer fabrication engineering requires detailed recording and cor-
recting for out- of- specication conditions, scrap reasons, equip-
ment malfunctions, corrective actions, and variations in control
charts. Our wafer factory was working in three shifts for seven
days. Wafer fabrications process engineering hours were 7a.m. to
3p.m. for the day shift, 3p.m. to 11p.m. for the swing shift, and
11p.m. to 7a.m. for the night shift. I had six process engineers
in each shift. One was a principal process engineer for deposition
processes and the backup for ion milling processes. e second one
was a principal engineer for ion milling processes and the backup
for deposition processes. e third one was a principal process
engineer for photolithography and the backup for plate and etch-
ing processes. e fourth process engineer was the principal for
plate and etch processes and the backup for photolithography. e
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Project ManageMent case studIes
fth process engineer was the principal for wafer testing and the
backup for clean room environment. My sixth process engineer
was the principal for the clean room environment and the backup
for wafer testing. All the important events that happened during a
shift were recorded in six dierent logbooks, one for every process
center, and critical action items were being sent to the next shifts
engineers by using six dierent e- mail folders, again one for every
process center.
e system was working okay, but it was not perfect. Several
items, some of them critical, were falling through the cracks.
ere were misinterpretations of messages written in logbooks
and in e- mail folders. I was getting several telephone calls a
night from the swing shift and the night shift engineers ask-
ing me to explain some of the comments written about a pro-
cess or about malfunctioning equipment. Even I could not help
explain some of the condensed phrases. Comments like sput-
tering equipment 1 is acting and photolithography curing
plates had temperature problems were causing us to do exten-
sive detective work to nd the particular malfunction. We had
to improve our wafer yields continually and the process engi-
neering communication system between shifts was hampering
our progress. I had several meetings with my engineers from
every shift and we discussed in detail how to improve our com-
munication procedures between shifts. We decided to record
more precise and detailed information regarding every issue
during a shift. All of my engineers complied very well, but still
it was not a good communication system between the shifts.
We had over 200 operations and equipment in six process
centers in the wafer factory. is kind of very dynamic and con-
tinuous process environment did not allow any mistakes or any
shortcuts to overcome the issues that popped up. All of the sput-
tering engineers had to be on the same page on all shifts. All of
the photolithography engineers had to be on the same page, even
on the same line, on all shifts.
During one of my process engineering meetings, one of the
engineers proposed a good idea to extend our shift hours by half
an hour and have a face to face between the shift engineers. I
talked to every engineer and got their consent to extend their
work hour by half an hour. I also talked with human resources
to make sure that we were not violating any overtime regula-
tions. Salaried engineers did not get paid for overtime in this
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company. Everyone agreed to the new schedule and to the shift
interaction meeting.
Wafer fabrications process engineering new hours were 7a.m.
to 3:30p.m. for the day shift, 3p.m. to 11:30p.m. for the swing
shift, and 11p.m. to 7:30a.m. for the night shift. We started to
have process engineering shift interface meetings from 7 a.m. to
7:30a.m. for the night shift and day shift engineers, from 3 p.m.
to 3:30p.m. for the day shift and swing shift engineers, and from
11 p.m. to 11:30p.m. for the swing shift and night shift engi-
neers. I attended all three meetings every day. I took the meeting
notes and distributed action items list to the appropriate people.
Sometimes we could not complete all current issues in a half an
hour meeting. Some meetings extended to an hour.
After trying this new interface system for over a month, we
saw signicant increases in wafer yields. Also, wafer throughputs
improved. Holdups for a shutdown process decreased signi-
cantly. I made this new process engineering shift interface meet-
ing a standard for our wafer factory. I also covered the extra time
that engineers were spending in these shift interface meetings in
their annual bonus awards. My boss and the company president
agreed to award extra bonuses for my process engineers for their
voluntary agreement to spend extra time for shift interface meet-
ings, which caused our wafer yields to improve continually.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
24/7-production operations require face- to- face interac-
tion between shift engineers and operators.
Depending on only written communications between
production shifts can cause misinterpretations.
Written communication plus face- to- face interaction
between production shifts reduces the possibility of errors.
Case5.7: Fire Fighting during the Installation
of a System on an Oshore Oil Platform
I was the project manager of a large project to design, build, and
install an automated positioning system on a new oshore oil
platform. e design and construction of the system were com-
pleted in the United States. e system components were shipped
to Norway for installation. I had to send an application engineer
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to Norway to see the installation of the positioning system on the
new oil platform and train the responsible people from our cus-
tomers team for its operation and maintenance.
I had a young and very inquisitive engineer on my team who
was trained for six months during the construction and testing
of the system in our facilities. He knew all the intricate details of
the automated system. He was also well versed in troubleshoot-
ing the system components. I decided to send him to Norway for
three months to oversee the installation of the system and to train
the customers team members. I discussed his mission with him.
He was very excited and elated that he was going to represent our
company by himself in such a detailed project. I told him that we
were going to have a daily telephone conference ve times a week.
I promised him that I would bring in other design specialists to
the telephone conference calls if there were any issues during
the installation. I asked him to keep an engineering notebook to
record all the daily tasks, mishaps, issues, and all important facts
regarding the system installation. I also cautioned him to carry
along a complete toolbox to be used during the system installation
and some cold weather clothing.
e rst month in Norway went well. e engineer did a great
job during the installation of our automated positioning system.
We had a telephone conference call at 8a.m. California time and
5p.m. Norway time during every working day. ere were some
minor issues such as interference with another equipment, which
was solved by removing a quarter of an inch from the side anges
of our equipment. Several bolting patterns with the oil rig oor
did not match. We had to slot our bolting holes to match theirs.
Installation was completed in a month and test runs were starting.
My engineer was freezing in Norway in the month of February,
but he was upbeat and ready to start the test runs.
e control panel of the system started to have problems during
the test runs. Watertight pressure switches were not sometimes
switching at their set points. My engineer on location tried to nd
the cause of this intermittent malfunction without any success.
I immediately collected the available brains in our plant and an
application engineer from the pressure switch manufacturer and
brainstormed the control panel problem in Norway. We provided
several suggestions to our engineer over the telephone for him
to try. Nothing seemed to work to correct this malfunction. We
tried all the re- ghting ideas for two weeks without any success.
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I had another option. ere was a very experienced consultant
in electro- mechanical system design. My company used his ser-
vices from time to time in the design of our control panels. I tried
to reach him by telephone and by e- mail. I learned from his fam-
ily that he was on a sailing vacation in Tahiti for a month. I asked
his family as to how I could touch base with him. Apparently,
he called his family at least twice a week when he was on land.
I asked his family to help me to touch base with him on a cru-
cial issue. I asked them to ask the consultant to call me as soon
as possible.
After two days, I received a call from the consultant from Bora
Bora in Tahiti. I explained the situation and told him that we were
in a bind. I asked him if he could cut his vacation short and y
from Tahiti to Norway and help my resident engineer solve our
control panel issue. I proposed an incentive to help him make up
his mind. I told him that I would pay him his regular hourly rate
even during his travel time and reimburse him for business class
airline fares. He agreed to my proposal and promised me that he
would be on the rst ight out of Tahiti to Europe.
After troubleshooting the control panel together with my nov-
ice engineer in a very methodical way, the consultant found the
problem that was causing our control panel to malfunction. e
power that was feeding the control panel was sometimes below
the allowable lower limit and was causing the pressure switches to
not function properly.
Being in a re-ghting mode for two weeks to troubleshoot the
control panel by telephone conversations in a remote location in
Norway with a novice engineer did not work out well. My hind-
sight told me that I should have sent my novice engineer to this
important oshore assignment in a foreign country along with an
experienced engineer as a team. In the end, my customer was not
happy because it took us three weeks to troubleshoot the control
panel malfunction. We were lucky that we were not penalized
for this delay because the new oil platform had other functional
issues. My solution to our problem was an expensive one. I was
over budget and my management was not thrilled about it.
I thanked my consultant for saving our butt by cutting his
vacation short. I showed my gratitude to him with a bonus pay-
ment. I did not forget to praise my novice engineer for performing
a very detailed and a courageous job by himself working the rst
time on an oil platform. He also received an outstanding perfor-
mance review from our customers project manager.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a project, sometimes it takes very unusual and expen-
sive decisions to solve a nagging problem.
A novice engineer and an experienced engineer work-
ing as a team on a complicated project task can be more
ecient and more eective.
Case5.8: Engineers Sent to Japan
to Improve Manufacturing Yields
A Japanese supplier was providing ceramic magnetic recording
heads for our head stack assemblies for a U.S. disk drive manufac-
turer. Each head stack assembly was being tested for performance
and the yields were low. We formed a team of six engineers, two
from design, two from quality, and two from manufacturing, to
improve the yields of our head stack assemblies. I was heading
the yield improvement team. We investigated every process in our
plant. We tracked every suppliers component lots to nal testing.
We realized that our nal test yields were varying from 30% to
70% depending on the ceramic magnetic recording head lots we
received from Japan. ere were wide swings in performance of
ceramic performance heads from lot to lot.
I called the chief engineer at our Japanese supplier and dis-
cussed our surprising conclusion for low product yields with him.
He promised he would investigate his processes and report his
ndings to me in a week. A week passed and I did not hear any-
thing from him. I called him again to emphasize the yield issue.
He nally spilled the dire situation he was in. He told me that he
was down to one manufacturing engineer. He lost two of them
recently. He could not investigate and control all the processes for
our ceramic magnetic recording heads. I proposed to help him by
sending two of my seasoned manufacturing engineers from my
team to Japan for four weeks. I asked his company to pay for travel
expenses for my two engineers. He accepted my oer. Two of my
teams senior manufacturing engineers, one a lapping expert and
the other a grinding expert, were o to Japan.
We had a mission- dening meeting before the two engineers
left. I wanted a daily update via e- mail from them detailing their
investigation steps, their design- of- experiments, and their nd-
ings. We were also going to have a telephone conference call twice
a week on Mondays and ursdays at 5p.m. Pacic standard
time, namely, 9a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays in Japan.
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My two engineers started to go over each manufacturing step of
ceramic magnetic recording heads at our Japanese supplier. Some
of the inconsistencies in their processes and in dierent shifts
were corrected. ese did not make any dierence in our over-
all yields. I asked them to conduct several design- of- experiments
involving lapping and grinding processes and especially speeds
and send me products from these experiments by specifying all
variables for a given lot. We built these special ceramic magnetic
recording head lots to nal assemblies and tested them to see the
changes in nal test yields.
e Japanese manufacturing personnel were helping my engi-
neers day and night. ey were doing up to 10 dierent experi-
ments at once. We could not nish all the designed experiments
in four weeks. We had to extend their stay in Japan another four
weeks. At the end of the sixth week, we received several special
lots with slower lapping and grinding speeds. Our nal test yields
with these slower speed lots shot up to 90%. e stresses induced
on the ceramic slider body were much lower and therefore the
stresses induced on the magnetic sensor were much reduced. I
gave my engineers and the Japanese chief engineer the exciting
good news. I asked them to send me ve more conrmation lots
with slower lapping and grinding speeds. All these special lots
too went through nal testing with ying colors. We had a very
steady 90% nal test yield.
Apparently, the Japanese manufacturing engineers increased
lapping and grinding speeds to jack up the throughput due to
increased demand from us. I emphasized to the Japanese chief
engineer not to change anything in their processes without my
approval. He agreed to it. He was very apologetic about the whole
chaos that was created by his novice engineers.
After all the 24/7 work that my manufacturing engineers per-
formed in Japan, I asked them to relax and spend a couple of days at
their leisure before heading back. e Japanese chief engineer took
them to a close by ash- spewing volcano and to some hot springs
(onsen) near the volcano. My teams two manufacturing engineers
did a great job performing a very structured design- of- experiments
at our ceramic magnetic recording head supplier. I wrote a praising
review regarding their excellent work in Japan to their supervisor
and sent a copy of my review to our human resources.
is Japanese supplier was a critical part of our product. As a
project manager, it was my responsibility to help them in any way
I could. As a result of this urgent six- week project, our products
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nal test yields improved immensely and they were steady. Our
Japanese suppliers ceramic magnetic recording head sales doubled.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Degradation of crucial production parameters such as
the nal product test yield can be traced all the way to
your subcontractors processes.
You have to do all you can to help your subcontractor to
nd and correct manufacturing problems that are aect-
ing your nal product yields.
Case5.9: Listening to an Engine Assembler
I was a senior scientist on a team of ve engineers and two design-
ers. We designed from the ground up a 70 HP at 5000 RPM
rotary engine for compact cars. e design was completed in one
year and we contracted a British rm to build the engine proto-
types. We were bench testing the rst prototype engine. During
test runs from cold start, the oil pressure was always showing high
and exceeding the preset limit. Initially, we thought that there
was a design ow in some of the oil passages in the engine. We
did some investigative work, but we could not pin down where the
problem was. My teams engineers, including myself, were pulling
our hair out trying to determine the cause of this malfunction.
One of the engine assemblers, named Freddie, thought that
the oil pressure relief valve exit hole that dumps excess pressure
oil directly back into the oil sump was too small in diameter. He
showed me the relief hole and insisted from his experience with
other similar engines that it should be larger in diameter. I listened
to his constructive input and went to the project manager to inform
him about the observation from the engine assembler. I asked the
project manager if we should repeat the oil exit hole sizing calcula-
tions to see if there was an error in them that we missed.
e project manager agreed with me and asked one of our
engineers to repeat the oil pressure relief valve exit hole sizing
calculations. He asked me to be the checker for the new calcula-
tions. e oil ow velocity equation that was used initially in high
oil pressure cases was wrong and during these initial calculations
we predicted higher velocities in small diameter holes. Our new
calculations with the correct oil ow velocity equation predicted
that the required oil pressure relief valve exit hole diameter be
doubled. We changed all the required drawings and released
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them for the next set of engines to be built. We also modied the
existing engines. e updated engines ran with great performance
even in cold weather conditions without exceeding the preset oil
pressure limit.
I went back to Freddie and thanked him for his valuable advice
and asked him and his wife to join us for dinner at an exclusive
restaurant in the city. He was very grateful. We had a great time in
celebrating Freddies constructive input to our project.
Listening to the engine assembler saved us precious time
in nding the solution to a simple nagging malfunction in our
engines. ese types of events happen many times during the
life of a project. Listening to your customers input, to your sub-
contractors input, to the regulatory agency input, to input from
people around you from secretaries to assemblers might save your
project. Listening to all input and ltering it down to useful ones
for your project is an art in itself. As a project manager, you have
to be appreciative of all input, good or bad, and you should not
forget to reward the good ones.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A nagging problem can be solved easily by listening to
others.
As project managers, we have to be very open- minded
to ideas and suggestions given by others. Our easygoing
and appreciative attitude will encourage everyone around
us to sound their input for the goodness of our project.
Case5.10: Russian Federation Technical Passport Issue
Bureaucracy was a major hurdle in shipping equipment to a project
for a Russian Federation oil platform. As a part of the project, tech-
nical passports were required to ship our equipment to Russia. e
Russian Federation regulatory authorities review and approve the
equipment documents ahead of shipment. ey issue a GOST- R
certicate of conformity for customs clearance. I had to send all the
equipment drawings, specication sheets, quality and conformity
certicates, certicates of origin, and operating manuals in Russian
to the Russian authorities about three months before the shipment.
at would give them enough time for their review and for a ques-
tion and answer period and to release the certicate of conformity.
I estimated that all the documents that had to be submitted
to be around 1,000 pages. I got bids from two agencies that were
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experts in obtaining these certicates. ese agencies do all the
translation into Russian, submit the documents, do the follow- up
and resolve all the conicts, and get the certicate in time before
shipment of our equipment. ese agencies asked $60,000 to
do the entire job. is expense was not funded in our original
bidding for the project. We had to spend this amount from our
margin. My upper management asked me to look into other ways
of obtaining the Russian Federation certicate. I researched and
found a certied Russian technical translator for $15 per page. If
we got our documents translated and submitted them ourselves,
we would increase our margin by $45,000.
I went to my management and explained to them the alternate
way of getting the certicate of conformity. We all agreed to submit
our documents to the Russian Federation regulatory authorities our-
selves. I got all the documents translated into Russian, which took
two months. I sent all the documents by FedEx three months before
the shipment to the Russian Federation regulatory authorities.
I followed up the approval process by e- mail and by telephone
with my Russian translator next to me every week. We always
received an answer from a secretary that our documents were in
the review cycle and we should get the approval any day. A month
had passed and I started to get edgy. Two months passed and
we got the same response, that the review cycle was almost com-
plete. I could not wait anymore. I had only one month to ship our
equipment according to our contract with our customer. I talked
with my customers project manager about the runaround I was
getting from the regulatory authorities in Russia. He warned me
that their response was typical. He advised me that I should have
gone with an expert agency to get the certicate of conformity.
ese agencies knew how to push the paperwork and get the cer-
ticate of conformity on time.
I immediately contacted one of the agencies I had dealt with
before. I got a new bid from them to obtain the certicate of confor-
mity in a month with all documents already in Russian. is time I
received a $40,000 price tag. I went to my upper management and
laid out the details and the risks to them. We decided not to wait
anymore. We had to go with the expert agency to obtain the certi-
cate of conformity. ese agencies had oces in Moscow and they
hand carried all the documents and followed their progress daily. If
there was a hiccup they took care of it right there. ey promised to
obtain the certicate of conformity within a month and I received
it by overnight FedEx two days before our equipment shipment.
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
After all this hoopla, I made an extra $5,000 in our margin,
but it was not worth it. I had several sleepless nights and spent a
lot of my time following a Russian Federation regulatory author-
ity process, which I had no control over. I should have put my foot
down with my upper management and should have gone with an
expert agency from the beginning of the process.
I received the certicate of conformity for my original applica-
tion four months later by mail. Bureaucracy in a foreign govern-
ment can hurt your project in many ways. You have to go along
with the experts to solve your problems with the bureaucrats even
if it costs your project an arm and a leg.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Let certied people or companies handle government
bureaucracies in foreign countries.
Do not cut corners to reduce your cost when dealing with
foreign governments.
Case5.11: Natural Disaster Insurance
We were contracted to design, build, and install communication
equipment in a gas pipeline in Bangladesh. We prepared and
tested all subassemblies of the equipment in our facilities. en
we packaged them in waterproof crates and shipped them using
land/ ocean/ land routes to their destination. We had a reliable
freight forwarder who insured the goods that were being shipped
against all risks of physical loss or damage for door- to- door trans-
portation. All risks cargo insurance covered damages during
loading and unloading, all transportation, war, strikes, riots, civil
commotion, theft, and nondelivery of any portion of the ship-
ment. Our cargo insurance even covered jettisoning of containers
during the voyage in the ocean that could be encountered due to
adverse conditions.
e total cargo insurance cost for all the equipment that lled
up two 40-foot containers was over $60,000. e shipment was
scheduled to arrive at the port of Chittagong, Bangladesh in ve
weeks. At the beginning of the fth week, I received an e- mail
from our freight forwarder that the shipment had arrived at the
port of Chittagong and our containers were unloaded success-
fully. I got ready to send my engineering team to Bangladesh for
the installation process.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
One of my engineers informed me that there was a cyclone
forming in the Bay of Bengal and it was heading north toward
Bangladesh. I immediately called our freight forwarder regarding
the status of our two containers at the port. He assured me that he
would talk to his agent in Bangladesh and get the two containers
transported inland away from the cyclone hit areas of the coast.
He also told me that our all risk insurance did not cover natural
disasters. at was very disturbing news to me. Apparently, we
had to buy separate insurance coverage for natural disasters such
as earthquakes, cyclones, ooding, and so on. To save us around
$10,000 our shipping department and our freight forwarder
decided to bypass the natural disaster insurance for my projects
equipment. I was very worried at that point. I called my manager
and the company president and explained to them the pickle we
were in. en I called my customer to warn them about the status
of their equipment shipment with the upcoming massive storm
and our lack of insurance coverage for natural disasters.
I could do nothing, but wait and pray. I was hoping that my
freight forwarders agent in Bangladesh could move our containers
inland before the cyclone hit land. I started to follow the cyclone
news on the Internet. It was a massive and powerful cyclone pack-
ing heavy rains and destructive winds. It was heading toward the
Indian and Bangladesh coastlines. Satellite images showed the
cyclones spinning tails covering a huge area. Weather forecasters
predicted the storm to make landfall the next day near the border
between India and Bangladesh.
I could not sleep that night. I followed the storm very closely.
ere was no news from our freight forwarder regarding our two
containers whereabouts. e next morning I saw on the news
that the cyclone had made landfall closer to the Indian shoreline.
Chittagong and its vicinity got hit by heavy rains and 100-mph
winds. At 8a.m., I received a call from our freight forwarder that
our two containers were still at the Chittagong port. ey could
not move them inland due to the storm. Our two containers were
under 3feet of water. Luckily, our equipment was very well pack-
aged and all weather protected. e cyclone had a large footprint,
but only its tail hit the port of Chittagong. We came very close to
losing all of our equipment.
As a project manager, I should have questioned in detail the
insurance coverage of my shipment. When I heard that we had
all risk insurance, I did not dig into further detail. at was a
mistake. My team, my management, my customer, my freight
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
forwarder, and myself had a very scary 36 hours. I wished we had
the extra coverage for natural disasters. What we went through
was not at all worth the $10,000 saved.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to cover and ask smart
questions about every segment of our project. We cannot
leave any unturned stone that might come back and bite
us at the end.
Saving a little money in a large project is not worth the
trouble and the agony you have to go through.
Case5.12: Project Partners
Bidding for a project can get quite complicated. You have to
strengthen your companys position in a bidding war by partner-
ing with other companies in order to have a winning chance. In a
project you might partner with another company or companies for
nancial reasons, for technical reasons, for domestic content rea-
sons (in international bids), and for rules and regulations coverage
reasons. Project management can get complicated in a multicom-
pany team environment. You have to have the responsibilities of
each party well dened. You have to have a well- agreed- upon
pecking order for project management authority.
In a volume production project to build an advanced passenger
vehicle, a complex team of international companies agreed to par-
ticipate in a start- up automotive company. I performed a detailed
feasibility study for the volume production project. Design of the
vehicle was completed by the start- up company and the vehicles
manufacturing was in the prototype phase. In volume production,
the vehicles unibody frame construction was going to be man-
ufactured in Italy by a well- known automotive company. e
drivetrain was going to be supplied by a well- respected French
automotive company. e nal assembly and test of the vehicle
were going to be done in a new volume production plant in the
United States by the start- up automotive company. e project
was being nanced by a couple of high- powered venture capital
investors in the United States. It took about a year of negotia-
tions to bring all involved companies together as a team and to
sign nal contracts. e technical project partners and nancial
project partners were all on solid ground. Everyone was upbeat for
a successful project.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
e project manager of the whole project, a good friend of
mine, formed three separate project teams, one in Italy, one in
France, and one in the United States. Every team had well- dened
project tasks, project schedules, and a team leader who reported to
him. e project manager had to travel a lot between three project
groups to coordinate and be up to date regarding every task. is
project was in the 1980s, and Internet communication was just
starting and international calling systems were not as good. You
had to be on location in order to assess the true status of a project.
e projects manager had to present cost performance analysis of
the project to nancing groups on a weekly basis. Final assem-
bly and test facilities for volume production were near completion
after a year. During that time, 60 prototypes of the advanced pas-
senger vehicle were built and tested thoroughly and successfully.
Everything for the volume production project was going as
planned. e rst vehicle was scheduled to roll out of the volume
production line in January of 1988. However, stock markets around
the world crashed all of a sudden in October of 1987. Financial
backers of the project had to drop out of the project with their losses.
Eorts to raise additional capital to get the project moving were
fruitless in that nancial turmoil. At the end of 1987, operations at
the new start- up automotive company came to a halt. e project
manager did a heck of a job for three years to bring this highly
complicated multinational project to the gates of volume produc-
tion, but his luck ran out as a result of an unforeseen nancial crisis.
In another project, I was leading a project team to design,
build, manufacture, test, and install high- pressure hydraulic cyl-
inders in a very low temperature environment. My company had
to team up with a seal manufacturer in Germany during the bid-
ding phase of the contract. e German company was responsible
for designing, manufacturing, and delivering to us special cyl-
inder seals. e German companys technical know- how was in
designing and manufacturing high- pressure seals operated in very
cold temperatures. e German company brought a good techni-
cal boost to the winning bid combination. e German company
had a well- dened responsibility, a schedule, and a project team.
ey were supposed to deliver the rst articles in six months. e
project was progressing on schedule. At the end of the fourth
month, there was a shue in the German project team without my
approval. e new team members were novices and they started
to delay their seal delivery dates. e special seals were constantly
failing very low- temperature life tests. I started to get worried.
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
I met with my companys president and explained the alarming
situation to him. We decided to send our quality manager imme-
diately to Germany to evaluate our projects progress on-site. His
project status reports to me were not favorable at all. is private
and small German company was going through an upper man-
agement shake- up. ey had lost several of their experienced
designers. e quality managers recommendation was to drop
the German company and to nd another partner for designing
and manufacturing special seals for our hydraulic cylinders. I dis-
cussed this emergency situation with my companys president. We
decided together to cancel our seal project partnership with the
German company because of their failure to fulll our joint con-
tract commitments. We could go this route only after getting an
okay from my customers project manager. My customers project
manager agreed with my proposal to change our German part-
ner. My purchasing department and I scrambled to nd another
seal company that could design and provide us special seals in an
expedited schedule. Luckily, we found one close to our facilities
in the United States. My customers project manager and I visited
our new seal design and manufacturing partner for qualication.
e qualication visit was very successful. We signed a contract
with our new special seal design and manufacturing partner in
one week. I monitored their progress very closely. I also had one
of my project team engineers reside at the new seal company for
the duration of the whole project. When everything was said and
done, my company was late one month in delivering our hydraulic
cylinders to our customers site. However, I was very lucky to be
able to turn around the special seal crisis.
At the bidding phase of a project, all project partners look
eager and willing to win the bid. Many unforeseen issues might
surface with our project partners during the execution phase of
the project. As project managers, it is our responsibility to remedy
these project partner issues as fast as we can without damaging
the cost and schedule performance of our project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a multicompany partnership project environment,
there has to be a mutually agreed upon project manager
who is responsible for the whole project.
You have to be proactive and drop some of your project
partners in a timely fashion if they are not performing
up to par.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
Case5.13: Cost Overrun Due to Steel Price Increase
I was heading a project to design, build, and test 20 high- load
capacity and high- pressure hydraulic cylinders for a customer in
Brazil. Each cylinder was priced at $200k. e total project rev-
enue was $4M. Each cylinders cost was broken down to distrib-
uted design costs, manufacturing costs, and testing, which was
$120k per cylinder. Material costs for each cylinder were $40k.
Packaging and shipment of the cylinders were the customers
responsibility, namely, delivery was ex- factory. So each cylinder
would have a cost of $160k with a total project cost of $3.2M,
which resulted in a project margin of 20%.
e material cost was mainly the special steel cost used in build-
ing the hydraulic cylinders. We could only use steel from the cus-
tomers qualied countries and qualied suppliers in those countries.
My purchasing agent was screening all the qualied steel manufac-
turing suppliers and dealers. Due to a large demand for steel from
China, steel prices skyrocketed during my project, which we did
not account for in our pricing. With high steel prices our material
costs were going to increase by 50% to $60k for each cylinder. is
unexpected cost increase in steel would have lowered our project
margins to 10%. I had a meeting with my team and with my upper
management to brainstorm the skyrocketing price of steel for my
project. One of the vice presidents suggested that I should discuss
this issue with our customers project manager too. Our customer
had large steel construction projects. Maybe purchasing our steel
under our customers umbrella would give us some relief in price.
After our internal meeting, I immediately sent an e- mail to our
customers project manager to set up a teleconference with him
regarding our projects steel costs. During the teleconference, I
told him that we were going to get a big hit to our project margin
with the current steel prices. We discussed several ways to solve
the high steel pricing issue at hand. He promised to look into the
matter in his company to see if they could help us in any way. ey
also purchased a lot of steel themselves for their other projects.
Our customers project manager got back to me in a week with
exciting news. He said that they just qualied a new steel ven-
dor in South Africa. ey were ready to purchase a substantial
amount of steel for themselves for another project. He discussed
our high steel price issue with his material purchasing manager.
His material purchasing manager agreed to piggyback us onto his
order in order for us to get a reasonable discount. His material
purchasing manager was leaving for South Africa in two days to
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nalize his steel order. I proposed that I send my purchasing agent
along with him so that we could get steel for my project at a rea-
sonable price by riding on their coattails. Our customers project
manager and their purchasing manager were very understanding
and helpful in accepting my proposal.
My purchasing agent traveled to South Africa with our cus-
tomers purchasing manager. After a couple of days of negotia-
tions, together they negotiated a good deal for us with the new
South African steel supplier. We only had to pay $8k extra for
each cylinders steel. is steel supplier was also able to provide
the steel in a timely manner for my project with the required
material certicates. I was lucky that I was able to piggyback my
projects special steel order with my customers substantial steel
purchase order. is deal was quite a success story for my project
during continually rising steel prices. It saved our projects margin
from going down to 10%. With this new South African steel deal,
our projects margin eroded down to a reasonable value of 16%.
I was elated with the help I received from our customer on this
steel deal. I sent our customers project manager and his purchas-
ing manager two bottles of ne whisky for their excellent support
in helping us to get my projects steel at a very reasonable price. I
also gave my purchasing agent a dinner gift certicate for two at
a restaurant of his choice.
I kept my upper management informed continually about the
status of the South African steel deal. ey were very happy about
the nal steel deal. I asked the president of my company to write
a thank you letter to the president of our customer while praising
the help we got from our customers project manager and from
their purchasing agent in our steel deal. Teamwork like this went a
long way in making a project a success in a win- winsituation.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
An unexpected rise in material costs during the execution
of a project will bite into your companys prot margin.
It is a good practice to lock down material costs at the
beginning of a project without any delay before surprise
increases hit your project.
Case5.14: Actual Cost of Work Performance
As the project manager I had to keep track of the schedule per-
formance index and cost performance index for every task group.
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I presented these two important schedule performance and cost
performance indices to upper management every two weeks or at
most every four weeks. Schedule performance indices were eas-
ier to calculate because input to work completion estimates were
determined by me and task groups. However, it was very dicult
to obtain input for cost performance indices.
I had to chase our accounting department every month in
order to be able to collect all costs charged to my projects charge
numbers. e accounting department was always late in getting
all charges collected. ey also made unthinkable mistakes. I saw
many charges from unrelated company personnel to my project.
I saw several equipment costs charged to my project by mistake
or knowingly. At the end of every scal month, dened as four
weeks, four weeks, and ve weeks, I had to get these erroneous
charges cleaned up before I could determine the actual cost of the
work performed by every task group of my project.
I expressed my concerns about delays and errors occurring in
the accounting department to my manager. My manager set up
a meeting with the chief nancial ocer. During the meeting, I
voiced my concerns with examples. I emphasized that my project
was a very dynamic one with a tight budget. I had to know the
charges made to my projects charge numbers, 14 of them, at most
within a week from the end of the scal month. I asked them to
allow me to sit down with the accounting departments personnel
at the end of every scal month to go over all the charges made
to my projects account numbers. e chief nancial ocer agreed
to my requests and promised to improve cost reporting delays and
errors.
One month passed yet the situation with cost accounting did
not improve. Two months passed and it was the same old story. I
had to get my projects cost accounting xed. I, myself, made an
appointment with the chief executive ocer of the company and
laid in front of him the details of our companys cost accounting
delays and errors. He told me that he was aware of the slow pace
of our accounting department in preparing the scal monthly cost
report. I told him that I could not fulll my project management
duties in a timely manner and take the necessary steps to correct
for cost overruns at this tempo. He promised me that he would
discuss the accounting department issues with the chief nancial
ocer immediately and they would make the necessary improve-
ments to enhance the companys cost account speed and error rate.
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At the end of the next scal month, the cost report came out in
two days. ere was one error in my projects cost report. I was so
happy. I sent thank you e- mails to our chief nancial ocer and
copied our chief executive ocer and my manager. I was able to
get the actual cost of work performed within two days after every
scal month. I was able to balance my under budget task groups
with over budget task groups and determine what actions to take
to improve my projects cost estimates to completion. More often
than not, my projects overran the budgeted cost of work. en I
had to present the overrun reasons to my upper management and
get their okay to dip into my projects contingency funds or dip
into the companys company margin.
ere was another major issue with the project cost account-
ing, which was the timely submission of travel expense reports.
My team members led their expense reports within a week of
their return to home base. However, some manufacturing depart-
ment engineers and some quality department engineers submitted
their trip expense reports one to six months late. I had to nudge
every one of them and their managers to get their trip expense
reports led with the accounting department in a timely fashion.
Finally, I got tired of nudging them and took the trip expense
report timely ling issue to my upper management. After a couple
of discussions with upper management, it became a requirement
in the company for everyone to submit their trip expense reports
within one week of their arrival to home base.
Monitoring schedule and cost performances of a project very
closely at regular intervals is a must for a project manager. You
have to bring your companys other departments in sync with your
projects dynamic environment. e challenge is to be able to col-
lect all schedule and cost performance data in a timely fashion
from your foreign project partners.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Your projects cost performance can be hampered by your
nance departments delays and errors.
A trip expense report for a project should be led and
approved within a week of completion.
Periodically always check every item charged to your project.
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6
Case studies in
teaM ManageMent
Every team member of your project has a dierent personality and
behavior. You are a mentor, a role model, and a psychologist to all
your team members.
Stability in the lives of the project teams members helps tremen-
dously to run a project smoothly. I had to help a troubled team mem-
ber straighten out his family issues as outlined in Case6.1.
A senior scientists adverse behavior aected my teams morale and
started to hamper the progress of my project. I had to take serious
steps to bring him in line so that my project could progress smoothly.
Case6.2 outlines the steps that I had to take in order to bring har-
mony into my project team.
Errors are part of real life in engineering projects. ey can happen
in design, in a customers specications, in manufacturing, in qual-
ity control, in receiving inspections, at subcontractors, at certication
laboratories, and so on. e key is to catch them in a timely fashion.
Hopefully, the error will only cause a minor distraction to the proj-
ect. If everyone involved with the project can learn from the mistake
made, you will be making a big contribution to your company as a
project manager. Such an encounter is detailed in Case6.3.
To execute a project in a foreign country can be very challenging. It
helps a lot in the progress and success of your project if you and your
team members are immersed in the foreign countrys traditions and
language. In Case6.4, my team had to be trained on the ins and outs
of Japanese business culture and business language.
In one of my projects, a senior engineer on my team decided to take
a three- month sabbatical leave from the company right in the middle
of the project. He was a crucial member of my team. ese kinds of
unexpected situations can arise in any project. As the project manager,
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my task was to nd a remedy to this crisis fast without hampering the
progress of my project as described in Case6.5.
Traveling to foreign countries for a job can be very strenuous. It
requires detailed preparation. Passport issues, visa issues, money
issues, security issues, language dierences, hotels, transportation,
and foreign contacts all have to be dealt with in utmost detail and
accuracy ahead of a trip. As project managers, it is our responsibility
to make sure that all the is are dotted and all the ts are crossed before
a foreign trip is made as shown in Case6.6.
Nonperforming and/ or underperforming team members are always
an issue during the life of a project. Keeping them on the team or
getting rid of them has to be weighed very carefully. Risk analysis of
your actions has to be thought out in utmost detail. e eects of an
underperforming team member can be very destructive in a dynamic
team environment. Such a situation is detailed in Case6.7.
One of the important tasks of a project manager is to attend special
ceremonies involving your team members. ese ceremonies can be
birthday parties, weddings, patent presentation banquets, technical
society presentations, and so forth. As a team leader one of your main
functions is to participate in your team members celebration events.
Such an international event is detailed in Case6.8.
A work environment should be like a second family environment
away from home. Every employee should be able to talk and express
his or her issues and concerns to their managers, upper manage-
ment, and/ or to human resources without any reservations or fears.
ese issues and concerns can be personal ones, work- related ones, or
community- related ones. As managers, our responsibility is to help
every employee as much as we can to make them feel that they are
always under our companys family umbrella as described in Case6.9.
In a project environment, during the course of events, several
unexpected sacrices can come from any one of your team members.
Sometimes these sacrices can come from people outside of your
team. As the project manager, you have to recognize and appreciate
these kinds of above and beyond duties. Such an example is detailed
in Case6.10.
I have seen many project teams go through a honeymoon period at
the beginning or at the middle of a project throughout my career. As
project managers, we have to watch for slacking signs from every team
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member and take the necessary action to keep the pressure cooker at
a constant stress level. An unfortunate slacking period is detailed in
Case6.11.
When a good employee who helped you a lot in your project is leav-
ing the company, you have to provide a memorable farewell to him or
her. I managed to give a great farewell party to my senior mechanical
tool designer when expenses were very restricted in my company as
detailed in Case6.12.
As I gained experience in project management, I only made prom-
ises that I could keep to my team members. I researched thoroughly
beforehand, if I could keep my promise. When I gave a time frame
for a promise, I always accomplished it within that time frame as
depicted in Case6.13.
Several unexpected events can occur during the course of a project.
Some project managers get upset and blow their tops, but this type
of behavior does not solve anything. Negative reactions make things
worse. You have to be coolheaded, versatile, and rm to nd other
solutions fast in order to bring the dicult situation at hand under
control as shown in Case6.14.
As project managers, we have to sometimes act as psychologists.
We should not take drastic actions on a whim or with a burst of anger.
We have to consider all repercussions that an immediate action might
cause in our project as shown in Case6.15.
Specialists and/ or scientists can be very moody and demanding in
a team environment. As a project manager, you need their expertise.
You have to treat them with respect. You have to create a exible
boundary with their needs and with your projects requirements. If
you become a hard- liner with such people, your project will suer in
the end as shown in Case6.16.
A projects work atmosphere can be very dierent after a personal
vacation or after holidays. As project managers, we have to settle
down anxiety or lackadaisical behavior after such events as detailed
in Case6.17.
Maternity leave can be very disrupting to a projects progress. As
project managers, we have to work with our human resources depart-
ment in order to make the right decisions and appropriate arrange-
ments to solve the issues at hand as detailed in Case6.18.
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As project managers, we have to encourage and empower our team
members constantly to make improvement suggestions to their tasks.
Such improvement suggestions can come from unexpected sources.
We have to praise and reward contributing suggestions to our project
as detailed in Case6.19.
Eciently run meetings are the backbone of a project. Meetings
have to be standardized and managed properly so that team members
precious time is not wasted. A team member should not be bored and
he or she should contribute constructively while present during a proj-
ect meeting. Especially in large team groups, as it was in Case6.20,
breaking up a meeting into smaller subgroups can be very eective.
Mishaps happen more often than not while preparing for critical
meetings or deadlines in a project. Overworked and overtired team
members become prone to mistakes and accidents. As project manag-
ers, we have to watch over our team members and over ourselves for
fatigue and for burnout conditions as detailed in Case6.21.
Case6.1: Getting a Senior Wafer Fabrication
Engineers Life Stabilized
e project was to set up a new 6 wafer fabrication for computer
disk drive heads into production. I had an engineer assigned to
every piece of equipment in the new wafer factory. ey were
tasked for sourcing the equipment, qualifying the equipment, and
optimizing that particular equipments process for the computer
disk drive head specications using design of experiments. e
project was fast paced with a duration of six months.
One of the senior engineers in charge of the nickel iron plating
module was starting to slack o and he was falling behind in his
tasks. He was the owner of the nickel iron plating module. He wrote
the specications for it. He sourced the manufacturer. He went
to North Carolina to accept the module. He was now performing
design of experiments to optimize the pulsed power supply, current
density, bath temperature, and agitation of the electrolyte solution
for critical nickel iron parameters.
I went to his oce and started to discuss the delays in his tasks
and asked him if he needed any help to catch up. He said he had
some family issues and he was certain that he would be able to
complete the design of experiments in time and qualify the nickel
iron plating module. A week passed. I sensed that things were
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
not progressing smoothly. is plating engineer was under a lot
of stress. I called him to my oce and started to have a heart- to-
heart discussion about his missed commitments. He started to
open up and explain to me his family issues. His wife left him
and they were going through a divorce. During this turmoil,
his 12- year- old son was staying with him. He had to run every
day and take him to school and back from school. He was trying
to sell his house. e poor guy was ready to ip due to extreme
stress. I asked him if I could be of any help. I told him to think
about it. I did not want to lose him at this juncture of the project
and bring in a new engineer from the cold. I asked him if we could
have lunch together that day. He said okay.
Until lunchtime I made a couple of telephone calls to human
resources and I saw my supervisor to nd out if the company
could provide him a company- owned apartment for the next six
months. I explained my senior engineers situation in condence
and how it was aecting my project. I received favorable responses
from all sources. He did not have to pay any rent and the company
apartments were very close to his sons school.
We had a heart- to- heart discussion about his family situation
during our lunch. I told him about the companys apartment oer.
He was very appreciative and accepted it. I asked him if there was
anything else I could help him with in order to stabilize his family
life. He told me that he was looking for a good divorce lawyer. I told
him that I would investigate nding a good divorce lawyer for him
through our legal department. I emphasized to him the importance
of his work for the start-up of the 6 wafer factory. I also empha-
sized to him to come to me if he ran into any other dicult hurdles.
I had to walk a ne line when I dealt with this troubled senior
engineer. I wanted to help him all I could without becoming too
friendly with him and without losing his respect for me. Getting
sucked into non- work- related issues with a team member can be
very tricky for a project manager. I had to go along with the com-
pany rules and regulations. I would not promise him something
that I could not deliver. Above all, my projects health was my
main concern.
I went to our legal department and discussed the divorce law-
yer issue with the companys head legal counselor. He called a
divorce lawyer friend of his in town and arranged a meeting with
my senior engineer. e two met and agreed on terms. e senior
engineer was very grateful to me. On top of everything, he got a
substantially reduced rate from the divorce lawyer.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
In two days time, the senior engineer moved into the com-
panys apartment. He signed his son up for an afterschool pro-
gram so that he did not have to rush to school in the middle of
the afternoon. His performance at work improved instantly. He
put in some extra hours and nished his tasks only one week late.
As a project manager, I was very gratied that I could help
a troubled member of my team. Other options such as replac-
ing the team member in the critical segment of a project or
assigning another junior engineer to help him could have been
more risky.
Identifying risky areas in a project should be a continual task
for a project manager. After a risky situation is identied, you
should identify various paths to cure the risky situation. You
should choose the path that you as the project manager can have
the most control over. Risk management in a controlled fashion is
very crucial to a projects success.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to be good psychologists
too.
Identifying and dealing with a team members stress
level and risky condition are our number one responsi-
bility as project managers.
Helping a project team member to get on track in his or
her personal life is very gratifying.
Case6.2: A Recalcitrant Engineer on a Project Team
I was asked to develop the next generation of thin lm magnetic
heads with a team of four physicists and electrical engineers in
one year in order to keep ahead of the competition. e magnetic
head design had to be very ecient and increase the areal density
of magnetic recording at least an order of magnitude. I had a very
bright and innovative group on my team. e team was given to
me and I did not have any say in picking the team members.
We started the project on a very positive footing. After a week,
one of the prominent members of the team started spreading neg-
ative rumors about the company and he was not attending some
of our team meetings. He came to work late and left work as he
pleased. He had a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and he behaved like
a disobedient child. His behavior aected my teams morale and
started to hamper the progress of my project.
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
I called him to my oce and had a heart- to- heart discussion
with him about his attitude. I told him that he was a very valuable
member of my team and we depended on his magnetic design
calculations and recommendations. He told me he was what he
was and he did not like to work in a team environment. I asked
him not to spread rumors against the company and discourage
the team members and asked him to try to work with the team
members as eciently as he could. I told him I would not mind
him using exible hours at work. He agreed that he would try his
best and left our meeting with good intentions.
Another week passed, but nothing had changed. His behavior
got worse. He started to bring some of the other team members to
his oce and shut the door to have hours of discussions. I learned
that these discussions were not about our project. ey were dis-
cussing the stock market, who was going to make a bid to buy our
company, when our companys president was going to be red, when
was a layo going to happen, and so on. is physicist was a team
breaker and not a team builder. I had to take more serious steps to
bring him in line so that the project could progress smoothly.
I went to his supervisor and discussed this physicists behavior
in condence with him. His supervisor told me that this physicist
was a recalcitrant person and he did not like to be under anyones
authority, he looked down on everyone, and he thought his knowl-
edge was superior to anyone around him. I told his supervisor that
I needed this physicists contributions to my project. I told him
that I was going to control this grown up and obstinate scientist
very closely so that my team could successfully complete the project.
I had a team meeting without the recalcitrant physicist. I asked
my team members not to interact with this physicist. I told them
that I would be the only interface between him and the team. I
went over the reasons for my actions. e rest of my team mem-
bers understood the delicate situation with this physicist. After
the team meeting, I called the disobedient physicist to my oce
and explained to him that team harmony was necessary to succeed
in our project. I told him that we needed his invaluable input to
the project. I asked him to interface only through me regarding
the project and not with the team members. I also asked him to
move his oce next to mine, which luckily was not occupied at
the time. I asked him not to attend the team meetings. I cautioned
him not to have demoralizing discussions with my team members.
I told him that my actions were not to punish him, but to make
the project a successful one. He reluctantly agreed to my requests.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
en I went to the human resources department and explained
to the head of the human resources department the diculties I
was having with this particular employee on my team. I outlined
all the actions I was taking to remedy the issue. I also emphasized
that I needed this physicists contributions for my project. She
asked me to write a review letter about him and list all the actions
I was taking to remedy the behavior of this physicist. I wrote a
detailed review letter and discussed it with the recalcitrant physi-
cist. I gave a copy to him. I also gave copies of my review letter to
his supervisor and to the human resources department.
is obstinate physicist worked under my very close supervi-
sion for the next six months and he contributed extensively to my
project. He heavily cut his demoralizing activities during these six
months. I made him work in a completely isolated environment.
Unfortunately, at the end of six months, he was let go during a
layo because of his behavior. He predicted the companys layo
timing right on the dot. He was a paragon of magnetism as a
physicist, but he was not a team player at all.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
You have to take immediate action to deal with people
who are disrupting your project teams harmony and who
are demoralizing your project team members.
Some high- level scientists behave like a child in a team
environment. ese kinds of people need to be micro-
managed with very close supervision.
Case6.3: Error in Motor Mount Moment
of Inertia Calculations
I was heading a vehicle design group to design an all terrain vehi-
cle for a German customer. e design was completed on time
and approved by the customer. My companys manufacturing
group was starting to build 20 vehicles for beta testing. All chas-
sis were built and all the motor mounts were built. ey were in
the process of welding them together. During this juncture of the
project, one of my structural engineers walked into my oce with
a red face and told me that he made a calculation mistake during
the design of the motor mount beams. He forgot to divide the
beams moment of inertia calculation by a constant, namely by
12, and he was very sorry about it. Another structural engineer
who checked his calculations also missed this moment of inertia
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calculation error. is error created unacceptable bending stress
levels in the motor mount beams during dynamic loading.
I immediately called our manufacturing manager and asked
him to put a hold on all chassis and motor mount construction. I
told my structural engineer to keep cool. I told him we all make
mistakes. e important thing was to learn from our mistakes
and not to repeat them again. I called the calculation checker to
my oce. I advised him in a similar fashion. I told both of them
that I would control the damage. I asked them to get together,
focus, and revise the motor mount calculation and come back with
relined drawings in a day. I called a team meeting to explain this
unfortunate error to all team members and to discuss what steps
we should take so that similar errors would not occur again.
e team meeting was very productive. I praised the structural
engineer for coming forward and discovering his error in the early
phase of manufacturing. e focus of the meeting was to nd a
better way to check our calculations so that they would be error-
free. We decided to double our checkpoints for all critical calcula-
tions. One of the checkers was going to be outside the project team,
namely an independent and a well- qualied checker. is new
design process would add a couple of extra days to the release of
calculation documents, but would give us more reliable results. e
manufacturing manager and the manufacturing lead for the proj-
ect were also invited to the team meeting. We discussed time and
cost damages due to the design error. All 20 motor mounts were
going to be scrapped. e total time lost in manufacturing would
be about ve days and it would cost the project an extra of $20k
to build the new motor mounts. Manufacturing processes in other
subassemblies would be able to move forward. ese schedule and
cost impacts were mild and they were recoverable.
en I called a meeting with my manager and the structural
engineers manager. I explained the unfortunate events to the two
managers. We went through my solutions. ey were both satis-
ed with my teams solutions to the error. However, the structural
engineers manager got upset with his engineers. He was a ashy
type of a person. He wanted to discipline both of them. He even
leaned toward ring them. I asked him to cool down a little bit.
I told him that we all make mistakes, but the key was to learn
from these mistakes and not to repeat them again. I asked the
structural engineers manager not to discipline his engineers. I
told him that these two engineers are very promising young ones.
ey needed grooming and needed a positive support from a
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negative event. ey would contribute immensely to the company
projects in years to come. I told the structural engineers manager
that the structural engineer came forward to me on his own with
a red face. He was very honest and very sorry about the error he
made. We were lucky to catch the error in the early phase of man-
ufacturing. My project was going to get a minor hit, but in the end
the two structural engineers would gain a real- life experience. We
discussed the issue heatedly for an hour. e structural engineers
manager nally agreed with my recommendations and promised
not to do anything counterproductive to discourage them.
Errors are part of real life in engineering projects. ey can
happen in design, in the customers specications, in manufactur-
ing, in quality control, in receiving inspection, at subcontractors,
at certication laboratories, and so on. e key is to catch them
before the project is completed. Hopefully, the error would cause
a minor distraction to the project. If everyone involved with the
project could learn from the mistake made, you could make a big
contribution to your company as a project manager. I have heard
of several major errors made during a project too, such as in a
space project when the payload of an unmanned space probe was
calculated in pounds instead of kilograms.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Errors are more likely to occur during the execution of
a project.
As project managers, we have to be coolheaded and make
sure that our team learns from a mistake made in order
not to repeat it again.
As project managers, we have to correct errors in a
timely fashion.
As project managers, we have to gather our project team
in order to explain what the error was and how we are
going to take care of it.
Case6.4: Training in the Japanese Language
My company, a customized computer component designer and
manufacturer, planned to increase our market share in Japan. I
was given the engineering responsibility for guiding our design
and application engineers to go periodically to Japan to visit our
potential customers. We had to present our future products and
convince our potential customers as to how advanced our products
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were and how advanced and controlled our manufacturing pro-
cesses were.
I went to Japan several times with my design and application
engineers. We all were struggling to get to know the Japanese
culture and their workplace ethics, such as how to greet people
from your customers end, how to exchange business cards, how
to exchange small gifts, how to behave in a meeting, how to make
small talk, how to behave at lunches and dinners, and so on. When
I returned to the United States from my second visit to Japan, I
decided that we should be trained in the Japanese business culture
and language. I requested a meeting with my companys president
regarding the necessary training, if we wanted to succeed in busi-
ness in Japan.
My company president was very receptive to my training idea in
the Japanese business culture and language. He further proposed
that this training should be a requirement for all of our employees
who dealt with Japan. He asked me to arrange it with our human
resources department. Our human resources department found a
perfect trainer from the University of California. He was Japanese
and he was studying for his Ph.D. degree in psychology. He came
to our company every Tuesday for a year at lunchtime and trained
us on the ins and outs of Japanese business culture and business
language. He taught us important Japanese phrases that we could
use during our encounters with our Japanese customers. He gave
us recorded tapes lled with Japanese phrases so that we could
practice the pronunciations at our leisure. Since Japanese is a pho-
netic language, we learned pronunciation of phrases with ease.
Every one of my engineers who dealt with Japan, all of our
sales personnel, purchasing personnel, and even executives who
dealt with Japan took this one- year training course. Brown paper
bag lunches were provided by the company. ere were 26 train-
ees in the class. We had written and oral examinations once a
month. Fifteen of us passed the course with ying colors includ-
ing all of my engineers who dealt with Japan. Ten of us unked
the course and one dropped out because of health reasons.
e course taught us a lot of small talk phrases and greeting
phrases in Japanese. We learned greeting phrases such as pleased
to meet you (hajimemashite), good morning (ohayo gozaimasu),
and thank you very much (domo arigato gozaimasu). We learned
the telephone hello response, which was moshi moshi. At the end
of a long meeting in Japan, it was customary to write down action
items on the board with the names of owners and due dates. After
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everyone agreed on the action items list, the scriber of meeting
minutes sent the action items list to everyone involved by e- mail.
Once, at the end of a 12-hour meeting, I started the action items list
by writing action items in Japanese Kanji characters on the board.
All of our Japanese colleagues almost dropped out of their chairs.
ey had a good laugh at the end of a long and strenuous meeting.
We learned how to sit in pecking order around a conference
table. As guests, our team always sat on the side of the table that
was away from the conference room entrance door. We learned
when to talk during a meeting. e highest-ranking member of
our team always answered their questions. If that ranking member
needed help from other members of his team, he mentioned that so
and so would be responding to their particular question. Dinners
were less formal, but again high- ranking members of both teams
sat at the ends of the dinner table. A 12-hour meeting from 9a.m.
to 9p.m. and afterward a 3-hour business dinner until midnight
was a normal day in Japan.
e one- year business culture training course for Japan helped
my company to gain ground in their marketplace. After two years,
we saw a 10-fold sales increase for our products in Japan. e
president of my company thanked me for suggesting the Japanese
business culture classes for our people. Also, everyone who took
the course was very appreciative for gaining such an eye- opening
experience into Japanese culture and language.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Every member of your team dealing with a foreign coun-
try has to know that foreign countrys history, culture,
and workplace ethics.
Knowing the business language of a foreign country that
you are dealing with goes a long way in negotiations and
in gaining mutual respect among players.
Case6.5: A Project Engineer Left the Company
under Adverse Conditions
When I started a project with a team, I made sure that I had all
the information about each team members vacation plans, wed-
ding and honeymoon plans, and other time- o plans. I put every
team members personal time- o plan into the project schedule
and I made sure that there were no conicts with project tasks and
deliverables.
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In one of my projects, a senior engineer on my team decided to
take a three- month sabbatical leave from the company right in the
middle of the project. He was a crucial member of my team. He
was doing dynamic stress analysis for the product we were design-
ing. He asked me to have a meeting together with his manager.
During the meeting, he explained that he was an avid cyclist. He
was invited to train with a cycling team and to enter an interna-
tional race with this cycling team. He requested a three- month
sabbatical leave starting in two weeks. is was quite a shock to
me. I told them that it was not possible for him to leave my project
at that critical juncture. ere was no one else in the company
who could step in and take over his tasks. He insisted that he
had to take three months o from work, he had already made a
commitment to his cycling team, and no one could stop him. I
was upset with his irresponsible behavior. I told him that his rst
responsibility should have been to the project which he was an
important part of. He should have rst consulted with us before
making a commitment to his cycling team. He should have told
us his sabbatical leave intentions four months ago when the proj-
ect started. He understood that he was not going to get anywhere
with me. So he said to his manager that he wanted to give his
two- week resignation notice and leave the company. He immedi-
ately left his managers oce without saying goodbye.
His manager was very upset too with his engineers childish
and obstinate behavior. He called the human resources depart-
ment in front of me and explained to them the unfortunate situa-
tion. e human resources director immediately went over to the
senior engineers oce to discuss if there was a way out of this
quagmire. She reported to the senior engineers manager and to
me that there was no solution to the senior engineers adamant
request. ey decided to walk him out the door at the end of the
day without any delay. I was able to salvage some of the modeling
and test runs he had done for my project before he left for good.
I had to scramble to nd a replacement for my teams dynamic
stress analyzer. I had a design review coming up in two months
with the customer and my team had to nish all the pertinent
calculations and designs before the phase 1 review meeting. To
nd a replacement engineer with a similar skill set would have
taken at least two to three months. A novice engineer right out
of college would not be able to help me. I needed an experienced
mechanical engineer in stress analysis. Even if we had to steal one
from another company, it would have been awhile to get him or
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her to be productive on my team. e only solution was to go out
and nd a consulting rm in dynamic stress analysis and bring
them on board for my project.
I went to a couple of prominent stress analysis companies in
the United States and interviewed them for my project. ey were
expensive. I did not have any contingency funds in my budget to
cover these unexpected extra costs. I started to look at the possi-
bilities outside the United States. I found a stress analysis company
in India and one in the United Kingdom. I interviewed them by
teleconferencing. I also checked their references. I made sure that
they were using the same version of the stress analysis software
as we used in house. e stress analysis company in the United
Kingdom had the right expertise to help my project. eir price
was in the middle between the U.S. and Indian companies. I went
to my manager and discussed my search results with him and I
told him that I was going to sign a contract with the UK subcon-
tractor to complete my projects dynamic stress analysis require-
ments. He was pleased that I was able to nd a potential candidate
in a week. He assured me that the company would absorb the
extra cost of the UK subcontractor in the project margin. My pur-
chasing department and I completed the subcontract agreement
with the UK subcontractor in three days. ey started to work on
my team two weeks after the senior engineers departure.
I did all the communication by teleconferencing with the UK
subcontractor. ey came up to speed fast. ey also worked 60 to
70 hours per week without charging me overtime. I was able to get
all the required calculations and designs completed in two months
time before the phase 1 review. I did not inform my customer
about this crisis we had because this crisis was totally an internal
issue and it did not aect the progress of the project. I resolved
this crisis without disturbing my customers project manager.
ese kinds of unexpected situations can arise in any project.
As the project manager, my task was to nd a remedy to this crisis
fast without hampering the progress of my project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to make sure that at the
beginning of a project, we have all the information
about each team members vacation plans, wedding
and honeymoon plans, and other time- o plans on our
project schedule.
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A team members work plan can change suddenly, which
can aect your projects progress adversely.
Replacing a specialized and experienced engineer is very
dicult at a moments notice.
Case6.6: On- Site Equipment Training
One of the requirements of building and installing a hydraulic
mover on an oil platform project was to train the customers person-
nel on-site. As the project manager of the project, I decided to send
a senior engineer for this training. e training was in the North
East region of Russia and it was for two weeks in April. April was
supposed to be the beginning of spring weather in that region. My
senior engineer prepared an extensive MS PowerPoint presentation
for the training. He got his laptop computer and his thermal under-
wear and left for this cold region of Russia in early April.
He was to connect with our companys liaison in Vladivostok
and then travel together to the oil platform site. My engineer did
not speak a word of Russian, but our companys liaison was going
to help translate his training presentations. e training was sup-
posed to be done with two groups of 10 personnel who did not
speak or understand a word of English. All the meeting dates and
locations in Vladivostok with the company liaison were arranged
and conrmed by Internet correspondence. My engineer arrived
at the airport. During passport control the agent asked him why
he was entering Russia. My engineer honestly said that he would
be training 20 Russian workers on an oil platform. e agent
emphasized that my engineer did not have the proper visa to enter
Russia for training purposes. On top of that, his passport expira-
tion date was within six months of his exit date. His passport
expiration date should have been six months beyond his exit date
from Russia. My engineer started to plead that he was there for
only two weeks to help the Russian workers get trained on crucial
equipment at an oil platform. e passport control agent took my
engineer to a small cubicle with a glass enclosure and called his
supervisor who spoke a little English. My engineer pleaded his
case to the supervisor. ey together tried to call our companys
liaison in town, who was not to be found at work or home. e
supervisor threatened to send him out of the country with the
next international ight, asked him to stay put, and left the cubi-
cle. My engineer waited in the cubicle for three hours and nally
the supervisor showed up again with smiles. He told him that 166
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he discussed his situation with authorities in Moscow and they
decided that he could enter Russia for only two weeks as a tour-
ist. Finally, my engineer said, Let me be a tourist for two weeks
in your country. en they shook hands and his passport was
stamped with the tourist entry date.
My engineer took a taxi downtown to our company liaisons
oce. He found a secretary there who did not speak any English.
ey were able to communicate with hand motions and by writ-
ing. Finally, my engineer understood that our companys liaison
was out of the country in South Korea for a two- day trip. Our
companys liaison never informed us about the change in his plans.
My engineer decided to stay in Vladivostok for two days and wait
for the company liaisons return. He checked into a boutique hotel
close to the company liaisons oce and called me to detail all the
hurdles that he crossed when he arrived in Russia. I agreed with
him that he should wait for two days for the companys liaison
before traveling to the training site because of the language barri-
ers. I told him to hang in there and told him that I would inform
our customer about the two- day delay in starting the training.
My engineer almost froze to death at the boutique hotel where
he was staying. Apparently, the hotel personnel turned o the heat
at night from 9p.m. to 7a.m. to save on fuel costs. e poor guy
had to buy extra blankets to keep warm at night. He started to
check out after two days at this freezing hotel, but his credit card
bounced because his credit account was maxed out. He did not have
enough cash on him to pay the hotel. He called the companys liai-
son oce and nally he was able to touch base with the companys
Russian liaison. e companys liaison came to the hotel and paid
my engineers hotel bill. My companys liaison was not even sorry
that he was two days late to his appointment with my engineer.
Together they traveled by bus to a village that was 20miles away
from the oil platform. en they took our customers shuttle boat
to the platform. ey stayed on the platform for 10days because
my engineers visa expired two days after the end of training. He
had to condense his training into two ve- day sessions. He could
not use his laptop computer on the platform because his computer
battery died. He could not charge his computers batteries since
he did not have the right adapter to the oil platform outlets. He
transferred his MS PowerPoint training le to the company liai-
sons laptop computer and used his computer during the training
sessions. It was so cold, 20C, in North East Russia in April that
my engineer had to sleep wearing his sweaters, pants, and alpaca
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socks at night. He was lucky that he did not get sick during those
10 training days. Overall the training went well. He exited Russia
without any issues and made it safely back home.
I had a long meeting with him when he got back. I told him
that it was my fault not to warn him about the validity of his pass-
port duration. It was also my fault that I did not advise him on the
type of visa that he should get for training purposes. He should
have gotten a business visa. We discussed his credit card balance
issue. He accepted that it was his fault not to straighten out his
balance before he left for his trip. I went to my upper management
and laid out the details of my engineers troubles in Russia and
made sure that my company cut ties with our liaison there.
Traveling to foreign countries for a job can be very strenuous. It
requires detailed preparation. Passport issues, visa issues, money
issues, security issues, language dierences, hotels, transporta-
tion, and foreign contacts all have to be dealt with in utmost detail
and accuracy ahead of a trip.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to be extra sure that people
working for us in foreign countries are dependable.
Before we send our team members oshore, we have to
verify the validity of their travel documents.
Case6.7: Getting Rid of a Lackadaisical Team Member
I was heading ve separate groups of engineers in a wafer fabrica-
tion project. Each group had its own manager. One of the engi-
neering groups was responsible for quality control of the incoming
materials and outgoing product. ere were visual inspection corre-
lation issues regarding the outgoing wafers with our South Korean
plant. My quality engineering groups manager and I decided to
send one of the seasoned quality engineers to South Korea to train
the South Korean engineers and inspectors per our inspection cri-
teria. We wanted to eliminate our dierences in visual inspection.
My quality engineering groups manager explained in detail to
our seasoned quality engineer what his responsibilities would be
in South Korea. He had two weeks to train the South Koreans
and then return to his home base. He made his trip and trained
the South Koreans and got back. He gave me and my quality
groups manager a brieng in my oce about his accomplish-
ments in South Korea. To our surprise, he only trained the South
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Koreans on one inspection parameter, which was the highest cor-
relation discrepancy on the Pareto chart. He did not deal with any
of the other inspection parameters. He made his trip and spent
thousands of dollars to improve our inspection correlation only
in one parameter. He overlooked all other 15 parameters which
were on his checklist. I asked him why he neglected all the other
inspection parameters. He responded in a spiritless manner that
he had time to x only one parameter. I asked him why he did
not call his manager to discuss an extension of his stay so that he
could complete his tasks fully. He said in a lackadaisical way that
he felt that he completed his mission in South Korea. I politely
asked the seasoned quality engineer to leave my oce and com-
plete his trip report.
I closed the door to my oce and started to discuss the per-
formance status of the seasoned quality engineer with my quality
groups manager. e seasoned quality engineer had been with our
company for 15years and his performance went downhill every
year. He was experienced, but he was denitely lazy. My quality
groups manager did not document instances of his poor perfor-
mance. His annual performance reviews were mediocre. I told
my quality groups manager that this seasoned engineer would be
a listless mentor for our young and dynamic engineers. I asked
him if there was a way to revive the spark in work habits of the
seasoned quality engineer. My quality groups manager told me
he discussed the mediocre performance with the seasoned qual-
ity engineer several times during his annual performance reviews
and told him that his performance was not good enough for his
advancement in the company. e seasoned quality engineer told
my manager that he is content with his job level and that he did
not care about advancement. I told my quality groups manager
that we should get rid of him as soon as we could. My quality
groups manager agreed with me.
I immediately called our human resources director and asked him
to come to my oce. e three of us discussed the seasoned quality
engineers poor performance, his spiritless behavior, and his termi-
nation steps. Our human resources director told us that our com-
pany had an at- will employment policy and that we could terminate
a nonperforming employee at any time without waiting for a layo.
He also cautioned us that my quality groups manager should docu-
ment the seasoned quality engineers poor performance and spiritless
behavior during the South Korean trip and discuss the performance
document with the employee. is performance document and his
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annual performance reviews provided legitimacy to his termination
and prevented any lawsuits that his termination was discriminatory.
My quality groups manager wrote a performance document for
the seasoned quality engineer. Our human resources director and
I reviewed the document. After some minor changes, my qual-
ity groups manager and our human resources director, together,
went over the performance document with the seasoned quality
engineer. I heard that even during his performance review, the
seasoned quality engineer was spiritless. He accepted all poor per-
formance claims and signed the performance review document.
In the late afternoon, our human resources director walked the
seasoned quality engineer out the door of our company.
We went through all that hoopla in order to get rid of an
underperforming seasoned engineer. My company had a layo
two weeks later. We could have gotten rid of him easily during
the layo process.
Nonperforming and/ or underperforming team members are
always an issue during the life of a project. Keeping them on the
team or getting rid of them has to be weighed very carefully. Risk
analysis of your actions has to be thought out in utmost detail. e
eects of an underperforming team member can be very destruc-
tive in a dynamic team environment.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
It is always dicult to spark a re under lazy and under-
performing personnel.
You have to coordinate with your human resources
department and go through the required legal process
step by step if you want to terminate personnel.
It is much easier to clean up underperforming personnel
during an ocial company layo.
Case6.8: A Japanese Wedding
One of the important tasks of a project manager is to attend special
ceremonies involving your team members. ese ceremonies can be
birthday parties, weddings, patent presentation banquets, technical
society presentations, and so on. As a team leader, one of your main
functions is to participate in your team members celebration events.
One of the most memorable events in my project management
career was to attend a Japanese wedding for one of my Japanese
team members. He asked me to attend his wedding ceremony as
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a guest of honor in Tokyo and he also asked me to give a speech
during the reception. His wedding ceremony date coincided with
my semiannual trip to Japan to check out the progress of my proj-
ect team there. I accepted his kind oer with excitement. is was
my rst experience in a Japanese wedding ceremony and recep-
tion. I was going to be the guest of honor representing our team
and our company and I was going to give a speech.
I had to research how to prepare for this honor. I had to learn
what to wear, what kind of gift to get for the couple, and what
to say during my speech. He also invited four colleagues from
our Japanese team and one colleague from our U.S. team to his
wedding ceremony and reception. I learned that the wedding cer-
emony and reception was going to be a nonreligious one taking
place in a banquet room at a very nice hotel in Tokyo. e recep-
tion party afterward was going to be in the same banquet room
and all my teams members and I were going to be seated at the
same table. I learned that we were required to wear tuxedos with
black ties. I decided to stay at the same hotel where the wedding
ceremony and reception were. I arranged for a tuxedo rental place
through the hotels concierge. e tuxedo rental places tailor came
to the hotel two days before the event and tted me with a nice
tuxedo. I investigated what the new couples needs were so that I
could get a wedding gift for them. ere was no registry process for
wedding gifts like we have in the United States. I learned from his
colleagues that a at-screen TV might be a good gift for their new
home. I went to Tokyos electronic stores district and bought a nice
42 at-screen Sony TV for them and sent it to their new home
with a congratulatory card from me, from our team members, and
from our company. Later, I discussed the wedding gift cost issue
with human resources. I was able to charge the wedding gift cost to
a human resources overhead account instead of my project.
e last thing I had to do was to prepare my speech during the
reception. I was allocated ve minutes for my speech. I was going
to be the last one to give a speech. I learned that the wedding
ceremony and reception followed a strict order of events and time
allocated for each event was xed down to the second. e entire
reception was going to take exactly two hours and ten minutes
with all the speeches, cake cutting, newlyweds rst dance as hus-
band and wife, and so on. I asked one of the engineers from our
team in Japan to help me to include several Japanese phrases into
my speech. My closing statement was also in Japanese. Anata wa
issho ni, otto to tsuma to shite, naganen, onaji makura no ue ni kenko
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to kofuku ni kite taisetsu ni ari. In English it went something like
May you together, as husband and wife, cherish many years to
come in health and happiness on the same pillow. I reviewed my
speech several times and read it to the engineer who helped me
with the Japanese phrases. He said that my Japanese pronuncia-
tion was close to perfect. I was ready for the big event, which
was on a Saturday afternoon.
e wedding ceremony and the reception went like clockwork.
e bride wore a gorgeous kimono and she had heavy makeup,
a wig, and a head covering. e groom wore a standard tuxedo.
I gave my ve- minute speech very uently. At the end of my
speech, I asked everyone to raise their glasses and toast kampai
for the new couple. en the bride went to a changing room to
change from her kimono to a Western-style dress. Every guest
started to relax, eat, and drink. After dinner, the new couple cut
their colossal wedding cake and then they had their rst dance as
a couple to rock and roll music. Toward the end of the reception,
the newly wed couple went around to every table and gave every
attendee a gift for sharing their important event.
I attended similar events in Malaysia, South Korea, and in
Germany. Attending these special events takes a lot of thought
and preparation because you are representing your team and
your company.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to give lots of thought and
attention to our team members special events.
Especially if you are attending a special event in a for-
eign country, you have to learn all the dos and donts for
that event.
Case6.9: An Engineer Wants to Return to Her Old Job
I had an interesting employee rehire case during my career. I had
a quality engineer working on my project team and reporting
to the quality engineering department manager. She was a very
dedicated and a thorough engineer. She was commuting between
her home and work 120miles every workday. We always chatted
about her commute at the beginning of our weekly meetings. We
talked about speed traps, getting trac violation tickets, trac
jams, what are the best hours to drive on the freeway, and so on. I
had a good rapport with her. She did not mind the commute and
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I thought she enjoyed it. I valued her contributions to my team.
One day I got a call from her manager informing me that she gave
her notice that she was leaving our company in two weeks.
I was surprised at her departure announcement. I went to her
oce and expressed my disillusionment. She told me that she was
sorry to leave my team. She really enjoyed working on my team.
She said that she found a great job very close to her home at a
start-up engineering company. Her new job was a perfect t for
her and she would miss my team and also the daily commuting.
I had to scramble to nd a replacement for her in the company
to join my team. I nally got a novice engineer to replace her. He
needed a lot of monitoring and hand-holding. She and my novice
engineer were able to interface for about a week so that she could
transfer her tasks to him. I also asked her to leave all her engi-
neering books and e- mail les with me regarding my project. Her
manager and I gave her a great farewell luncheon. All of my team
members attended her luncheon.
After her departure from my company, I still kept in touch
with her. We e- mailed each other at least once a month asking
how things were going. About four months passed and I received
a telephone call from her. She told me that her new job was not
what she hoped for. She wanted to quit her job and rejoin my
company and especially my project team. I was very surprised to
hear her dismay at her new job. Apparently, there was no organi-
zational structure at the new start-up company. She had to take
care of everything on her own. Working hours were very long.
She was working on average 12 hours a day. Her boss was enforc-
ing unreasonable deadlines on her. All they did was to rush- rush
to get a prototype out to their customer so that they could guaran-
tee their next phase of funding. She wanted to return to our more
structured and employee- valued environment. I told her that our
company had a no- rehire policy, but I promised her that I was
going to try my best to get her back.
e next day, I set up a meeting with her old manager and the
human resources director. I explained to them in detail the call I
had from her. I expressed my favorable views about rehiring her.
After an hour of discussion, we came to a just solution to be able
to bring her back to our company. She was going to join my team
as a consulting quality engineer. e novice engineer would move
back to the quality department. She would contribute to my team
for the rest of my project, which had another year and a half to go.
After a year and a half, the quality department manager would
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
reinstate her as a senior quality engineer into his group. is way
we were not going to break the no- rehire rule of our company.
I called her immediately after our meeting and told her our
solution for rehiring her. She was ecstatic that she was coming
back to work for my company and very grateful for my help. She
accepted our proposal to work as a consultant for a year and a half
and join the quality group full time afterward. I told her that she
would get a formal call in the next day or two from the quality
department manager and the human resources director to nalize
the details of her return.
ree weeks after her pleading phone call to me, she started to
work for me. Her work ethic and contributions to my team were
of the highest standard. She was reinstated into the quality group
after 18months on a full- time basis as promised. I thought the
company gained an excellent employee by taking her back. We
did not break the no- rehire rule of our company, but we had to
bend it a little.
A work environment should be like a second family environ-
ment away from home. Every employee should be able to talk and
express his or her issues and concerns to their managers, upper
management, and/ or to human resources without any reserva-
tions or fears. ese issues and concerns can be personal ones,
work- related ones, or community- related ones. As managers, our
responsibility is to help every employee all we can to make them
feel that they are always under our companys family umbrella.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
After leaving your job at will from a company, it will be
very unlikely for you to go back to your old job.
Job hopping is an unwritten taboo between competing
high technology companies.
As project managers, we have to help a good person in
our team all that we can when that person makes a per-
sonal mistake.
Case6.10: A Deserving Vacation
I had a long- term project to ramp up volume production for a
communication chip in Malaysia. I had a good team of engineers
in the United States supporting our eorts in Malaysia. I was
sending them back and forth from the United States to Malaysia.
We were training the Malaysian engineers. ey were taking over
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full responsibility of their assignments after about six months of
training. One of the areas where I was having my doubts was the
wafer testing in the clean room. ere were three young, novice
electrical engineers trying to learn and take over all the testing
functions such as operator training, tester maintenance, tester
upgrading, and tester software development.
I had to send one of my senior test engineers to Malaysia the
beginning of November. I assured him that he would only stay there
for three weeks and he would be back home by anksgiving. He
was a strong family man. He had a wife and a 12- year- old son. We
put together a detailed three- week agenda for him. We discussed
and agreed on all agenda items with the Malaysian engineers.
e senior test engineers progress was going smoothly during
the rst week of his mission in Malaysia. However, when he saw
the reality of the testing environment in Malaysia, he started to
add more items to his to-do list that required extensive training.
e Malaysian engineers were struggling in the software develop-
ment phase of the testers. During our daily telephone discussions,
I asked him if he could stay another three weeks to complete his
extended tasks and skip anksgiving at home. He agreed to my
proposal. I thanked him for his dedication and I told him that I
would strongly emphasize his commitment to our company dur-
ing his annual review.
Another two weeks passed and Christmas was coming, but my
senior test engineers to-do list was growing instead of shrinking.
We again discussed what to do about his stay there. He missed
his family and he wanted to return home. I did not have anyone
else on my team and not even in the whole company with similar
extensive experience to send to Malaysia to relieve him. I had to
ask him to extend his stay until his mission was complete. I made
him a proposal for his extended stay. I told him if he extended his
stay until the end of January and completed his mission, I would
treat his wife and his son to a vacation in a place of his choice in
Southeast Asia. He was very appreciative of my vacation proposal.
He said that he would discuss my all paid vacation proposal with
his wife.
e next day during our telephone call, he informed me that
he would take my vacation proposal and spend the rst week in
February on the island of Langkawi at the northwest coast of pen-
insular Malaysia. Finally, they would get together as a family to
relax on a tropical island after three months of separation. He
and his wife enjoyed the marine life and beaches. His wife was
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anxious to absorb some of the Malaysian culture. ey were also
able to take a week o for his son from his schooling. ey chose
the Langkawi Island as their vacation spot.
My senior test engineer stayed in the Malaysian plant for three
months instead of three weeks as originally planned and he com-
pleted his mission with ying colors. He missed anksgiving,
Christmas, and the New Year holidays at his home. My all
expenses paid one- week vacation proposal for him hit the spot.
at was his familys rst trip to Southeast Asia. ey had a
great time on Langkawi Island. My gesture cost my project about
$4,000, but every penny spent was worth it. He sacriced his
family and his holidays and completed his tasks in Malaysia with
exceptional professionalism.
In a project environment, during the course of events, these
kinds of unexpected sacrices could come from any one of your
team members. Sometimes these sacrices could come from peo-
ple outside of your team. As the project manager, you have to
recognize and appreciate these kinds of above and beyond duties.
A cash bonus, a gift certicate to a restaurant, a couple of tickets
to a sporting event, even a contribution to his or her choice of a
nonprot organization can go a long way.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
If a team member has to extend his or her stay in a for-
eign country for unforeseen reasons to help your project,
you should recognize and reward his or her sacrices
accordingly.
Being away from family for a long time in a foreign
country can negatively aect your team members overall
performance.
Case6.11: Honeymoon Period
I was assigned to lead an oshore oil rig equipment design, build,
test, and installation project. e project was to last one year from
the start of design to nal installation and acceptance on-site in
the North Sea. I had a team of eight design and manufacturing
engineers. Our customer was in England. I had a two- week vaca-
tion preplanned after the third week into the project. I left the
project team in the hands of a senior engineer and left for my fam-
ily vacation. I had a heart- to- heart discussion with my replace-
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take care of their needs so that the schedule would not slip. We
had on the contract a 5% of total cost penalty for each week of late
acceptance on-site. Everyone on my team was very well aware of
our tight schedule and of the late acceptance penalty. No one had
any slack time for his or her assigned tasks.
I came back after two weeks from my vacation and got a brief-
ing from my replacement project manager regarding the status of
all current and completed tasks. I saw that we were behind about
a week to two weeks in several tasks. I went around and discussed
task- delaying reasons and the issues in detail with every engineer
on my team. I saw a relaxed atmosphere in the whole team. ey
all were behaving like they were on a honeymoon. It was sum-
mertime and excessive heat, beaches, surng, sailing, and outdoor
barbecues were giving them all a cozy feeling. My replacement
project manager did not do a good job of monitoring and putting
adequate pressure on the team members. ey all said to me we
would catch up eventually and not to worry. I heard the emer-
gency bells ringing in my head. I went to my oce to evaluate the
whole project task by task and to decide on my course of action.
e next day I called an emergency team meeting. During the
meeting, I went over every task with my team. I showed them on the
schedule that with the present pace we would be at least one week
and at most three weeks late for the acceptance of on-site comple-
tion. I emphasized that the progress we had made was not acceptable
to our customer nor to our company. I asked everyone for his or her
input as to how to catch up and not delay the project by even one day.
ere were some great suggestions from the team. I thought
the whole team woke up from a summer honeymoon dream.
ere were six critical tasks that fell behind. Six engineers that
fell behind oered to work some extra hours to catch up during
the next two weeks. At the same time, other engineers and I were
going to give them an extra hand in several minor tasks. I was
going to meet with every engineer daily for 15 minutes to discuss
the condition of his or her tasks.
e stress levels on the team members were high for the next
four weeks. We nally caught up to the critical task on the sched-
ule, which was the internal design review meeting. At the begin-
ning of the internal design review meeting, I praised all my team
members for giving extra eort in order to catch up to the sched-
ule. I invited them to a team beach barbecue with their families
on Friday afternoon. ey all accepted my invitation. We all had
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a great time at the beach after roller coaster stress levels at work
for the last three months.
During the course of a project, stress levels go up and down for
every team member. A good project manager has to keep these
stress levels as normal as possible without burning out his or her
people. It is normal for the stress levels to go up before a criti-
cal design review meeting, before a regulatory agency inspection,
after an unexpected malfunction of your product, before a nal
product acceptance event, and so on. However, as the project
manager, your important task is to smooth out these stress levels
during the course of a project.
I have seen many project teams go through a honeymoon
period at the beginning or at the middle of a project. You have to
watch for the slacking signs from every team member and take the
necessary action to keep the pressure cooker at a constant stress
level. It is also a good idea for the project manager not to go on a
vacation during the course of a project that has no slack time on
its schedule and that has performance penalties in its contract.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A project managers replacement during his or her absence
from a project can have adverse eects on team members.
It is always dicult to shake o a honeymoon periods
relaxed atmosphere in a team environment.
As project managers, we might have to delay our vaca-
tions to after the completion of a project.
Case6.12: Farewell Luncheon
e computer company that I worked for had a chief operating
ocer whose top priority was to generate a favorable balance sheet
for Wall Street every quarter. When we could not meet our ship-
ment forecasts, he used to ship products that were in our inventory
out the door on the last day of the quarter and receive them back
as warranty return the next day. If the sales forecast for a par-
ticular quarter was down, he used to monitor all travel and extra
expenses such as luncheons and in- house birthday parties, and so
on. He tracked every penny that was spent.
During tight expenditure periods, we had to get the chief
nancial ocers approval before going on a trip or before taking
someone out to lunch or dinner at company expense. Airplane
travel was to be only in economy class. We had strict per diem
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expense limits depending upon the place we were traveling to.
We could not take our customers or colleagues to lunch or din-
ner without prior approval. Controlling expenses and austerity
policies were good for prot and loss management, but the chief
operating ocer should have given company managers reasonable
leeway in managing their budgets.
I had a senior mechanical tool designer on my project team. He
was moving to his home state to be close to his aging parents after
15years of service to our company. He participated in several of
my projects during his last 10years with his highly professional
work ethics. My team and I wanted to give him an unforgettable
farewell party. However, we were right in the middle of a nan-
cial crunch. I had to get every expense preapproved. My team
and I decided to throw his farewell party ourselves without going
through the expense preapproval process.
I met with each of my team members and asked for their sug-
gestions. First, we decided to give a morning break chocolate cake
party around his cubicle. My secretary volunteered to bake the
cake. We were going to invite all top management people includ-
ing the chief operating ocer to the morning break party. One of
the team members suggested that we get a commemorative plaque
for all his contributions to our team. We agreed to chip in $10
each for a silver plaque.
Afterward we planned to take him out to a farewell luncheon at
his favorite Mexican restaurant and to give him several presents. I
assigned a team member to get the presents before the luncheon.
I knew that my tool designer was a skier and a golfer. We decided
to get him a pair of ski goggles and half a dozen LED lighted golf
balls. e cost for each team member was $16.
e morning break chocolate cake party was well attended.
I gave a little speech praising my tool designer and wished him
well in his new life. I asked our chief operating ocer to present
him the silver plaque. e chief operating ocer said some inspir-
ing words and did his presentation. It was a great 20-minute get-
together and the delicious chocolate cake was all gone. I thanked
my secretary on the side for her great cooking skills. I also men-
tioned to our chief operating ocer that we were paying all fare-
well party expenses from our pockets. He was very tickled to
hear that.
en my team and I took him out to lunch and had outstand-
ing Mexican food in my tool designers honor. Everyone around
the table gave spirit- lifting speeches about him. I gave him his
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presents and thanked him again for his outstanding contribu-
tions to my projects. He was ecstatic about his presents. He gave
a gracious farewell speech too thanking each individual on my
team and me for coaching, mentoring, and providing assistance
all throughout his career at our company. Lunch cost for each
team member was $7. Overall we had a great farewell party for
my tool designer. e cost of the farewell party for each team
member was $33.
e company overall saved a $330 expense. We managed to
give a great farewell party to my senior mechanical tool designer
without going through the pre- approval process for expenses. All
our eorts were for a good colleague and we accomplished every-
thing without any help from the company.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Sometimes you have to be creative and go around strict
company rules and policies without breaking any laws.
As project managers, we have to always show our appre-
ciation for good eorts put into our team by a fellow
team member who is leaving the company under favor-
able conditions.
Case6.13: Promises to Team Members
As a project manager, my ultimate target was to gain the respect
of my team members nationally and internationally. e best way
to gain respect was to keep all my promises to team members in a
timely fashion. I learned this approach the hard way. Earlier in
my project management career I made promises that I could not
keep. ese unkept promises created conicts and disharmony in
my project teams. A simple promise to upgrade one of my team
members workstation was not fullled on time due to my com-
panys budgeting conicts. My design engineer was livid about
my not keeping my end of the bargain in a timely fashion. I had
to authorize an upgrade to his workstation instead of waiting for
the IT department to act and charged the upgrade to my project.
More conicting promises arose from things that were outside
of my control as a project manager. Examples of these uncontrol-
lable promises were salary increases, bonuses, changing depart-
ments, and extra vacation times.
I had a design engineer from our Japanese division working
for me in California. I brought him to the United States for two
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years of extra training and for him to help me in projects dealing
with our Japanese customers. He brought his family to the United
States too. During his stay in the United States, he still reported
to his supervisor in our Japanese division. He was at engineer 2
level. Engineer 2 level was dened according to our Japanese divi-
sion standards, which was dierent from the U.S. engineer 2 level
ones. He was always complaining about his salary level to me.
Our level 2 engineers were making 20% more than what he was
making. He was a good and hard working engineer and his con-
tributions were as valuable as his U.S. counterparts. During one
of our weekly meetings, I promised him that I would discuss his
salary situation with his supervisor and request an increase in his
salary. I called his supervisor and negotiated hard with him about
increasing his salary by at least 10%. His supervisor would not
budge. His supervisor told me that this young Japanese engineer
had two more years to go at engineer 2 level. After two years
depending on his performance, he could be promoted to engineer
3 level and get a handsome bump in his salary, which would be
comparable to U.S. engineer 2 level. My hands were tied. I could
not do anything else to keep my promise. I made a promise that I
should not have. I should have called his supervisor and discussed
his salary increase before promising him anything. I called the
young Japanese engineer to my oce and explained to him my
discussions with his supervisor. I told him that I would give him
a very high recommendation for the work he was doing in the
United States for me. He could be promoted to engineer 3 level in
two years and then could achieve the salary level he was aiming
for. He understood his salary situation. He was working for me
in the United States under our Japanese divisions rules. He con-
tinued his good and hard work and he got his promotion on his
return to Japan after two years. He called me and thanked me for
my very favorable recommendation.
I had another unfullled promise early in my career. I had a
team of six engineers to design and create software for feasibility
studies of industrial investments. We tested and released the soft-
ware on time and within our budget. During our project closure
meeting, I promised my team members good year- end bonuses
for their extraordinary eorts. Our feasibility software was being
used for every new industrial project planned by our corpora-
tion. My six engineers reported to three dierent managers in
our corporation. I talked to every one of them about the success
of my team. I emphasized that our corporation was gaining a lot
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by optimizing investments made to new industrial divisions by
using our feasibility software. All managers agreed to recommend
handsome year- end bonuses for my teams engineers. In January,
all year- end bonuses were announced, but none of my teams
engineers got a penny. I was very disturbed and I could not face
my teams engineers. I went to see their managers to understand
what happened. ey all gave me the same story. Due to corporate
prot crunch, year- end bonuses were given to very few people.
My engineers missed the bonus pot. I had to explain to every one
of my teams engineers what happened despite my eorts. I was
wrong in raising the hopes of my teams engineers for something
that I had no control of.
In another empty promise case, one of the engineers on my team
was not happy at all with her supervisor. She wanted to change her
department and report to another supervisor whom she thought
very highly of. I promised her that I would talk to both supervisors
and would help her to switch departments. I discussed her wish
with both supervisors and with our human resources director with
no success. e department that she wanted to move to had to
generate a new opening at her level and her capabilities. en she
had to ocially apply for this new job opening. I did not have the
authority to accomplish her desired move in any way. Her options
were to quit the company or to learn to deal with her supervi-
sor. She chose the second option. She had to endure another three
years before her supervisor was assigned to another position.
In one of my design projects, we had a very tight schedule.
Our salespeople underbid my project. My project hours were
reduced by 25%. My four engineers were putting in 12-hour days
and working Saturdays and Sundays to keep up with our proj-
ect schedule. My team was close to burnout and they were not
enjoying their jobs. ey were joking with me by saying that they
wished they were hourly employees. ey would be making at
least double their salaries if they were hourly employees. I had to
keep them energized and happy. I worked the long hours along-
side them. I promised them an extra week of vacation time after
the project was completed. I talked to their supervisor in detail.
He did not agree with my generous vacation oer. He said that
his engineers were salaried personnel and they were judged by
the quality and the quantity of their accomplishments and not
by the hours that they put in. I was dumbfounded. I did not agree
with his assessment of salaried personnel at all. I took it on myself
to correct these unfair working conditions. I gave my engineers a
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day o during the week if they spent a weekend day at the oce.
I showed these days o as working days on my project. is way I
eased their stress levels. In the end, I overran my budget by 9%,
but it was all worth it. We were only late by a week to complete
a yearlong project. I was apologetic to my team members that I
could not give them an extra week of vacation time. ey were
all appreciative that I leveled their stress levels by a day o during
the week.
As I gained experience in project management, I only made
promises that I could keep to my team members. I researched
thoroughly beforehand whether I could keep my promise. When
I gave a time frame for a promise, I always accomplished it within
that time frame.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Promises not fullled in a timely fashion to team mem-
bers will create disharmony and underperformance dur-
ing the execution of your project.
Do not make a promise to a team member that is beyond
your control.
Always discuss your idea for reward with the supervi-
sor of your team member and obtain his or her consent
before announcing it.
Case6.14: A Critical Team Member Getting
Married and Going on a Honeymoon
In the middle of an oshore oil platform equipment design and
construction project, one of my critical software design engineers
decided to get married and go on a honeymoon. He came to my
oce one day right in the middle of our projects very high activ-
ity period and surprised me by saying that he was going to get
married in a month in Mexico and then go on a honeymoon to
Australia for three weeks. He was going to be o the project close
to four weeks. ese surprising events were not planned in my
project scheduling at all. He was responsible for designing and
generating the software for the control system of the equipment.
He was right in the middle of his tasks. I told him that this was
quite a change of events in the middle of our project. His absence
period coincided with the initial testing of the equipment using
his control system. I had no one capable of taking over his tasks. I
had to think and nd ways to manage his tasks during his absence.
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I could not get mad at him or ask him to delay his plans. He was
one of my ace engineers. I congratulated him on his decision to
get married, but I also told him that he should have planned for
his marriage at least six months ago. I told him that I was going to
prepare a plan to take care of his responsibilities in his absence. I
told him to meet with me again the next day on the subject.
He had four more weeks of work before he left for Mexico.
His eciency was going to drop, as he got closer to his wedding
day because of intense activities for his wedding ceremony. e rst
thing I had to get him to do was to bring the control system soft-
ware to a preliminary and operable phase before he left. He had to
provide me with a preliminary version of the software. He had
to leave me with his computers password and software le loca-
tions. I was not going to ask him to release his control software
through document control in its preliminary version. He was
going to train me on the usage of his software during his last two
days in the oce. I did not want to get any other team members
distracted spending time on his software. en I was going to
ask him to give us a call every morning at 9a.m. Australian east-
ern daylight time (3p.m. Pacic daylight time) so that we could
discuss all problems and hiccups that we had encountered while
operating the equipment control system software. I did not want
to call him and disturb him on his honeymoon every time I had
an issue with his software.
I had an hour meeting with him the next day. I laid out my
proposed solutions for his absence. He agreed with me that he was
going to be able to complete a preliminary version of his software
before he left for Mexico. He was not going to be able to complete
user instructions for his software by the time he left. He agreed to
train me on the usage of his software for two days before he left.
He also agreed to call me on Skype Tuesday through Saturday
mornings ve times a week at the agreed time. He was very appre-
ciative of my understanding of his situation. He told me that one
of my projects team members was going to be a groomsman at
his wedding.
I checked his progress daily during the next four weeks. He
completed as promised a preliminary version of his software before
he left for his big day in Mexico. He trained me for two days on
all the inputs, outputs, and possible trouble areas of his software.
He called me from Australia on the agreed upon call schedule.
Some of the calls lasted ve minutes, but several of them lasted
over an hour. We tried several ways to solve software operating
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issues while he was live on Skype. With the daily calls, we got
along okay in his absence. He completed and released his con-
trol software and its user instructions two months after his return
from Australia. My team members and I contributed handsomely
to get a great present for our newlywed colleague.
Several unexpected events like this one occur during the course
of a project. Some project managers get upset and blow their tops
o, but this type of behavior does not solve anything. Negative
reactions make things worse. You have to be coolheaded, versa-
tile, and rm to nd other solutions fast in order to bring the dif-
cult situation under control.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Many surprising and unscheduled events can occur dur-
ing the execution of your project.
As project managers, we have to be coolheaded, versatile,
and able to orchestrate a viable solution to keep our proj-
ect moving ahead unharmed.
Case6.15: A Project Manager Goes on a Sabbatical Leave
I was a senior scientist in a team of several engineers and designers
that were assigned to design and build prototypes of a new rotary
combustion engine in 18months. Our team leader was a dedi-
cated automotive engineer and an excellent team leader. Right at
the height of the project, he had to take a three- month sabbatical
leave to fulll his compulsory military service. He asked me if
I could lead the team during his absence. I accepted the chal-
lenge without any hesitation. I knew all the team players well.
All tasks were progressing smoothly. I did not see any problems
on the horizon. We agreed that he was going to call me twice a
week in the evenings to get a brieng about the project. He gave
me authorization to sign o on all time cards and all expenses for
the project. We had a team meeting and he explained his situation
to the team. He introduced me as the interim project manager
for the project for the next three months. e next day he left
to fulll his military service obligation.
I started to manage the team without any incidents. e rst
week passed without a glitch. e project was on track on all
cylinders. My management style was dierent from our project
manager. He liked to micromanage every team member to the
extreme. On the other hand, I gave a calculated space to team
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members working under me. I gave a task to a team member and
asked for results in a given time frame depending upon the team
members experience and dedication to his or her work.
During the second week, one of the design engineers started to
slack o. His behavior was reminiscent of a mouse playing because
the cat was gone. His work eciency dropped drastically. His outside
interests increased. He started to take long lunch hours. He called in
sick on Mondays. At rst I cautioned him verbally. Nothing in his
behavior changed. He thought he could get away with it since I was
the interim project manager. I discussed his behavior with the proj-
ect manager during our bi- weekly brieng. He asked me to write a
warning letter and review the letter with the design engineer in the
presence of a human resources representative. I reviewed the written
warning with the design engineer and led it with human resources.
I started to micromanage him and tried to help him get on track and
catch up with his tasks. I did not want to take drastic measures and
re him before our project manager returned from his sabbatical
leave. Everyone else on the team was performing well. I was patient
and limped along with the design engineer for three months.
Our project engineer came back and relieved me from my team
management responsibilities. He was also very upset with the proj-
ect engineer for not completing his tasks as scheduled. Our project
manager gave him a written warning too. He was ready to re the
project engineer. I asked the project manager to give me another
week to straighten out the project engineer. I told him that the
design engineer was very knowledgeable in material science and it
would not be easy to replace him in the middle of the project. He
agreed with me. I took the project engineer out to lunch to have
a heart- to- heart discussion about his work behavior and perfor-
mance. I told him that he had to pull himself together without
any delay and had to improve his work performance or else he had
to nd another job. I emphasized to him that management was
ready to re him if he did not improve his work behavior and per-
formance fast. He started to share his personal problems with me.
He had a new girlfriend who was apparently very demanding. He
was prioritizing his new girlfriend before his work responsibilities.
Our two- hour long lunch discussion did the trick. Finally, the
gravity of his deteriorating situation at work dawned on him. He
started to work harder. He put in many extra hours to catch up
with his commitments. Our project manager thanked me for sav-
ing the design engineer from being red. at disruption would
have put a dent in the progress of our project.
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As project managers, we have to sometimes act as psycholo-
gists. We should not take drastic actions on a whim or in a burst
of anger. We have to consider all repercussions that an immediate
action might cause in our project. A colleague of mine used to
always remind me to measure twice or better three times before
you make a critical cut.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Diculties can arise between you and your team mem-
bers when you take over a project in the middle of its
execution.
As project managers, we have to consider all options
before we make a critical decision.
Case6.16: Technical Publishing during a Project
I always encouraged my project team members to publish their
leading-edge ndings in reputable journals as long as their publi-
cations did not disclose any intellectual property of our company
and of our customers. I also encouraged them to subscribe and to
read all technical journals in their elds so that they could stay up
to date in their elds of expertise. I asked every team member to
share his or her news about technological advances in our weekly
team meetings. As engineers we were always in a technology race.
As soon as we stopped learning and closed our eyes to the outside
world, we would fall behind in our eld and we would evaporate.
Our publications enhanced our resumes to a higher level and gave
us an insurmountable edge over our competition in promotions
and in job searches.
In my project management career, I had to provide my team
members a fair balance between time spent on writing papers and
on doing actual project work. I had a Ph.D. physicist working for
me on an advanced magnetic head design project. His knowledge
of advanced magnetics was excellent. He spent almost 50% of his
working time writing papers for dierent journals. He was also
refereeing submitted papers on several journals during working
hours. He came to work exactly at 8a.m. and left exactly at 5p.m.,
not a minute later. He copublished most of his papers with other
contributors from my project team. If he did not copublish, he
acknowledged all the contributors in his papers. He was a well-
respected scientist in his eld. I valued his achievements but I had
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to get more out of him on my projects side and reduce his com-
mitments to publishing during working hours.
I went to his oce and had a heart- to- heart discussion about
his excess commitment to publication during working hours. I
told him that it was okay with me if he spent 10% to 15% of his
working hours on publication- related issues. I reminded him that
his project tasks in advanced magnetic head design were falling
behind. He told me that he was always in a race with other scien-
tists to publish a new idea. He wanted to be the rst one to publish
a new idea in the scientic world. He also had to get approval
from our patent lawyers before submitting his papers. He believed
that it was always desirable to have our companys name rst in
leading journals.
I agreed with all his comments and left his oce without a res-
olution regarding his time spent on writing and refereeing papers.
I had to think hard not to antagonize him and get a fair resolution
to our problem. I did not want to go to his boss and complain
about the situation at hand. I had to deal with him myself and
nd a fair solution. I thought about a middle-ground solution for
a couple of days. en I called him to my oce in order to propose
and negotiate my solution. I told him that he could spend all the
time he wanted on publishing and refereeing papers as long as
he put in an honest 32 hours of work on my project every week.
I gave him freedom in 20% of his weekly working hours to do
whatever he wanted to do in publishing. If he wanted to spend
more time in publishing, he had to do it after 5p.m. at work or
at home. He could not argue with my proposal. He told me that
I was trying to put brakes on his publishing eorts. I emphasized
that my projects tasks were more important than his publishing
eorts. I reminded him that our company could only survive, if
we were the leader in our products, not in publishing. Finally, he
came around and reluctantly accepted my proposal. I told him that
in dire situations such as a deadline, he could spend more work
time for publishing as long as he notied me. is ne loophole
gave him more condence in our relationship. Finally, he started
to spend 32 hours per week on my projects tasks.
Specialists and/ or scientists can be very moody and demand-
ing in a team environment. As a project manager, you need their
expertise. You have to treat them with respect. You have to cre-
ate a exible boundary with their needs and with your projects
requirements. If you become a hard- liner with such people, your
project will suer in the end.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Getting a team member to focus on your projects tasks
can be challenging when that team member has a lot of
other interests besides your project.
Your exibility in solving a dicult case regarding a
team member will benet your project in the long run.
Case6.17: Team Atmosphere after Vacations and Holidays
As global project managers we have to know every team members
vacation plans in advance. We have to know all national holi-
days of the countries we are dealing with. We have to know all
religious holidays that each one of our team members and coun-
tries are observing. Religious holiday observance days might get
very confusing, if you are dealing with multi- ethnic countries like
India and Malaysia. It is always a must to include all these events
into your project schedule at the initial stage of your planning.
You might come across many surprises that can aect your proj-
ects critical tasks and deliverables.
In one of my project teams, I had a novice engineer who could
not get into a work mood easily after he came back from holidays.
He was still dreaming about turkey dinners, apple pies and ice
cream, a Christmas gift he got, and New Years celebrations. He
was going around discussing his experiences during the holidays
in detail with child- like excitement with his colleagues. I had to
micromanage him daily after the holidays so that he could get
back to his work and start focusing on his tasks. After a couple
of holidays, he started to act more professionally and discussed
his holiday experiences with his teammates only during breaks.
is novice engineer took his two- week vacation after a year
of employment and went to Tahiti with his girlfriend. After he
got back he acted like a lost soul under lots of stress. He could not
switch easily from a relaxed atmosphere to the rhythm of orga-
nized work. His e- mails and his phone messages accumulated
quite a bit during his two weeks of absence. He did not know
which task to tackle rst. He came to my oce and asked for my
help. I told him to rst review all his e- mails and phone messages
and jot down important ones and ones that needed action and
response from him. en I asked him to come back to my oce
with his list the same day. He came back and we together reviewed
his action items list and prioritized every item on it. We also put
completion dates for each action item. is kind of personalized
help showed my novice engineer how to deal with numerous action
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items on his to- do list after a relaxing vacation. He appreciated my
guidance and thanked me a lot for easing his stress level. He went
on to become a very organized and productive engineer in two
years. After two years, I recommended him to be promoted to an
engineer 2 level. He received his promotion. He was very grateful
to me and he always wanted to work on my projects.
In an opposite case, an engineer from our Malaysian facil-
ity was working on my project in California. I brought him to
California for a six- month period to help me in several tasks in my
volume production ramp- up project and to be trained in certain
inspection methods. One day he came to my oce and asked if I
could send him back to Malaysia for a week to see his family dur-
ing a religious holiday that was coming up in 10days. His request
came to me by surprise at a very high activity phase of our project.
I told him that it would put a big dent in the progress of our project
if he were gone for a week. I could not outright reject his request. I
had to do all I could to nd a way to send him home for a week to
spend his important religious holiday with his family. I told him
that I would try to bring in another engineer to ll in for him for
a week. I also told him that I could not pay for his trip expenses
from my projects budget. I promised him a response in a day.
I discussed my Malaysian engineers holiday request and my
projects dire need for backup engineering manpower for a week
with our quality engineering manager and got one of his engineers
to help me. I immediately gave the good news to my Malaysian
engineer that he could leave our team for a week. Somehow he
found a cheap round trip ticket in a short time and went home for
his religious holiday. After he got back, he worked very hard and
long hours on my project team to pay me back his gratitude.
Unexpected vacation and holiday requests from team members
can occur during the course of a global project. Vacations and
holidays tend to bring instability to the progress and atmosphere
of a project. As project managers, we have to deal with them in a
timely fashion and try to smooth out their ripple eects.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
It takes awhile and your continual guidance to get some
of your team members into an eective working mood
after holidays and vacations.
Unexpected vacation or holiday requests can come from
your team members. You have to deal with these requests
in a positive manner.
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Case6.18: Project Team Members Maternity Leave
Maternity leave can hit your project team any time. You have to
restructure your team and get new personnel reinforcements in a
timely fashion in order not to aect the progress of your project.
In a new wafer factory setup project, I had a very talented female
engineer on my team. She was very experienced in experimental
design and in industrial statistics. She was designing all qualica-
tion experiments for new equipment along with equipment engi-
neers who were cognizant of wafer processes and then analyzing
resulting data with them. She came to my oce one day and told
me that she was four months pregnant. She had already talked
with our human resources group. She was very excited about her
rst child. She was planning to take o a week before her due
date, which was predicted by her doctor, and she was going to
take a total of 12weeks for maternity leave. She was going to have
her full salary and her full health benets during her maternity
leave. She was also going to have full job protection. She wanted
to come back and continue to work on my team after her mater-
nity leave was over. She also would not be able to y after her
sixth month of pregnancy, which was going to be in two months.
I congratulated her and wished her a healthy pregnancy. I asked
her to think about how to replace her temporarily for 12weeks. I
asked her to get together with me on the subject in a week.
I considered my options too during the week. I analyzed all her
upcoming tasks. Her maternity leave was occurring right in the
thick of things in my project. I had to nd a reliable replacement
for her fast so that the two of them could spend a month together
before she went on her leave. She came to my oce the following
week to discuss her temporary replacement. We could not agree
on an internal replacement. No one in our company had the broad
and in- depth experimental design skills that she possessed. We
decided to go outside to a consulting rm. is consulting rm
had given her lots of training in the past. We called the consult-
ing rm and set up a face- to- face meeting. We agreed on a senior
consultant to come and help us during her maternity leave. is
senior consultant was at one time her training instructor. He was
very expensive, but he was the right person for the job. He agreed
to start a month before her maternity leave for a phase- in period
for her tasks. I asked my purchasing department to put together
a contract with the consulting rm. We had to cover his travel,
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lodging, and meal expenses too. e senior consultants expenses
were going to put a huge dent into my projects cost performance.
I went to my upper management and negotiated to charge to my
project only the amount equal to my engineers salary. e rest of
the consultants expenses were to be absorbed into the company
overhead. at was the just way of splitting the consultants cost
to my project.
e consultant started to work on my team along with her a
month before her maternity leave. e phase- in and phase- out
process was smooth. She gave birth to a healthy boy on the day
predicted by her doctor. My team and I sent her hospital con-
gratulatory owers. I talked with her on the phone and discussed
her and the babys health. Everyone was doing great.
Two months passed after her birth, I got a phone call from
our human resources group informing me that she wanted to take
o another six weeks after her maternity leave was over for baby
bonding. She was going to have 50% of her salary, her full health
benets, and her full job protection during this baby bonding
period. is was quite a shock to me. She did not even call me
to discuss her decision to extend her maternity leave. My human
resources director told me that she had the right for this baby
bonding leave under California law.
I discussed the six- week baby bonding extension with the senior
consultant. He said he could not extend his contract because he
already had other commitments. He had three more weeks left on
his contract with us. During these six weeks, all her tasks were
on the critical path of my project. I had to scramble again to nd
a replacement for her for another six weeks. I decided to groom a
willing engineer internally for my team. Internal grooming was
also benecial for my company in the long run. I discussed the
issue with all engineering departments heads. Two names came
up as possible candidates. I interviewed both engineers. I decided
to give a novice and ambitious mechanical engineer a try. He
spent three weeks next to the senior consultant. I called my female
engineer at home to discuss the bind I was in. She oered to help
my new engineer on the phone from home. We limped through
six weeks of her baby bonding period. Finally, my female engineer
returned to her tasks after 18weeks. During this chaotic period
in my project, my company gained another bright engineer who
went on to become an expert in experimental design and in indus-
trial statistics.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
When a maternity leave request comes to you, always
bring your human resources department into the picture
to learn all federal, state, and company rules, regulations,
and options.
You have to be ready for surprises during a maternity
leave so that your project does not suer.
Case6.19: Shelf Life of Photoresists in Wafer Fabrication
In wafer fabrication of magnetic heads the photoresist played a
very important role. As the photoresist aged, its sensitivity to light
exposure and its light absorption characteristics changed. is
variability in turn aected our products steep wall proles. Our
product lost wall edge acuity. erefore, all of a sudden lots of
wafer scraps started to occur. is phenomenon occurred inter-
mittently in our wafer fabrication when I was heading the engi-
neering group. I had several meetings with my photolithography
engineers. We could not determine the cause of the degrading
edge acuity phenomenon. We did lots of design of experiments,
but we could not pin the yield drop to the age of the photoresist
used in the factory.
One of my quality engineers in wafer fabrication suggested
my team perform an experiment with the age of photoresist
versus steep wall edge acuity. Everyone on the team agreed to
these experiments. I assigned the quality engineer who suggested
the experiment along with a photolithography engineer to per-
form the required tests in two weeks. ey ran experiments with
one-, two-, three-, four-, ve-, and six- month- old photoresists.
ey found out that steep wall edge acuity in our products started
to degrade when the photoresist was older than three months.
ey also ran conrmation experiments to verify these results.
I immediately issued a memorandum to all shifts in wafer
fabrication not to use any photoresists that were older than three
months. We had another problem with the photoresist contain-
ers. e manufacturing date of the photoresist was indicated on
a sticker by the manufacturer, but this sticker very often fell o
the container. So we sometimes had no idea when the photo resist
was manufactured. I called the photoresist manufacturer with
our receiving inspection and purchasing managers. We asked
them to put permanent laser markings on every photoresist con-
tainer identifying the lot number and the manufacturing date.
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e photoresist manufacturer agreed to our container markings
request. Two weeks after our telephone discussion, we started
receiving photoresist containers that were permanently marked
with the lot number and the manufacturing date.
e photoresist usage expiration date had to be on every con-
tainer. I discussed this issue with our stockroom manager. We
decided to laser scribe usage expiration dates on the body of the
container in large fonts. We kept the photoresist in special stor-
age rooms with temperature, 5C to 10C, and relative humidity,
30% to 50%, control. Upon my request, all stockroom personnel
were instructed by their manager not to issue to production any
photoresist containers that were over the usage expiration date.
ey were also instructed to dispose of any containers that were
over the usage expiration date.
With all the steps taken to control the useful life of the photo-
resist, our products steep wall edge acuity became very stable.
We did not have any intermittent out- of- specication wall pro-
les. Our wafer scraps due to out- of- specication wall proles
decreased tremendously.
We spent months to nd the cause for our steep wall pro-
le defects. We performed numerous full factorial design- of-
experiments with two or three factors and each factor having two
or three levels. None of these complicated, time- consuming, and
expensive experiments provided us with any reliable solution.
e photoresist useful life eects on steep wall prole were
not even suggested by one of my photolithography engineers. e
suggestion came from one of my quality engineers. She was not at
all involved with our photolithography processes. She was a qual-
ity engineer in our plate and etch group. During our weekly engi-
neering team meeting, I praised her for suggesting the solution to
one of our mind- boggling problems. I also gave her a handsome
bonus during our annual review. I patiently learned to listen and
evaluate all suggestions that were proposed during our engineer-
ing team meetings. Being a good listener provided my team mem-
bers with upbeat empowerment and helped us nd solutions to
dicult issues in our wafer fabrication.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A good solution to a nagging engineering issue can come
from unexpected sources.
As project managers, listening and evaluating everyones
input to a problem increases our chances of success.
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Case6.20: Excessive Meetings
I was leading a project with a U.S. and overseas team in Malaysia
to set up a manufacturing plant there. My U.S. team consisted of
12 engineers split equally into design, manufacturing, test, and
quality subteams. I had 12 Malaysian engineers based in Penang
as counterparts of my U.S. team. We had weekly teleconferences
to bring everyone on the team up to date regarding the tasks that
everyone was working on. It took us two hours every Monday
afternoon (Tuesday morning in Malaysia) to go over all the tasks.
It gave every engineer about ve minutes on average to present the
status of his or her task responsibilities.
We were spending 48 man- hours a week on this teleconfer-
ence meeting. Everyone was waiting for his or her turn. Some
engineers were twiddling their thumbs during the presentations
that they had no interest in. Some engineers were busy with their
laptops. Some Malaysian engineers were not at the meeting when
their turn came up. ere was a lot of wasted time during these
teleconference meetings. It was an inecient way to manage a
meeting. I decided to take some action to correct the situation.
I talked with my dierent subteams in the United States and in
Malaysia about improving the weekly teleconference meeting. We
brainstormed several ideas to improve the eciency of our weekly
status meeting. e best idea came from an engineer in Malaysia.
She proposed that we break up the meeting into four half- hour
segments, namely design, manufacturing, test, and quality seg-
ments. During the design segment, only the design engineers
would attend the meeting. During the manufacturing segment,
only the manufacturing engineers would attend the meeting.
During the test segment, only the test engineers would attend the
meeting. During the quality segment, only the quality engineers
would attend the meeting. If there were any issues crossing the
subteam groups, I would record them as action items in the meet-
ing minutes and a particular issue would be handled by e- mail
or by telephone by its action item owner. If any one of the team
members were interested in a certain task in a dierent subteam,
he or she could review the released meeting minutes from docu-
ment control.
I issued the new weekly teleconference meeting process. From
4 p.m. to 4:30p.m. (U.S. Pacic time zone), it was the design task
groups turn, from 4:30 p.m. to 5p.m., it was the manufacturing
task groups turn, from 5 p.m. to 5:30p.m., it was the test groups
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
turn, and from 5:30 p.m. to 6p.m. it was the quality groups turn.
I also rotated the groups turns every two months so that one task
group did not get stuck with the late afternoon meeting time in
the United States or the early morning meeting time in Malaysia.
I also had a monthly half- hour general project status teleconfer-
ence meeting for all team members, domestic and international.
is new communication setup worked very well all through-
out the project for two years and we saved about 75% man- hours
that were being wasted during the weekly status meetings. On top
of that, engineers were not bored during the meeting. ey came
into the meeting room, gave their presentation, and left the meet-
ing room in half an hour. Sometimes there were shifts in presen-
tation timing. If a subteams presentation ran over half an hour,
I informed the other subteams about the delay and they showed
up at the new modied presentation time in the conference room.
My counterpart in Malaysia did the same thing.
Meetings are the backbone of a project. ey have to be stan-
dardized and managed properly so that a precious team members
time is not wasted; the team member is not bored, and he or she
contributes constructively during his or her presence in the meet-
ing. Especially in large team groups, as it was in this case, break-
ing up a meeting into smaller subgroups can be very eective.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Project meetings can accumulate lots of wasted team
members time.
Plan ecient project meetings and make sure that your
team members around the world are not twiddling their
thumbs and they do not look bored during a meeting.
Case6.21: First Article Mishap
I was heading the project of designing, manufacturing, and test-
ing a new generation of battery- powered electric buses. Forty- foot
long electric buses provided four and a half hours of stop- and- go
level terrain travel on a single charge fully loaded with 80 pas-
sengers. e electric buses were for a mall shuttle operation. My
team was getting ready for the rst article acceptance meeting
that was scheduled to start on a Monday and was supposed to
last for three days. On Friday morning before the start of the rst
article acceptance meeting, my manufacturing manager brought
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Project ManageMent case studIes
the rst article bus to the charge station in our plant to charge
its batteries. e charging operation took about eight hours. We
were running around like our heads were cut o to complete last
minute nishing touches and tasks for the Monday meeting. We
were all tired and were looking forward to a restful weekend
before the big Monday presentation. All my team members and
I had been working 70-hour weeks for the last month to prepare
the rst article for this crucial acceptance meeting.
At 4p.m. on Friday, I unplugged the battery charger eagerly
and started to drive the bus to its presentation spot. ere was a
short steel post in front of the charge station hidden behind the
bus. While backing the bus out of the charge station, I ran the rear
side of the bus into the steel post. One of the side rear windows
broke and there was minor bodily damage too. It was my mistake
to rush to drive the bus to its presentation spot. I knew where the
steel post was and I thought I was clearing it during my maneuver.
I was so mad at myself for rushing and causing this damage to the
bus right before the rst article acceptance meeting.
I immediately called a meeting with our manufacturing
manager and our body shop personnel. e meeting was held
at the damaged rear of the rst article bus. I told my team that
I was devastated by my mistake and I asked them if the dam-
age was xable by Monday. We all assessed the damage and
agreed that the damage was xable before Mondays meeting.
We decided that three body shop technicians would be needed
to x the damage during the weekend. I asked my team who
would volunteer for the weekend overtime repair task. ree out
of six technicians volunteered immediately. I told them that I
would be at the plant too along with them during the week-
end and bring breakfast and lunch for them. My gesture was
received very favorably. We were able to replace the broken win-
dow easily with another one. e body damage took most of the
repair time. e body damage was repaired by straightening the
surface sheet metal and then painting over it during Saturday
and Sunday.
e rst article electric bus was ready for the acceptance meet-
ing at 9a.m. Monday morning. e fresh paint at the rear of the
bus was not even dry. I was afraid to drive the bus to the presen-
tation site. I let my manufacturing manager do the honors. For
three days, the rst article acceptance meeting went well. Our
new generation of battery electric bus got excellent grades from
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
our customers representatives. ey accepted our battery electric
bus with minor modications.
I told our customers representatives of what happened on
Friday. ey were amazed that we were able to work all weekend
to get the bus xed and ready in top shape. Our customer was very
appreciative of our performance. After the last meeting, they took
my whole team of 20 people out to dinner.
ese kinds of mishaps happen more often than not while pre-
paring for critical meetings or deadlines in a project. Overworked
and overtired team members become prone to mistakes and acci-
dents. As a project manager, I had to watch myself and my team
members for fatigue and for burnout conditions. We had to slow
down and take a break from running a 100miles an hour. One
solution would have been to delay Mondays rst article meeting
for a couple of days.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
You have to control your pace and fatigue level and your
team members pace and fatigue level when you are pre-
paring for a crucial event for your project.
It might be wiser to postpone a crucial project event than
to burn out yourself and your team members preparing
for it.
1
1
Case studies in
stakeholder ManageMent
Stakeholders that can aect your project can vary from your
customer(s), your company, your project partner(s), your companys
investors, to your subcontractors. During the course of your global
project, you have to manage all these entities as needed.
Health of the cash ow in your company can be a project derailing
factor as it happened to me in Case1.1. Changing and condensing the
project schedule in order to help my company to get paid two weeks
earlier was a challenging eye opener for me.
Protecting the intellectual property of my company during tech-
nology transfer to a Japanese company was a very challenging project
assignment to me as detailed in Case1.2. Detailed preparations and
training of my people before Japanese engineers invaded my com-
panys facilities were key elements for the projects success.
Our corporate closed down our companys operations during the
2000 to 2002 dot- com bust. I was right in the middle of a data com-
munication chip design project. My team and I had to jump over
hoops and had to make lots of sacrices, but we held together as a
team in order to complete our project successfully. is challenging
event is detailed in Case1.3.
As travel costs for an internal project to Malaysia skyrocketed, my
travel budget was frozen by my companys upper management. My
team and I took many steps to curb our travel costs. I pleaded with
my upper management for my projects travel budget increase. Every
time I was rejected. ey emphasized that I should cut down on travel
and keep my travel budget as it was. We did all we could as shown in
Case1.4, but in the end we still exceeded our travel budget.
During a project every member of my team reported to their partic-
ular departments manager and reported to me on a dotted line basis.
I had no control of their performance reviews, promotions, salary
2
Project ManageMent case studIes
increases, training, and personal issues. One day I lost the services
of our whole quality department. I had to scramble to nd replace-
ments without hampering the progress of my project as described in
Case1.5.
I was given the internal project of putting together an extensive
feasibility study in three months in order to give direction to our mag-
netic head manufacturing processes for the next generation of our
products. ere were three dierent approaches in three dierent
countries that were being considered by dierent groups in my com-
pany. I detailed the actions I took to generate the feasibility study and
the nal decision process in Case1.6.
Upper management changes in a company can impact positively
or negatively internal project directions, project teams, manage-
ment styles, and project reporting styles. Personnel and responsibility
changes in upper management and on my team caused tsunami eects
to my project. I outlined these eects in Case1.7.
A project manager has to fully understand at the beginning of the
project all contract agreement conditions for delays in deliveries, pat-
ents, copyrights, trademarks, force majeure, subcontracting rules and
governing laws, and arbitration. In addition to understanding all con-
tract agreement conditions, he has to relay them to his team members
in laymans terms. Our legal department saved my bacon from a dis-
pute that arose at the end of a project with my customer as detailed
in Case1.8.
Salary and compensation variations in a multinational company
can cause stress, disputes, and jealousy in an internal project team
environment. Team members have to be very sensitive and careful not
to discuss salary and compensation issues with each other locally or
internationally. Such a are- up is discussed in Case1.9.
Lessons learned from previous projects within a company let a proj-
ect manager start his or her project on a strong footing. Undocumented
historical projects and uncontrolled lessons learned items create a
large vacuum for a project manager. Such an occurrence is detailed
in Case1.10.
A companys upper management cannot decide on the future direc-
tion of the company internally by themselves. ey mostly go outside
to get help. ey approach consulting rms, experts in their eld,
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
even friends outside the company in order to get a fresh outlook and
ideas for the future of their company as shown in Case1.11.
Your customer(s) are crucial stakeholders in your project. You have
to do all you can to manage your customer(s) too. In order to ease ten-
sions between my Korean engineering project team and my Japanese
customers visiting qualication team, I decided to go to Korea rst
for two weeks to prepare and train my Korean team for our Japanese
customers qualication process both psychologically and technically.
Historical animosities between two countries can aect the prog-
ress of a project. Preparing carefully for such complicated encounters
between projects parties is described in Case1.12.
A customer placed a resident engineer into my project group in
the United States to oversee all our activities and to make sure that
their intellectual properties were fully protected. e customer also
assigned a resident engineer to our volume production plant in South
Korea. is resident engineer also traveled to Japan to check on our
subcontractor every fortnight. Complications that were encountered
during the execution of my project with two resident engineers are
detailed in Case1.13.
I could never close out a project because the nal project evalua-
tion by the customers project manager was missing. I had to jump
through many hoops in order to get my customers nal project evalu-
ation report as detailed in Case1.14.
Communicating ltered information is the backbone of a projects
control structure. How much information to pass on and how much
you want to disturb the cart are crucial factors during the life of a
project. If every little detail regarding your project goes to your cus-
tomer, you are mismanaging your project. You have to lter out rip-
ples in your communicated information. At the same time you have to
realize what information and when to inform your customer without
any delay. Such challenges were encountered in Case1.15.
For a global project manager, keeping track of all national and reli-
gious holidays of countries that you are dealing with are a requirement.
You have to also know religious beliefs of every individual you are
dealing with in order not to run into surprises as depicted in Case1.16.
I received a call from my customers project manager that the proj-
ect goods shipment arrived safely in South Korea, but they could not
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Project ManageMent case studIes
clear the cargo from South Korean customs because the spare parts
were missing from the nal inspection reports packing list. e cus-
tomers inspectors, the customers bank, and my shipping department
all missed the 10 spare parts from the packing list. is incomplete
packing list caused me a lot of headaches as shown in Case1.17.
In every project, almost all hands in a company swarm around a
critical project person with good intentions to get a feeling of how
things are going. ey waste his or her valuable time. If the project
person has an easygoing personality, he or she tries to accommodate
everyones inquiries and questions. Valuable time can be wasted and
the project schedule can unintentionally go down the drain. You have
to caution your team members to let you know if there are unneces-
sary interferences with their work. As a project manager, you have to
protect your team members from these unnecessary distractions as
depicted in Case1.18.
I had a distasteful ordeal with an authoritarian director during one
of my projects. Case1.19 details the events that occurred during an
unfortunate management clash.
After 14months of challenging problem- solving sessions, board
meetings, communications, and travels between our U.S. plant in
California, our subcontractor in Boston, and our plant in Malaysia,
my project team, our subcontractor, and the Malaysian project team
had continual changes in every task of a challenging project to imple-
ment two automation assembly modules in our Malaysian plant as
detailed in Case1.20.
Closing a project appropriately can be painful and time consum-
ing for a project manager. However, the rewards for a properly closed
project can be invaluable for your team members and for your com-
pany. Lessons learned tasks are the most important ones on a projects
closure to-do list. As project managers we have to nalize lessons
learned tasks at all cost as detailed in Case1.21.
Everyone on our team and every member of our companys upper
management has to understand the penalties involved in a projects
contract. Late deliveries and resulting price reductions in a contracts
value and also resulting liquidated damages can damage a company
irreversibly. Such cases are detailed in Case1.22.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
Case1.1: Company Cash Flow Issue Aecting
Design Review Pull- In
In the middle of an equipment design, build, and test project
for an oshore oil platform, the company president came to
my oce and explained to me that the company had a short-
age in cash ow during the coming months. He asked me if I
could bring in the customer design review and design drawings
approval phase of my project, which was due in eight weeks, by
two weeks so that the company could get paid 10% of the total
project funding two weeks earlier. I told the company president
that I would work on his request with my team members and
with the customers project manager and get back to him in three
working days.
is was quite a challenge that was thrown in my lap on top
of all my other project management responsibilities. e company
presidents request went to the top of my action item list because
the companys cash ow health meant a lot to the morale of my
team members and to myself. Another twist on this issue was the
inner workings of our customer who was Finnish. is was our
rst project for them. I had no idea if the customers project
manager and nance department would entertain such an earlier
design review and phase 1 payment to us. My team had to design,
check, and release close to 40 drawings, 15 calculations, a struc-
tural interface drawing approved by the customer, and the control
panel software code before the design review meeting. We had to
cut our tasks duration by 25%.
e rst step was to discuss the situation with my team mem-
bers. I had a team meeting with them the next day. I explained to
them the company presidents request to accelerate the rst phase
of our project by two weeks. I had six full time engineers working
on the project. We went over every task, 140 of them, that had to
be completed and over all the task interactions. e team mem-
bers had good suggestions.
One of them was to bring into our project a senior engineer
from the manufacturing department full time for six weeks to
check the design calculations and drawings.
Another suggestion was to get two more workstations assigned
by the IT department full time to our project for parallel nite
element scenario runs.
e third suggestion was to put in an extra hour a day to com-
plete all the tasks before the design review
6
Project ManageMent case studIes
e fourth suggestion was to deliver the structural interface
drawings in four weeks to our customer. I had to ask our customers
project manager to commit to review and approve structural inter-
face drawings in two weeks by the design review meeting date.
All these suggestions came from my team members. Nothing
was forced down their throats. ey all had a can- do attitude.
I issued the meeting minutes in a controlled fashion through our
document control and made sure that the company president got
a copy.
After the meeting I went to the manufacturing department
managers oce and explained the situation. I asked him to assign
a particular engineer as a checker to my team for six weeks. I also
mentioned to him that checking by his senior manufacturing
engineer would benet him later too in his manufacturing pro-
cesses. His senior engineer would catch early all the missing criti-
cal dimensions and tolerances in the drawings for manufacturing.
He was very kind and he accepted my request. He had no other
choice. If he refused, my next step was to bring the company pres-
ident into the picture.
My next stop was to the IT department managers oce. I
asked him for two more workstations for six months, which he
did not have laying around in the company. We agreed to lease
them for six months and get the expenses charged to my project.
en I sent an e- mail to my customers project manager to have
a call with him at 6 a.m. in the morning my time and 4 p.m. his
time in Helsinki, to discuss a change in the design review date.
I wrote in my e- mail that we would like to pull in the design
review date by two weeks. I also mentioned that if he was not
available at my requested call time, he should specify a time that
was convenient for him.
Around 10:30 p.m. that night, I checked my company e- mail
from home and saw that I had received an answer from Helsinki.
My counterpart at the customer informed me that he would be
ready for my phone call at 4 p.m. his time. I set my clock to 5 a.m.
and went to bed anticipating a long day in front of me.
e next day, I called my customers project manager at 6 a.m.
my time. After initial greetings I explained to him that I had
excess manpower in my project and things were looking ahead of
schedule. I would like to transmit to him the structural interface
drawings in four weeks and asked him to review them and approve
them in two weeks after receipt. He did not see any problems with
that. en I explained to him that we would be able to complete
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
all the design calculations and drawings in six weeks for the design
review. Could he and his colleagues come to our facilities two
weeks earlier for the design review meeting? He said he would dis-
cuss the new design review meeting date with his two colleagues
and inform me in 24 hours by e- mail if they could make it.
Next, I brought up the phase 1 payment issue. I told him if all
goes well during the design review meeting could he also pull in
the phase 1 payment by two weeks. He said he had to discuss that
with their nancial and purchasing people and also get back to
me. I emphasized that this payment was important to my com-
panys cash ow and asked him to do his best to make it happen.
He promised that he would do his best to pull in the phase 1 pay-
ment. en I got an e- mail from him that evening informing me
that he and two of his colleagues could make it to our facilities
two weeks earlier at the specied new design review date. He was
also working on the phase 1 early payment issue.
I called the next day to thank him for accepting the earlier
design review, and found him at his desk. I told him that I would
make the hotel arrangements close to our facilities at the company
rate and we would also provide them with a company car. ese
small gestures were very much appreciated by him. He told me
that he was still working on the phase 1 early payment issue. He
estimated that he would have a nal answer to me in a week.
I documented the highlights of my calls to the customers con-
tract manager and released them in document control and made
sure the company president got a copy. Next I made an appointment
with the company president, as I had promised in three days, and
explained to him the status of the two week pull- in of my project.
I told him that the condensed time schedule was doable with the
added resources and equipment. I also emphasized all the cost over-
runs that had to be absorbed. Our customers review team could
make it to the design review meeting at the new specied time.
e only open issue was early payment by our customer for phase 1.
I told him that the customers project manager was working on this
issue diligently and would have an answer to us in a week. I asked
my company president not to disturb the boat and go to higher- ups
in our customers company for this early payment issue. I was more
than optimistic that the customers project manager would come
through after dealing with their inner procedures and politics.
My teams work stress level went up a couple of notches for the
next six weeks. e customers project manager came back with
good news in a week that they would be able to pay us two weeks
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Project ManageMent case studIes
earlier, if we met all the phase 1 requirements. All of us, especially
our company president, were very happy to hear this news from
our customer. We all worked hard to make the condensed project
schedule. We sent out the released structural interface drawings
to our customer in four weeks. ese drawings were approved
by them before the design review meeting. We had our internal
design review a week earlier than the formal one. We made sure
that our design conformed to all customer specications. After
some minor modications we were ready for our customer except
the control panel software code.
e control panel software code was similar to an earlier one
we designed for another customer. e code needed several modi-
cations, but my teams electrical engineer would not have enough
time to complete, test, and release it in time for the design review
meeting. We decided to present the earlier version of the code
and the required modications to the customer. We were going to
propose to the customer releasing the code in two weeks after the
design review. is would not have aected any of the manufac-
turing processes, which were the next phase of the project.
e two- day design review meeting with the customer went
well. We had the meetings start at 8 a.m. in the morning and con-
clude at 2 p.m. in the afternoon considering our guests jet-lagged
condition. I did not forget to put the U.S. and Finnish ags in
the middle of the conference table. We had lunch brought in dur-
ing the meetings. We provided our guests with private oces
with Internet connections, printers, and phones as they needed.
e customers review team was very understanding to grant us
a waiver from phase 1 deliverables and a two- week extension for
the release of the control panel software code. Overall the design
review meetings went well. We accepted all of the minor modi-
cations the customer requested. Toward the end of the meeting,
I arranged for our company president to come into the conference
room and give a short appreciation and thank you talk to our cus-
tomers team and to my team.
At the end of the second day, I provided our customers team
with the released meeting minutes and action items list. Afterward,
the customers team and my whole team went out to a Mexican
dinner to celebrate the achievement of a crucial milestone in our
project two weeks early. Our Finnish guests enjoyed dierent a-
vored quesadillas and margaritas. e customers team left town
with great satisfaction. Our company president was very happy.
I was very proud of my project team.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Your companys nancial stability can change suddenly
and can aect your ongoing project unexpectedly.
How to change your project goals in a team environment.
How to approach your customer for an unusual request.
Utilizing other company resources eciently when you
are in a bind.
Case1.2: Protecting Intellectual Property during
a Technology Transfer to a Japanese Company
My computer component company made a nancial agreement
with a Japanese company. As a result of this agreement we had to
develop and transfer an advanced magnetic recording head tech-
nology along with its wafer manufacturing processes to them. I
was assigned as the project manager for this intellectual property
transfer to Japan. e Japanese company decided to send, as part
of the agreement, to our wafer factory in California four Japanese
engineers for a year to learn all details of wafer processes and our
design specications for intellectual property transfer.
I had to get ready for my guests in four weeks. ey were going
to come to the United States with their families. First, I arranged
for them to stay in our company apartments, which were within
walking distance to our factory. Second, I had to be very careful
about the intellectual property transfer. We had many custom-
ers products going through our production facilities. Every one of
our customers was a erce competitor of this Japanese company.
We were only transferring a portion of my companys intellectual
property to them. I had to set up guidelines for restricted areas in
our plant. I had to conne these four engineers to certain sections
of our plant. I had to identify the people that they could talk to or
ask questions of. I had to make sure that they did not cross paths
with our other customers when our other customers were visiting
us. While preparing all the restrictions and precautions, I had
to make sure that I was not violating any parts of the agreement
between my company and the Japanese company.
Most importantly, I had to train all of the 3,000 people in our
plant as to what to do and what to say when they encountered
these Japanese engineers.
I had to move some of our engineers and create an isolated
working space with four cubicles and a conference room for my
Japanese guests. I also moved my oce into this isolated section.
10
Project ManageMent case studIes
We had special telephone and Internet connections for them that
were separate from the company ones. Japanese engineers could
come to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
ey could not enter the plant during the swing and night shifts
and during the weekends. If they had an inquiry or a question,
they had to ask me rst. I had to connect them with the right
people from my company for the answers.
Training of my people was the hardest. I had to do the training in
all shifts. I prepared a PowerPoint presentation that lasted 20 min-
utes. I presented the highlights of our agreement with the Japanese
customer. I presented the names and the titles of the Japanese engi-
neers that were visiting us. I outlined the isolated working space for
them and when they were supposed to be in our plant. I detailed the
dos and donts to protect our companys intellectual property. We
were not to discuss anything except the advanced magnetic recording
head technology along with its wafer manufacturing processes that
was in our agreement. We were not to discuss with them any of our
other customers and their products. We were not to discuss with them
any of our other advanced magnetic recording head technologies.
e most crucial part of my training presentation was about
the interface rules. I had to bring the Japanese engineer(s) with
their questions to a particular person in our factory. Especially in
our clean room wafer fabrication processes and in testing these
interface rules were important. I did not want the Japanese engi-
neers to observe our other proprietary processes. I trained every-
one in our plant in four weeks including our president and our
vice presidents.
e Japanese engineers came with their families and spent a
very productive year with us. ey obeyed all the rules and regu-
lations I outlined for them. My company people were also very
cautious and obedient to our intellectual property protection
guidelines. I took them out to long sushi lunches and town tours
when we had an important customer visit to our plant. I did not
want to take the chance of them running into each other.
I became very good friends with these Japanese engineers. ey
taught me one Japanese word every day. So I learned close to 250
Japanese words and expressions from them. I invited them with
their families to barbecue dinners at my house. I kept in touch
with them many years after we all went our own ways in our lives.
Detailed preparations and training of my people for my com-
panys intellectual property transfer to this Japanese company were
11
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
the key elements for success. Even the Japanese company execu-
tives praised my project management guidelines to my superiors.
ey were very kind to send me a stainless steel water cooler as an
appreciation gift for the work I did with their team.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Intellectual property transfer within certain agreed upon
boundaries can be very tricky between two companies.
When a competitors engineers visit your company for
intellectual property transfer, the whole plant has to be
ready to protect your technology.
Interaction rules and guidelines with a competitors engi-
neers have to be fully detailed and explained to everyone
in your company.
Respect and good treatment of your competitors engi-
neers always pays o in the long run.
Case1.3: Corporate Division Shutdown
I was a project manager for a data communication chip design
company during the dot- com boom and bust periods. e dot- com
bubble grew due to speculative investing for Internet- based com-
panies, but these companies failed to turn a prot in a timely fash-
ion. From 2000 to 2002, the Nasdaq Index lost about 80% of its
value due to a rapid burst in the dot- com bubble. One day in 2001
we got the bad news that our corporate was going to close down
our companys operations. I was right in the middle of a data com-
munication chip design project. My customer was U.S. based. I
had a group of ve engineers working on my team. We all got very
excited. e rumor mill was circulating at a very fast pace. My
teams work eciency immediately dropped. Everyone started to
worry about his or her future rather than focusing on their tasks.
is chaotic situation lasted about 10days. en a group of
executives from corporate came to our facilities and they nalized
the details of our companys shutdown with our president. ey
gathered us in a large conference room and explained to us how
the company shutdown was going to take place. It was a phase-
out process. e rst week they laid o 50% of the total work-
force. ey gave everyone a compensation package consisting of
outstanding vacation pay and bonuses depending on seniority
and salary level. en they decided to phase out every projects
12
Project ManageMent case studIes
remaining tasks. My project had another three months to go. A
junior engineer from my team was laid o during the rst week of
the phase- out plan. I had four engineers and me to complete the
project in three months.
I gathered my team and went over the remaining tasks one by
one. If we worked eciently without any glitches we were hopeful
to complete the remaining project tasks in three months. I told my
team members that they could spend a reasonable amount of time
during the day to look for their future jobs. I emphasized that I
would allow them to go to interviews during the week as long as
they made up the lost time during o hours. We also decided that
I was going to deal with our customers project manager during
these three months so that my team members did not get dis-
tracted and lose any precious time.
en I called my customers project manager and gave him
the bad news about our companys closure. I assured him that his
project was going to be completed in three months with a nal
acceptance review meeting before my team members and I left
the company. I skipped the news about my junior engineers early
departure from my team. My customers project manager had
high condence in me because I always delivered my commit-
ments on time and with highest quality to him.
My team and I worked very closely during those nal three
months. Our oces were like a ghost town. All the cubicles were
emptied out. During the phase- out process, we were saying good-
byes to several colleagues every week. I had lunch with my team
members daily during those three months. During lunch we only
discussed everyones future plans. We never discussed the project
tasks. We became a very close- knit bunch during those 13weeks.
I wrote outstanding recommendations for all my team members.
We had to work a couple of weekends to complete all the remain-
ing tasks. During the nal week we had our internal acceptance
review meeting. ere were a couple of tasks that needed to be
polished and retested. We had to extend our project one more
week for the customers nal acceptance review.
I discussed my projects status with the company president. I
told him that we needed an extra week to complete the project.
He told me that he did not have any funds to cover my teams
expenses for an extra week. During our team luncheon, I dis-
cussed the bind we were in with my team members. We all agreed
to work another week without any compensation and complete
13
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
the job. I immediately called my customers project manager and
explained our situation. I told him that we would be ready the
following week for the nal acceptance review. I told him that
my team and I were working pro bono for a week to complete the
project. He was very appreciative of our sacrices.
e projects nal acceptance review went without a hitch. Our
customer accepted the data communication chip design without
any change request. Afterward our customers project manager
took my team and me out to dinner to celebrate. Working as a very
close- knit team during these hard times paid o well. We com-
pleted our project in 14weeks. We came out of the dot- com bust
with ying colors. My team members and I found jobs at other
companies and immediately switched over to our new positions.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Downsizing and/ or shutting down a division of a corpo-
ration is very painful.
Keeping up your project teams morale during dicult
times is a challenge.
A close- knit project team can overcome tough hurdles in
chaotic times.
Your customer always comes rst.
Case1.4: Airline Travel Fares Increased
I was the project manager to set up a volume production factory in
Malaysia for our U.S.-based corporation. I had a team of design,
manufacturing, quality, and test engineers in the United States
and their counterparts in Malaysia. My engineers continually
traveled back and forth from the United States to Malaysia to
train and help the Malaysian engineers during the start-up period.
During the initial months of the project, airline fares were very
reasonable and I allowed my engineers to travel business class to
Malaysia during their long 18-hour ight. Business class air travel
gave them a fresh start at their destinations. ey had a minimum
amount of jet lag. ey also accumulated a lot of airline miles
for their personal use. My travel budget was about $200,000 per
year. My travel budget allowed me to send about 40 engineers per
year to Malaysia. I also brought several Malaysian engineers to
the United States for training. We formed a kind of air corridor
between our headquarters in the United States and our plant in
14
Project ManageMent case studIes
Malaysia. We had an in- house travel agent who took care of our
travel needs. All of a sudden due to uncontrollable world events,
the price of jet fuel started to increase. Airlines started to add sur-
charges on airfares. I started to overrun my travel budget.
My airline travel budget was going to almost double. I had
to do something. I could not cut the number of trips made to
Malaysia. e Malaysians needed hand holding and advice dur-
ing the critical start-up period. I had a long meeting with my
team. After several strong objections, I made them agree to y in
economy class. ey were free to upgrade to business class with
their own miles. It was not easy for my team members to buy into
ying economy class for 18 hours. ere were several other good
suggestions made during our meeting. We agreed to y dur-
ing weekdays and to avoid holiday times such as anksgiving,
Christmas, New Year, and spring breaks. One engineer sug-
gested that our companys travel agent should secure a set of
airline open tickets from airline promotions and sales events. We
would use these open tickets when needed. I took on the assign-
ment of negotiating the open ticket suggestion with our compa-
nys travel agent. Another suggestion was to station some of my
teams engineers in Malaysia for a longer period of time instead
of shuttling them back and forth every two or three weeks.
Another suggestion was to increase and to emphasize videocon-
ferencing meetings with our counterparts in Malaysia. I tried to
implement all these suggestions. Most of these suggestions did
not apply during emergency assignments. During an emergency
situation, my engineers or me hopped on a plane immediately
and ew to Malaysia. ese were the budget breaking trips. e
airline fares for these emergency trips were doubled or tripled.
We had several of these emergency trips every year.
When I started the Malaysian project, fuel costs were about
10% of the airline operating costs. In two years, fuel costs edged
up to about 35% of the airline operating costs. Airlines were pass-
ing on these operational cost increases to their customers. Air
travel cost increases was reected not only in ticket fares, but also
in luggage fees, extra leg room fees, and so on. I went several
times to my upper management to ask for an increase in my travel
budget. I explained to them the steps we were taking to lower our
travel expenses. I pleaded with them for a travel budget increase.
Every time I was rejected. ey emphasized that I should cut
down on travel and keep my travel budget as it was.
15
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
With all the cautionary steps we took, I was still over my travel
budget at the end of the project. When I presented my nal cost
performance report to my upper management, I separated the
travel expenses budget from the rest of my project budget. My
cost performance index for the travel budget was well below one.
However, my cost performance index for the project budget,
excluding the travel budget, was a little over one. My team and I
did okay in our projects cost and schedule performances, except
the travel cost dilemma. In the end, my upper management was
very sympathetic about my travel budget cost overrun. ey appre-
ciated all the precautions we took to keep the travel costs down.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A projects budget can be easily overrun by unexpected
events.
A team discussion to solve a nagging project issue always
brings about good solutions.
Detailed and logical project budget presentations to
upper management can turn things around in your favor.
Case1.5: Quality Assurance (QA) Department Undergoing
a Major Overhaul
My project teams consisted of members from dierent depart-
ments in the organization. Every member reported to their par-
ticular departments manager and reported to me on a dotted line
basis. I had no control of their performance reviews, promotions,
salary increases, training, and personal issues. I always tried to
help them in these areas. I made sure that their managers got my
fair assessment and evaluation input in these areas in a timely
fashion. In my reviews of each team member, I covered team play,
customer relations, integrity, quality of work, reliability, stress
management, ambition, attitude, attendance, communication
skills, knowledge, and training and improvement needs.
During the manufacturing phase of an advanced safety vehi-
cle project, I had two quality engineers on my team. ey were
responsible for receiving inspection of raw materials and subcom-
ponents for the vehicle, for inspection of every weld on the vehi-
cle, and inspection of every critical parameter on the vehicle. One
day I came to work and learned that the manager of the quality
department was let go due to some disagreements with the upper
management. at same day, I learned that two quality engineers
16
Project ManageMent case studIes
on my team who reported to the departed manager also gave
notice and quit by taking their two- week vacations. e departed
manager and two quality engineers had a very good and loyal
camaraderie. I was suddenly without two quality engineers. I had
to ll the quality engineering gap fast because the manufacturing
of 10 vehicles was proceeding in full swing.
I went and discussed the quality engineering issue with my
management and my human resources group. One remaining
quality engineer was transferred to another group and she was
not available for my project. She was fresh out of college and she
did not have any experience in welding inspections. Our whole
quality department was gone in a ash. I had to go outside and
nd other help in quality engineering. Hiring good engineers
always took time. Finding experienced engineers was more time
consuming. My only option was to go the consultants way. My
human resources department and I started to screen quality engi-
neering consultants. We found a good consulting rm which was
120miles away from our manufacturing operations. We inter-
viewed them and agreed on hourly rates. My expenses for two
consulting quality engineers were going to double. I had to get
the okay from my management for an emergency budget increase.
I called a quick meeting with my management and outlined the
cost of the two consultants to my project. I explained to my man-
agement all the tasks the two quality engineers did for my project.
Two quality engineers put in 50 to 60 hours each a week to com-
plete my projects quality requirements. After an hour of bickering
about signing up only one consultant instead of two, my manage-
ment gave in and agreed with my two consultants proposal. Our
human resources and purchasing departments came together and
signed a contract with the consulting rm in two days. e con-
sulting rm assigned two of their senior quality engineers to my
project. e consulting engineers stayed in a motel close to our
facilities on our nickel during the week. ey each put in 40 hours
per week. My quality engineering budget went up by almost 100%
during the next nine months.
I also had to micromanage both consultants. I had to indoctri-
nate them to our way of reporting and to our customers contract
requirements. ey got acclimated fast and contributed heavily to
my project.
It took my management one year to set up a new and stable
quality department from scratch. I had to do whatever it took to
17
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
complete my projects manufacturing phase on time within my
customers specications.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to live peacefully and
eectively with our team members who are not our
direct reports.
Unexpected events can happen in all company depart-
ments during the execution of your project, which are
beyond your control.
You have to stand your ground with your upper manage-
ment in order to get the best solution for your project.
Case1.6: Internal Project Direction
Disk drive magnetic head assemblies needed very precise align-
ment of their components. In volume production alignment of
components was being performed by skilled operators under high-
powered microscopes using precision tooling. Skilled labor costs
were increasing and the sale price of the magnetic head assemblies
was decreasing. It was a very competitive and fast- paced industry.
e only way to get around the skyrocketing labor cost issue in
the United States forced my company to move our magnetic head
assembly operations to South Korea and to Malaysia. To set up
oshore operations was a tough decision by our board of directors.
e motto in the computer industry in the 1980s was to emigrate
or to evaporate.
My company was very successful in their operations in South
Korea and in Malaysia. I was heavily involved in setting up our
Malaysian plants operations. I lived there for six months to moni-
tor, spearhead, and train our new Malaysian engineering group.
However, at the same time the magnetic recording heads were
getting smaller and component alignment requirements were get-
ting tighter and tighter. Our alignment process capabilities were
coming to a limit with skilled operators under high- powered
microscopes using precision tooling.
e next step was to implement assembly processes using auto-
mation. Handling of small components delicately and aligning them
to specications of 0.0001 of an inch in volume production could
be done by microrobots in an automated assembly module. is was
a new concept for our volume production assembly lines. We were
going to load components at one end of the automated assembly
18
Project ManageMent case studIes
module and unload an assembled magnetic head at the other end. If
successful, we could reduce our assembly labor force quite a bit and
tighten our alignment process capability by twofold. Also an auto-
mated assembly module would give us a very favorable edge in the
eyes of our customers. e executive vice president of engineering
in our company was in favor of this futuristic automated assembly
system, but the initial project cost was a major hurdle. erefore,
the company president and our board were against it.
ere was another group of manufacturing engineers in our
company who favored a semiautomated approach to our alignment
processes. In this approach, a microrobot was going to handle the
components, but again a skilled operator was going to perform
the alignment operation under a high- powered microscope. is
semiautomated alignment process was cheaper to implement, but
it did not reduce our assembly labor force and it did not improve
our alignment process capability. is semiautomated alignment
process improved our throughput and reduced the amount of
damaged components.
e executive vice president of engineering gave me the task of
putting together an extensive feasibility study in three months in
order to give direction to our magnetic head manufacturing pro-
cesses for the next generation of our products. I chose two senior
manufacturing engineers for my feasibility study team. First, three
of us put together detailed system specications for an automated
assembly module and for a semiautomated assembly module. An
important characteristic of both types of modules was exibility and
programmability from one product to another in a short time. en
we sourced three potential automation houses in the United States
that were experienced in handling delicate micro components with
robots. We visited them several times and received bids from them
per our specications. We chose an automation house in the Boston
area as the leading candidate, if our board of directors would approve
along with the automated or semiautomated assembly project.
We compared three dierent assembly systems with their
advantages, disadvantages, and investment payback periods in
three dierent countries, namely, the United States, Malaysia,
and South Korea. We performed sensitivity analyses to risk fac-
tors such as project delays, personnel training, and spare parts.
e whole feasibility report ended up being close to 300 pages.
en we prepared a ve- page executive summary for the whole
report. e report had to go through several review phases before
being presented to our board of directors. We rst presented
19
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
the report to our manufacturing managers in the United States,
Malaysia, and South Korea. en we made a presentation to the
group of manufacturing engineers in our company who favored a
semiautomated approach to our alignment processes. All of them
had constructive criticism and good input to improve our feasi-
bility report. We modied our report accordingly and made our
nal presentation to our executive vice president of engineering.
He liked the report as it was and praised our very detailed and
methodical approach and timely completion of the project. He
told us to be ready to present it to our board of directors during
the boards next meeting.
I made a half- hour presentation to my companys board of
directors about three assembly options in three countries that
we studied. e manual assembly line in the United States was
our baseline for comparative analyses. Board members were only
interested in investments payback periods and their eects on
our cash ow projections. ey did not ask one question regard-
ing technical aspects of the automated and the semiautomated
projects. I was amazed. At the end of the meeting, we got the
automated assembly project approved unanimously for our
Malaysian plant. Our executive vice president of engineering
was very happy with the result. He took my team out to lunch
and congratulated me and my team members for a job well done.
Internal projects in a company can have very competitive direc-
tions. To nd the right project direction for the company might
require a detailed prestudy. I have experienced several projects
ending up on the shelf and costing bundles because of rushed and
personally favored executive decisions.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
ere are several dierent ways to approach improve-
ment projects for the future of a company.
ere are always conicting views and passions for
improvement projects within a company.
Decisions for a companys future projects should be made
by relying on sound data and good analysis instead of
shooting from the hip.
Case1.7: Upper Management Stability during a Project
Stability in the upper management of a company aects smooth
progress of a project tremendously. Personnel and responsibility
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changes in upper management during the execution of a project
can cause ripple eects and sometimes tsunami eects to your
project. It is possible to shield your project from these eects to a
certain extent, but in most cases your project gets hurt too.
A challenging case of upper management shue occurred dur-
ing the execution of an internal product development project that
was under my direction. During the execution phase of my devel-
opment project, the board of directors of our company red our
president and brought in a new one who was hijacked from a well-
respected technology company. e new president brought in a
dozen of his colleagues from the computer industry in order to
pursue his vision of our company. Some of the new arrivals were
positioned into upper management, especially into the engineer-
ing divisions. Others were positioned into the research and devel-
opment group. Two new senior scientists joined my product
development group. ese scientists were good buddies with the
new president. ey had worked together more than a decade.
I presented my projects mission, team, and status to the new
management. ey all had numerous inputs to my projects mis-
sion and schedule. ey completely changed the direction of my
project with new target completion dates. My project was turned
topsy- turvy by the new upper management. All the changes were
approved by the new president without any hesitation. He had
complete condence in his new upper management team. I had
six engineers working for me on my team. With the addition of
two senior scientists, my team expanded to eight people. All of a
sudden the morale of my six engineers went downhill. Everything
we had done for a year before these changes occurred was thrown
out the window.
First, I had a team meeting with the old engineers on my team.
We discussed what we had accomplished and what we had to do
under the new upper management direction. I had to convince
them one by one that we did very well in our product develop-
ment. e new product development direction was not their fail-
ure, but it was a new outlook for the future of our company and
to our competition. Also, I emphasized that we had to be open-
minded and welcome two new members of our team and make
them feel at home in their new environment.
As a project manager I had to start a brand new project with
a new mission and new deadlines. On top of it all, I had to
blend the two new senior scientists into my team and make sure
that there were no animosities between the old-timers and the
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
newcomers. I had to accept all proposed changes to my project.
ese were the new bosses. We could not continue with our
old ways. We had to go along with the new leaders. I had an
extended team meeting to brainstorm our new project, to dis-
cuss new tasks and team members responsibilities. During the
meeting, I had to carefully bring the two new senior scientists
into our team atmosphere. I had to make them realize that I was
the team leader and they had to execute tasks that were assigned
to them by me in a time frame that was on our schedule. Most
importantly they had to coordinate with other team members
very closely. ey were good buddies with our new president,
but they had to realize that their rst priority was my project.
e new project started well. After a couple of weeks, the two new
senior scientists on my team started to deviate from their task objec-
tives and specications without notifying me. Evidently, they were
being redirected by our new president. ese ripples also aected my
other six team members and they started complaining to me about
sudden changes in the projects direction. I had to correct this dishar-
monious situation immediately. I made an appointment directly with
the new president and explained to him politely the issues I was hav-
ing in managing my new product development project eectively. He
apparently was going out to lunch weekly with the two new senior
engineers on my team. ey were discussing the status of my project
and he was making some suggestions on the spot without realizing
his suggestions eects on the whole execution of the project. We
nally agreed that if he had any new suggestions regarding my proj-
ect, he would e- mail me rst. After my assessment of the impact of
his suggestions on my projects schedule and cost, I would inform
him the consequences before making a nal decision to my projects
modied direction and specications.
Upper management changes in a company can positively or
negatively impact internal project directions, project teams, man-
agement styles, and project reporting styles. As project managers,
we have to deal cleverly and in a timely manner with the changing
world around us.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Stability in your upper management helps in smooth
sailing of your project.
A change in the upper management of your company
always brings new ideas and new management styles that
can aect your project.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
As project managers, we have to mold our project team
members into our new managements styles.
As project managers, we have to have open minds in
dealing with our new upper managements directives,
which aect our projects.
Case1.8: Help from the Legal Department
e legal department of a company can help a project manager a
lot in detailing a projects contract agreement conditions. Some
conditions might contradict each other. Others might be written
in a very complicated legal language. Some conditions have to
be renegotiated with the customers legal department. A contract
manager has to fully understand at the beginning of the project
all contract agreement conditions for delays in deliveries, patents,
copyrights, trademarks, force majeure, subcontracting rules, and
governing laws and arbitration. In addition to understanding all
contract agreement conditions, he has to relay them to his team
members in laymans terms. e whole project team has to real-
ize what happens if there is a delay in deliverables or if there is
an invention during the execution of the project. If some of these
contract agreement conditions are overlooked, they might come
back to bite you during the execution of a project or at the end
of the project and lead to irrecoverable damage to your company.
I had a very interesting case regarding delivery of nal docu-
ments and drawings at the end of a project. I delivered my projects
hardware on time, but I was delayed six weeks in delivering nal
documents and drawings to my customer. Delays in nal docu-
ments and drawings deliveries were mainly caused by delays in
my customers timely approval of preliminary versions. Also, I lost
two of my engineers to other projects during the winding down
period of my project. My contract agreement specied a penalty
of 0.1% of total contract value for each week of delay in delivery of
nal documents and drawings. Six weeks of delay added up to a
handsome penalty to my company.
I discussed this delay issue with my customers project manager
on the phone every week. He told me not to worry about the pen-
alty clause regarding delivery of nal documents and drawings.
He knew that his teams delays in their responses were a major
part of the blame. I delivered all nal deliverables six weeks late
and the project came to a close. More than a month passed and
I got a call from our chief nancial ocer. He told me that my
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
company was being penalized 0.6% of total contract value due
to delays in delivering nal documents and drawings to my cus-
tomer. is was quite a shock to me. I explained the nal docu-
ments and drawings delivery issues to our chief nancial ocer. I
emphasized the lackadaisical comments of my customers project
manager. I told him that I had all of the recorded delivery dates
to our customer for every document and drawing. I also had all
of the receipt dates and comments from our customer to me for
every document and drawing. We agreed that we should not be
penalized for this delay. We had every right to appeal the penalty.
en we called my customers project manager to understand
the reasons behind the penalty. My customers project manager
insisted that he had nothing to do with the penalty. Higher- ups
in his company decided to apply the penalty clause because of the
six- week delay in delivering nal documents and drawings. My
customers project manager apologized for misleading me and he
stressed that he could do nothing to reverse the penalty.
en our chief nancial ocer and I agreed to bring our legal
department into the picture to pursue our rightful case. Our law-
yers talked to their lawyers. Our presidents were also involved as
they too discussed the penalty case. My customer was not budg-
ing regarding the penalty at all. We decided to take the case to
the next level, namely to arbitration, because of the stiness of
the penalty and because we felt that we had the upper hand to
win the case. According to the contract agreement conditions,
disputes between parties arising in connection with or related
to my project had to be settled by nal and binding arbitration
under the rules of arbitration of the International Chamber of
Commerce in Helsinki, Finland. ankfully, the arbitration lan-
guage was English.
I briefed one of our lawyers with all details of the case. I pro-
vided him with all recorded delivery and receipt dates of docu-
ments and drawings. Our lawyer applied for the arbitration. He
had to go to Helsinki for the hearing. After a full day of arbitra-
tion sessions, the arbitrators decided to drop the penalty. Later
our lawyer told me that the reason we won the case was due to my
detailed delivery and receipt dates of documents and drawings. I
made the mistake of not getting the nothing to worry about the
penalty clause comments in writing from my customers project
manager. Our legal department came to my rescue. I was very
appreciative of our legal departments eorts. We celebrated our
victory over a nice dinner when our lawyer got back from Helsinki.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A companys legal department is a crucial advisor and a
lifesaver to a project manager.
Some conicts between you and your customer or
between you and your subcontractors have to be resolved
with the help of your legal department.
Keeping accurate records of communication and of
deliveries between you and your customer and between
you and your subcontractors is a must.
In a project execution, verbal promises and directives
are worthless.
Case1.9: Salary and Compensation Variations
in a Global Team Environment
I did engineering, engineering management, and engineering
project management for over 46years. I loved my engineering
challenges. I stayed in my eld and did not regret a bit in choos-
ing this very fullling eld early on in my life. e majority of
my engineering colleagues were also satised with their career
choices. Despite long work hours, every engineer I knew wanted
to grow and wanted to be challenged in his or her work. is was
the engineering environment that I experienced in the United
States. As I got to know and to work with engineers from other
countries, professional satisfaction levels degraded quite a bit.
e motivation levels of engineers dropped due to lower salary
and compensation packages in other countries. For example,
engineers in Europe and in Japan are compensated about 70% of
what U.S. engineers get. Salary and compensation packages get
worse, about 20% of those in the United States, in countries like
Malaysia, India, and China. As engineering project teams and
workforces get more and more integrated globally, engineering
salary and compensation packages are ratcheting up in develop-
ing countries.
When Malaysian engineers were part of my volume produc-
tion setup team, I always reminded my U.S. engineers not to
discuss salaries, compensation packages, raises, or bonuses with
their Malaysian counterparts. Money issues were very touchy sub-
jects in a global project environment. I made many recommenda-
tions for salary increases and for bonuses to the supervisors of
Malaysian engineers who were on my team without any success.
e main mission of our Malaysian operations general manager
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
and Malaysian supervisors was to keep costs down. ey did not
value engineering qualications, experience, and work ethics like
we do in the United States. ey were also leaving most engineer-
ing positions unlled in order to keep costs down and thereby
squeezing long work hours from their engineering sta. ere was
a substantial amount of turnover in my Malaysian engineering
workforce. I could not keep a stable engineering environment in
my Malaysian project teams.
I lost a couple of Malaysian engineers right in the middle of a
project due to salary increase disputes. I got them well trained at
the beginning of the project. ey were in the process of becoming
very qualied in their tasks and they were smart and hard workers.
ey learned somehow that their counterparts in the United States
got 10% increases in annual salary reviews and they got nothing.
ey conded in me that they were ready to leave our company
because of unfair annual salary increase and bonus distribution
practices in our Malaysian subsidiary. I pleaded with their super-
visor and with our Malaysian general manager to stop those two
Malaysian engineers from leaving our company. e Malaysian
managers attitude was that there were many unemployed engineers
out there and they could hire them at a much lower salary. Due
to the Malaysian managers stubbornness and short- sightedness, I
wasted all the training time for those two engineers and several of
my projects tasks were set back by two weeks.
Salary and bonus discontent among engineers is increasing in
developing countries. Engineers in these countries are less satis-
ed with their engineering careers and they are ready to jump ship
and/ or change careers in order to improve their lives.
At the other end of the global engineering workforce spec-
trum, there are countries like South Korea and Singapore where
engineering is well respected and well appreciated and therefore
well rewarded. In an internal project team, I had several engi-
neers from our South Korean subsidiary who were working for
me. ey also had unequal pay, about 50% in the 1990s, for equal
work as compared to their U.S. counterparts. eir supervisors
and our general manager in South Korea were more willing to
go along with my annual salary increases and bonus distributions
recommendations. ey valued an engineers training, qualica-
tions, and experience. As South Korea improved their economy at
lightning speed, their engineering salaries and bonuses climbed
up to about 70% in the 2000s as compared to their U.S. counter-
parts. I think a signicant portion of South Koreas economic
Project ManageMent case studIes
success was due to their well- satised, well- appreciated, and hard
working engineering workforce. I had similar good experiences
with Singaporean engineers on my project teams. ey were very
happy and very satised with their careers.
I believe that salary and compensation discussions in a global
team environment should be taboo. As global project managers,
we have to sensitize our team members not to discuss money mat-
ters with our colleagues from other countries.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In an international project team environment, work
motivation levels alter quite a bit from country to country.
You have to advise your U.S.-based engineers not to
discuss their compensation packages with engineers in
other countries.
Case1.10: Lessons Learned from Previous Projects
Historical knowledge of projects completed in a company is a
very valuable guide for a global project manager. In particu-
lar, lessons learned from historical projects can shed light and
show the right path to avoid making the same mistake over and
over again. As project managers, during execution of a global
project, we always run into issues with specications, schedules,
budgets, team members, company upper management, cus-
tomers, regulatory agencies, foreign governments, subcontrac-
tors, inspectors, suppliers, and so on. As we get ready to close
out a project, we should compile all the lessons learned from
that project along with actions taken and results achieved in a
report. We should release this report in document control. We
should also present pertinent sections of this report to our team
members, to our upper management, to our customers, and to
our subcontractors.
e lessons learned report for a completed project was a
requirement for a company that I worked for. Reviewing these
reports about a customers previous projects gave me a very
good understanding of what I should be prepared for in deal-
ing with this particular customer. In particular, my customers
unannounced audits of man- hours and materials charged to my
project surprised me a lot. My customers auditors came to our
company unannounced and reviewed our charge records for every
one of their previous projects. As a project manager I had never
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
experienced unannounced auditor visits before. We had had sev-
eral issues with this company with incorrect charges in the past.
So I started to check our charge records every two weeks and made
the necessary corrections with our accounting department. I was
audited unannounced twice by my customers auditors during the
execution of my project for man- hours and material charges. ey
found everything in order and our accounting department and I
received good pats on the back.
In another oshore oil platform equipment design project, pol-
lution control laws, ordinances, rules, and regulations were very
detailed and complicated. Pollution control involved several gov-
ernment agencies such as the U.S. Department of the Interior,
U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and
the U.S. Coast Guard. I reviewed my companys historical doc-
uments related to similar past projects and discussed pollution
control procedures with seasoned engineers who worked on previ-
ous similar projects. I formulated a very thorough plan to prevent
pollution during the execution of my project. I trained my team
members as to what to do in case of undesirable and uncontrolled
spills and leaks. Every member of my team was very diligent in
pollution prevention while performing his or her task.
Another useful lesson that I learned was in dealing with mate-
rial safety data sheets for chemicals that were used in one of my
projects. My customer paid lots of attention to material safety data
sheets for all chemicals used in my project. From historical infor-
mation, I prepared a list of laboratories certied by my customer
that could issue material safety data sheets. I put together a data
sheet form that was acceptable to my customers project manager.
In my project schedule, I included all dates for when I had to sub-
mit samples to certied laboratories and when material safety data
sheets were due to my customer.
Lessons learned information was crucial for a customers
design review process. What had surprised us during design
review meetings in the past? What kind of issues had we encoun-
tered during meetings? How did we deal with incomplete and
missing information? Did we have any specication clarication
issues? How did we deal with a customers instantaneous add-
ons to the project? One thing I learned was to take a time-out
from the meeting or call for a break, if an unanswerable question
or request popped up. en I huddled with my team in private
and we collectively decided on an answer in a calm environment
before facing my customer with an answer.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
In another lessons learned case, I found out that a particu-
lar nal inspector always randomly checked torques of several
bolts on equipment being inspected. I asked my manufacturing
manager to go over and verify each bolts torque on every piece
of equipment that was ready for inspection before the inspector
arrived. In the past, this nal inspector also randomly checked
paint thickness on every surface of the equipment. Also, in the
past, there had been several issues with this nal inspector not
signing o our equipment, but at the end of my project we were
ready for him. We inspected every piece of our equipment to be
shipped just as he would have inspected it. We made a couple
of touch- ups and corrections as needed. e nal inspector was
very surprised not to nd any issues with our equipment during
his nal inspection. I was thankful for my companys lessons
learned documents.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Do not forget to release your Lessons Learned report
in your document control during the closure phase of
your project.
Present Lessons Learned from your project to your
team members, to your upper management, to your cus-
tomers, and to your subcontractors before interest in your
project fades away.
Case1.11: e Eect of an Outside Consulting Firm
on a Project
In most companies, upper management has a hard time mak-
ing decisions. Ocers of the company procrastinate a lot and
put o important decision making. As project managers, these
kinds of important decision delays can aect our projects and our
performances. We can only write our warning e- mails, prepare
our reports, and have urgent discussions with upper management
with little eect on their decision- making process.
In such a case, I was assigned by our president to prepare a fea-
sibility report to expand our production operations into Europe
and into Southeast Asia. I was given six months to prepare a
detailed report on expanding into certain countries like France
and South Korea. I prepared a long list of questions for their for-
eign investment representatives. I visited all those countries and
I learned in detail their investment incentives such as duty- free
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
zone rules and requirements, investment loan conditions, foreign
company taxation rules, labor and union laws, wages and salaries,
and so on. I also got lots of help from international subsidiaries
of an investment rm. I prepared a comparative feasibility study
that detailed investment amounts by year and estimated returns
on these investments. I outlined facility needs, equipment, and
personnel requirements. I also listed all risk areas in utilities, in
unions, in training, and so forth. I summarized my report in four
pages for my upper management. I gave the full report with its
summary to four executives in my company one week before the
nal delivery date.
Our president called a meeting with company executives about
expansion of our production operations and asked me to pres-
ent my feasibility report. All of the executives were focused on
amounts and returns on the companys investment. Overall my
presentation went well. ey all praised my report.
ree months passed and there was no word on expansion. I
asked several executives what was going on. ey all replied that
they were in the decision-making process with no denite date in
sight. One day I received a call from my boss informing me that
they had hired a consulting rm to perform a similar feasibility
study to mine. e president and the board of directors wanted a
second opinion before launching into a foreign expansion project.
I was disappointed at my upper managements decision but I had
to live with it.
Four representatives from the consulting rm came to our facili-
ties and settled into four oces for three months. Every one of them
interviewed me almost daily. ey asked me hundreds of questions
about our production equipment, about the countries I visited,
about labor and engineer training requirements in those countries,
and so on. I provided them with all the information they needed.
ey also received lots of input from their subsidiaries in France
and in South Korea. e consulting rm completed their feasibility
report in four months and presented it to my companys executives. I
was not invited to the presentation meeting, but I did receive a copy
of their report from my boss. e consulting rms conclusions were
very similar to mine. My company spent millions of dollars to get a
second opinion from the consulting rm on the foreign expansion
project. My companys executives and our board of directors needed
that assurance from the consulting rm before taking a big step
forward in the foreign expansion project. Finally, after a year and a
half, they made a decision to go ahead with the project.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
During my career I have seen all types of decision makers
in company executives. Some were high- risk takers, while oth-
ers were very conservative. High- risk takers made fast decisions
which emerged from their gut feelings and from their experi-
ences. Conservative executives took their time to make a deci-
sion. ey consulted many people during the decision- making
process. ey would get several reports compiled about the sub-
ject. Some executives could not even make a decision by them-
selves and would opt for an executive group decision. In our
fast- moving and very competitive business environment, cautious
risk takers are the winners.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Some upper management people procrastinate a lot and
put o important decision making.
Some upper management people need extra assurance
from dierent and reliable sources before making impor-
tant decisions.
Case1.12: Japanese Customer Visit to Qualify
Our South Korean Plant for Volume Production
As an American magnetic recording head manufacturing com-
pany, we were successful in getting qualied as a component sup-
plier to a major Japanese disk drive manufacturer. One last hurdle
in this relationship was to get our South Korean magnetic record-
ing head manufacturing plants to be qualied by our Japanese
customer. In my previous visits to our South Korean plants, I
observed bitter antagonism toward the Japanese because of Japans
colonization of Korea during the rst half of the 20th century.
I was afraid that my engineering team in South Korea would not
be able to control themselves during the qualication process and
show their bitterness toward our Japanese customer.
In the beginning of the 20th century, Japan colonized Korea.
Japan established economic and military dominance in Korea.
Japanese rulers forced Koreans to adapt to Japanese cultural and
religious practices. Koreans were forced to change their names to
Japanese ones. Over 50% of arable land was turned over to the
Japanese owners and many Korean landowners became tenant
farmers overnight. All Korean newspapers were shut down. Korean
children were only allowed to have a primary school education.
case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
All factories were owned by the Japanese. Japanese rulers created
a strict system of colonial mercantilism to exploit Korean raw
materials and Korean manpower for their WorldWarII eorts.
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Soviet Union and the
United States agreed to split the Korean peninsula at the 38th
parallel (the demilitarized zone). e southern region of the pen-
insula became a democratic republic called the Republic of Korea
and the northern region became a communist regime called the
Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
In order to ease the tensions between my Korean engineering
team and the visiting Japanese qualication team, I decided to go
to Korea rst for two weeks to prepare and to train my Korean
team for our Japanese customers qualication process both psy-
chologically and technically.
I had meetings with my Korean engineering team daily. I
told them that the historical relationship with Japan was bit-
ter. However, South Korea was trying to advance technologi-
cally and catch up to Japan in standard of living. I emphasized
South Koreas national ambitions and asked my team members to
restrain themselves from showing their antagonistic feelings dur-
ing the upcoming qualication. If our Japanese customer qualied
our South Korean plant as a sole source component supplier for
their automated disk drive assembly line that would be a great step
forward for the South Korean economy. All the team members
agreed and were upbeat about the qualication process.
We did three trial qualication runs. I acted as the Japanese
customer during the trial runs. I bombarded them with ques-
tions and inquiries about critical parameters, process controls,
and our historical capabilities at every manufacturing station.
We reviewed and polished all our statistical process controls from
receiving inspection, through every assembly process, to nal
shipment to customer. We reviewed our disposition procedures
for out- of- specication situations. We reviewed our operator
training and production line qualication methods. At the end of
two weeks, my Korean team was ready for our Japanese customer.
During the introductory meeting, I took the oor and praised
my Korean team and gave examples of their accomplishments in
process and in quality control. Our Japanese customer gave us a
list of items that they would like to investigate. We obliged them
in every item that they requested. ey toured our assembly line
during the day shift and also during the night shift. ey asked
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Project ManageMent case studIes
specic questions of the operators about their tasks. e qualica-
tion process lasted for four days. ere were several minor glitches
here and there, but my team worked very hard to correct them and
found the right answers. My team was also very courteous during
lunches and dinners with our guests.
At the end of the fourth day, the head of the Japanese delega-
tion took the oor and praised our Korean operations. ey found
only one aw in our clean room monitoring control charts. ey
wanted the temperature, humidity, and particle count monitored
every half an hour instead of every two hours. We agreed to their
request. Our Japanese customer qualied our South Korean plant
as the sole source for their magnetic recording head assemblies.
One month after the qualication, we started shipping from
South Korea to Japan a high quantity of magnetic recording head
assemblies directly to their automated disk drive manufacturing
line in a kanban system.
After our Japanese customer left we had a team meeting. I
thanked every member of my South Korean team for their out-
standing eorts during the qualication process. at night I
invited them out to dinner to celebrate their psychological and
technical success. I do not remember how many bottles of soju
were consumed during dinner. Since I do not drink I could not
participate in their drinking ceremony from the same shot glass
that went around the table.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a global project environment, learn the histories of the
countries you are dealing with.
Prepare your project team for sensitive issues between
countries that might negatively aect your project.
Always praise and recognize your project team after a
successful project event.
Case1.13: e Customer Placed a Permanent Observer
in Our Plant and in Our Subcontractors Plant
My company was chosen as the sole source custom component
supplier to a large U.S. computer manufacturer. I had a team of
engineers who worked only for the design and manufacturing of
this custom component. We designed and developed the custom
component in the United States and manufactured it in South
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
Korea. We also had several key subcontractors for this custom
component in Japan. Our customer was very diligent regard-
ing industrial espionage and protecting their intellectual prop-
erty. ey required us to apply very strict rules and regulations
to protect their customized design and product details. In a fast
developing and very competitive computer industry, intellectual
property protection was top priority.
During the development and qualication of the custom com-
ponent I had to relocate my project team to an isolated location
in our U.S. facilities. ey could not discuss the custom compo-
nent with anyone else outside my team. e custom components
test facility was also separated from other test laboratories. e
customer placed a resident engineer into my group to oversee all
our activities and to make sure that their intellectual properties
were fully protected. e custom component development and
qualication went very well for three months with several minor
glitches. Some engineers left several drawings on their desks at
night, which was not acceptable. All drawings had to go into the
vault at night. One engineer made a copy of a drawing without
getting my and the resident engineers permission. We were ready
for oshore manufacturing. Our facilities in South Korea and our
subcontractor in Japan had to be qualied for volume production
and these facilities and the people working on this project had to
be prepared for intellectual property protection.
Production areas for the custom component both at our sub-
contractor and at our facilities were separated by gray plastic
walls. All engineers and other personnel working on this project
were trained on intellectual property protection rules and guide-
lines. I traveled with the customers team both to Japan and to
South Korea to qualify them for intellectual property protection
procedures. Everything went smoothly during the qualifying
inspection and volume production started on time. e customer
assigned a resident engineer to our plant in South Korea. is
resident engineer also traveled to Japan to check on our subcon-
tractor every fortnight.
After a month into volume production, the resident engi-
neer got very sick from food poisoning in South Korea. He was
taken to a hospital in the city of Chungju. I called my teams
manager in South Korea and asked him to stay with the resident
engineer all the time in the hospital. I asked my teams manager
not to leave the sight of the resident engineer one minute until
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Project ManageMent case studIes
he got well. e resident engineer did not speak any Korean.
Communication with the hospital personnel was a major issue.
It was my responsibility to take care of him. My teams man-
ager in South Korea stayed with him one week in the hospital.
Apparently, the resident engineer lost lots of uids during his
food poisoning ordeal. He had to gain back his strength and his
body uids before being released from the hospital. He was very
appreciative that we did not leave him alone in his struggle back
to health. Even during his hospital stay, he reviewed and signed
o on engineering change orders and on volume production out-
of- specication lot dispositions.
e resident engineer stayed in our manufacturing facility in
South Korea for a year without any other health issues. He did
not even take a day of vacation during his stay in South Korea. He
was very dedicated to his assignments. His supervisor and I went
to South Korea to visit him several times during his stay there.
His supervisor even gave the resident engineers annual review
to him in South Korea. His supervisor asked me to provide my
input too regarding the resident engineers performance in our
U.S. facilities, in our South Korean facilities, and in our subcon-
tractors facilities. I provided him with very positive input about
the resident engineers performance at our and at our subcontrac-
tors facilities.
e volume production of the custom component lasted for
three years. My customer sent two more resident engineers to
South Korea during this time. eir stay in South Korea went
without any incident. At the end of the project, my customer was
very appreciative of my team for taking good care of their resident
engineers during their stay in South Korea and for doing a superb
job in protecting their intellectual property.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Protecting your customers intellectual property during
the execution of a project can require very detailed and
careful planning.
Customers intellectual property protection is more dif-
cult in foreign and competitive countries.
Case1.14: Final Project Evaluation by the Customer
I was heading a data communication chip design project. We had
the nal design review. e chip design software was delivered
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
to the customer. e customer built it and beta tested it success-
fully. I could never close out the project because the nal proj-
ect evaluation by the customers project manager was missing. I
needed a report card from my customer that identied my teams
performance. My company and I wanted feedback that identi-
ed our good qualities, average qualities, and bad qualities during
the execution of the project so that we could improve continually.
Such a nal project evaluation report covered evaluation of all
team members, our design expertise, our test expertise, commu-
nication with the customer, on- time response, dealing with engi-
neering change notices, and meeting their specication, schedule,
and cost targets.
I nudged the customers project manager for three months
by e- mails and telephone calls after we delivered the nal chip
design software for the nal project evaluation report. He was
always apologetic that he did not have any time and that he had
been given a new assignment to head a new large project for his
company. I told him that I was onto a new project too, but I would
very much like to close out his project. He felt that the project
ended when we delivered the nal version of the chip design soft-
ware. He was not allocating any of his time for my nal proj-
ect evaluation report. So my projects nal evaluation report was
falling through the cracks. I did not want to go to his superi-
ors and antagonize the guy. One day I heard from his secretary
that he would be attending a chip design tools conference in San
Francisco in two weeks.
I went to my managers oce and explained to him the situa-
tion about the stalled nal evaluation report. I asked my manager
if I could attend the conference in San Francisco to evaluate the
advances in chip design tools for my company and also catch up
with our customers project manager to complete the nal evalu-
ation report on the spot. Since the project was completed three
months ago, all of my projects charge numbers were closed. I
was doing this extra work to complete the nal project evalu-
ation report on our overhead account. I told him what the cost
of my three- day trip to the conference would be. My manager
thought about my proposal for a couple of minutes. He said that
he could nance my trip to the conference through his groups
training account. I was very pleased to hear his approval of my
trip. Finally, I was going to get a chance to close out my old
project, which was hanging over my head like Damocles sword.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
I went to the conference. I was able to catch up with my cus-
tomers project manager during the rst session. I told him about
my persistent mission to nalize the project evaluation report. I
assured him that I would not take more than half an hour of his
time and I would ask the evaluation questions and I would jot
down his answers. He only had to review the nal report, sign,
and date it. He nally agreed to get together with me for coee
the next morning. I was elated to see the light for the nal project
evaluation report at the end of the tunnel.
During the evening, I prepared all of the project evaluation
questions that I was going to ask him. In our company, we had a
standard nal project evaluation form. I expanded on it. e next
morning we met at Starbucks at the conference center. I treated
him to a coee of his choice. I went over every evaluation ques-
tion one by one, got the response of the customers project man-
ager, and jotted the summary of his response on the evaluation
form. e whole process took a little over 45 minutes. He reviewed
the summarized report, signed, and dated it. His evaluation of
the project was very favorable. He had several concerns about my
project team. He mentioned that my team was composed of too
many novice engineers and not enough seasoned ones. He rec-
ommended that our project teams should be more balanced in
experience for future projects. His second important criticism was
about my companys high overhead costs. My company was losing
its competitive edge with high overhead costs. He advised that we
should lower our overhead costs at least by 20%, if we wanted to
win other projects from his company. ese were two very crucial
inputs from my customer. I thanked him for his time and for his
honest evaluation of our project. I assured him that I would take
his recommendations to my companys president and correct them
to win his next contract in chip design.
When I got back, I made an appointment with the company
president and went over the nal project evaluation report. He
thanked me for working hard to obtain constructive input from
our customer. He was aware of our companys high overhead
costs. He assured me that steps were being taken to lower them.
He promised to distribute his manpower experience more evenly
for the future projects.
e nal project evaluation report by the customer can be hard
to get. Sometimes it can be a pain in the neck to obtain it for a
project manager. If it is done face- to- face with the customer, you
can get good and honest advice for improvement.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
During the closure phase of your project, do not forget
to get the nal project evaluation report from your cus-
tomers project manager.
Final project evaluation reports always fall through
cracks as your customers project manager and you go on
to new assignments.
Do all you can to catch up with your customers project
manager in order to complete the nal project evalua-
tion report.
Input and comments from your customers project man-
ager are very important guidelines for your future projects.
Case1.15: Filtering Information
I was the project manager for supplying all the U.S. manufac-
tured wafer fabrication equipment for a Japanese high technol-
ogy company. One of the high- end pieces of equipment that my
customer was sourcing in the United States was the ion milling
machine. e subcontractor for ion milling machines was located
in Virginia. My customer ordered four ion milling machines
for their new wafer fabrication plant in Malaysia. I was heav-
ily involved in putting together specications and shipment and
delivery requirements for the ion milling machines.
I visited the ion milling machine subcontractor several times
during the course of the project with and without my Japanese
customers representatives joining me. e project was scheduled
to complete in 10months. I was on the phone ve days a week
with my subcontractors project manager discussing the status of
my project. I updated my Japanese customers project manager
weekly on the progress made on the construction of ion mill-
ing machines.
e ion milling machine subcontractor built the best ones
in the world at that time. While they were building my four
standard ion milling machines, they had a large order to build
20 advanced ion milling machines from a very important cus-
tomer. Everything they were doing for their important customer
in their plant was blocked inside temporary plastic walls so that
no one else could see the advanced ion milling machines that were
being built there. Whenever I chatted with their engineers about
their advanced product, their engineers were mum on the details.
ey only mentioned that these advanced ion milling machines
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Project ManageMent case studIes
had a 10-nanometer accuracy of uniform material removal from
the surface of a 6-inch wafer.
I had to manage the communication with my Japanese cus-
tomer appropriately without getting them excited while keeping
their trust and respect in me and in our subcontractor at the high-
est level. I did not report to my Japanese customer every little
detail of the project. I gave them a weekly status summary of the
project and a weekly updated project schedule. ere were sev-
eral ups and downs every day regarding the ion milling machines
construction. Most of the down issues were solved within at most
two weeks. ese minute details were between me and my sub-
contractors project manager. Some delays crept into my proj-
ect due to the subcontractors priority to his large advanced ion
milling machines order. I immediately hopped on a plane from
California to Virginia and showed myself at the door of my sub-
contractor and solved the project delay issues and other nagging
issues face- to- face with him. We always found a way to catch up
to the schedule by authorizing some overtime or by nding an
outside machine shop that could build a component faster. I had
to keep my credibility with my customer intact. By monitoring
my subcontractor very closely and by not disturbing my customer,
we completed the project on time, but we ran 5% over budget due
to several overtime authorizations. My customer was very happy
with the results.
Another issue was with my customer. My customers project
manager insisted that we perform a long- term capability study on
all ion milling machines before they left the subcontractors facil-
ity. However, the contract specied a short- term capability study
requirement for all four machines before delivery. A long- term
capability study meant taking a lot more data while running the
machines. is would have delayed the shipments by at least two
weeks and cost my subcontractor an extra 160 man- hours of work.
I emphasized to my customers project manager what our contract
specied. I convinced him that the long- term capability studies
should be performed at his factory after receiving the ion milling
machines. After several discussions, he nally agreed with me. I
did not even mention this extra work request from our customer
to my subcontractor. My subcontractor was overstretched with
respect to manpower. I had to protect him from our customers
extra requirements.
Communicating ltered information is the backbone of a proj-
ects control structure. How much information to pass on and how
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
much you want to disturb the cart are crucial factors during the
life of a project. If every little detail regarding your project goes
up to your chief executive ocer or goes to your customer, you
are mismanaging your project. You have to lter out the ripples
in your communicated information. At the same time you have
to realize what information and when to inform your higher- ups
and/ or your customer without any delay.
A similar kind of information ltering goes both ways. If you
receive some negative information regarding your customer, do
not immediately spill it to your team members. Your customer
might be going bankrupt. ey might be shutting down your proj-
ect. ey might be changing project specications. First, absorb
the information yourself. Validate the information, understand its
details, and weigh eects of the information on your team mem-
bers, and then announce it as needed.
A similar kind of information ltering should happen inter-
nally. If you hear from your boss that a layo is going to happen
in two weeks, do not run and blabber to your team members about
the layo. First, understand the details of the layo. Does it aect
your team members? is kind of information ow can be very
demoralizing to a team. en announce the upcoming layo with
details in a team meeting at an appropriate time.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Do not get your customers and your subcontractors
involved in every little detail of your project.
Filter your information appropriately in order to not
inadvertently rock your projects boat.
Learn the details of a demoralizing fact before discussing
it with your project team members.
Case1.16: Holiday Conict with a Technical
Proposal Presentation
We prepared a very competitive proposal for a large corporation
in India. e proposal was for a pipeline communication system
design, build, and installation. One of the bidding requirements
was to make a technical presentation to the Indian companys
bid evaluation committee in India. We sent our engineering vice
president and a senior engineer to India to give our technical pre-
sentation. e Indian company conrmed the technical presen-
tation time, duration, date, and location by e- mail three weeks
40
Project ManageMent case studIes
before our team left the United States. Our technical presentation
team arrived in Mumbai a day earlier. e next day, they went to
the headquarters of the Indian company where the presentation
was supposed to take place. ere were only security guards at the
entrance to the company compound. e guards told our team
that the company was on holiday for three days for the Diwali
festival and that there was no one from the bid evaluation com-
mittee working at the company that day.
Our team had no choice but to wait for three days until the
holiday was over. Our presentation team called us and explained
the miscommunication regarding the technical presentation date.
We agreed with their decision to stay in Mumbai and resched-
ule the technical presentation with the Indian company. ey
toured Mumbai during the holidays and enjoyed the Diwali fes-
tival of lights and festivities. After three days, they called the
chairman of the bid evaluation committee. He was very apologetic
about the miscommunication regarding the technical presentation
date. He said that he would like to talk to all bid evaluation com-
mittee members and set a new time and date as early as possible.
He asked our team to call them back the next day.
e next day our team called the bid evaluation committee
chairman. He set up the meeting the following day at 2 p.m.
and also conrmed the new meeting time and date by e- mail.
Our team was able to give their technical presentation ve days
after their arrival in Mumbai. Our teams presentation was sched-
uled for an hour. Afterward, an hour was reserved for a question
and answer period. After the technical presentation meeting we
received feedback from our team that all went well. However, we
lost the bid to a French company with a lower cost basis. Our
company spent over $100,000 to prepare for the bid and perform
the required technical presentation. It was my mistake that I did
not reconrm the technical presentation time and date before
our team left the United States. In international meeting set-
ups, reconrmation is a must. ings change fast and mistakes
are made. A meeting set up a couple of weeks or months before
might not be valid anymore. Continual communication among
the involved parties and reconrmation of the times and dates of
meetings avoids mistakes and unnecessary headaches.
is is especially true in countries like India, as most reli-
gious holidays are according to the lunar calendar. eir dates
change every year according to our Gregorian calendar. India
has both national holidays and religious holidays. e national
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
holidays such as Republic Day, Independence Day, and Mahatma
Gandhis birthday are xed according to the Gregorian calendar.
However, the religious holidays such as Hindu holidays, Parsee
holidays, Islamic holidays, Sikh holidays, Buddhist holidays, and
Jain holidays might shift dates every year in the Gregorian cal-
endar. Also, depending upon the belief of the person(s) you are
going to visit in India, some might be on his or her religious holi-
day, but the rest of the organization might be at work. In some
countries, if a religious holiday comes on a Tuesday, Wednesday,
and ursday, the company you are dealing with or the entire
country might decide to take the whole week o. ey shut down
their operations during Monday and Friday too, due to inecien-
cies in the workplace and close down for a week. e whole coun-
try shuts down for a week.
For a global project manager, keeping track of all national
and religious holidays of countries that you are dealing with is a
requirement. You also have to know the religious beliefs of every
individual you are dealing with. If you slack on keeping track of
all national and religious holidays, an engineer you are dealing
with in India might believe in Judaism and take a couple of days
o during Hanukkah, the festival of lights, which might coincide
with your scheduled visiting days to India.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a global project, know all the national and religious
holidays of countries you are dealing with and record
them in your project schedule.
In a global project, know all religious observances of the
people you are dealing with.
Case1.17: Customers Final Inspection Report
We completed on time the designing, manufacturing, and test-
ing of mooring equipment and spare parts for a new oil rig on
Sakhalin Island, Russia. e oil rig was being constructed in
South Korea. Our equipment and spare parts were scheduled to
ship to South Korea for installation onto the platform that was
being built there. e customers inspectors came to our facilities
for nal acceptance of all equipment and spare parts. e accep-
tance process took ve days. With some minor modications,
everything was accepted and was ready to be shipped. We pack-
aged all of the equipment and spare parts in waterproof crates
42
Project ManageMent case studIes
and shipped them using a land/ ocean route to South Korea. We
included the inspectors nal inspection report with the shipment.
e nal inspection report included the packing list of all the
equipment and spare parts. We had a very experienced freight for-
warder who insured the goods that were being shipped against all
risks of physical loss or damage for door- to- door transportation.
My customers project manager was very satised with our per-
formance. He released our milestone payment. My company got
a hefty contract milestone payment of 50% of the contract value.
Five weeks passed and I received a call from my customers
project manager that the shipment had arrived in Pusan, South
Korea, but they could not clear the cargo through South Korean
customs because the spare parts were missing from the nal
inspection reports packing list. I told my customers project man-
ager that I would investigate the issue and get back to him in an
hour. I went to our shipping department and found the packing
list that our shipping department prepared for that shipment. Lo
and behold, 10 spare part items were missing from the packing
list. My shipping department missed the spare parts from the
packing list. e customers inspectors missed inspecting the
spare parts. e bank that paid us our milestone payment missed
the spare parts in the packing list. Now all of the equipment, close
to 100 items, and 10 spare parts were sitting at South Korean
customs and could not be cleared.
I called my customers project manager and relayed the unfor-
tunate chain of events. We brainstormed the situation at hand
over the phone and tried to nd a solution to the problem. One
option was to ship the 10 spare parts that were not on the pack-
ing list back to the United States, get them inspected, and reship
them back to South Korea with a correct packing list. is option
would take about two months and would incur an extra cost of
about $20,000. With this option, all of the equipment compo-
nents could be cleared through customs in a timely fashion, but
not the spare parts. e second option was to send a revised pack-
ing list to my customers representative in South Korea. He could
then present the revised packing list to South Korean customs
and clear everything through customs. e only drawback with
this option was that the 10 spare parts were not going to see the
required nal inspection per the project contract. I assured him
that all those 10 spare parts were tested and inspected by our
quality assurance department before nal inspection took place. I
left the decision to my customers project manager. I told him that
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
I would go either way he chose to solve the issue at hand. He told
me that he would discuss the two options with his superiors and
get back to me the next day with a decision.
e next day, my customers project manager called and told
me that they had decided to go with option two. ey could not
live with a two- month delay in receiving the inspected spare parts.
I was to revise the packing list in a day and send him a copy, and
to his representative in South Korea the original by FedEx. He
released us from the nal inspection of spare parts by conrming
their decision in an e- mail.
As the project manager I should have checked all nal docu-
ments that went with the shipment. After this mishap, I made it
a task for myself to review all documents that were included in a
shipment for a customer. is was an honest mistake. My shipping
department, the customers inspectors, and my customers bank, all
missed the 10 spare parts from the packing list. Spare parts were
in the list of deliverables, loud and clear, in our projects contract.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
e customers nal inspection report has to be scruti-
nized by you for accuracy.
Simple errors in a customers nal inspection report can
come back to bite you later in your project.
Case1.18: Pressure Put on a Team Member
by Upper Management
One of the mechanical design engineers on my project team was
working on a wheelchair access ramp design for a bus. His design,
manufacture, and test tasks were on the critical path of the proj-
ect. I met with him weekly to see if he had any showstopping
issues. I asked my other team members to help him in certain
auxiliary tasks such as sourcing double- acting air actuated cylin-
ders. He was determined to nish his design on time and he was
putting in extra hours in order not to fall behind schedule.
One of our vice presidents from the sales department was
going to his cubicle almost daily and asking him questions about
his design and trying to get a feeling for the status of the wheel-
chair access ramp design. is vice president won the bus con-
tract for our company. He felt as if the contract was his baby.
He wanted everything to be completed on time so that he could
satisfy our customer. He wanted to get more future contracts from
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Project ManageMent case studIes
our customer. e vice president was spending about half an hour
with him at each visit. I was starting to get annoyed with his vis-
its; but more than me, my design engineer was getting annoyed
too. My design engineer was a nice guy and he did not complain
to me for about a month. During one of our weekly status meet-
ing, he nally spilled the beans and told me that he was sick and
tired of the vice presidents visits day in and day out. e vice
presidents visits to his cubicle were not constructive at all. He
was wasting my design engineers valuable time. He asked me to
straighten out the situation.
I went to my boss and explained the unfortunate events
between the sales vice president and my design engineer. We dis-
cussed how we should approach the vice president and ask him
to end his daily meetings with my design engineer. We decided
that I should go alone and talk to the vice president and explain to
him the criticality of my design engineers tasks. I was to ask him
politely without oending him to end his daily visits to my design
engineers cubicle. I was to also oer to the vice president that he
was more than welcome to visit my oce daily to get an update
regarding the status of the wheelchair access ramp design.
I made an appointment with him to discuss the criticality of
the wheelchair access ramp design on the overall project. e
meeting went well. He agreed that my design engineers time
was very valuable. We did not want my design engineers critical
tasks to fall behind and to cause a delay in the overall project. He
was very receptive to my suggestion of getting daily status updates
from me instead of visiting my design engineers cubicle.
I relayed the results of our meeting to my boss and to my
design engineer. My design engineer was relieved. As the project
progressed he needed constant support in order to stay on sched-
ule. He completed all the wheelchair access ramp design speci-
cations, calculations, and drawings successfully two weeks late. I
invited the sales vice president to the design review meeting. He
did not have any comments or suggestions during the meeting,
but he was nice enough to congratulate my design engineer for
his thorough job. I also thanked the sales vice president for his
overwhelming interest in our project and by coming daily to my
oce for the project updates. My project team caught up with the
project schedule by working overtime during the manufacturing
phase of the project.
In every project, almost all hands in a company swarm around
a critical project person with good intentions to get a feeling for
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
how things are going. ey waste his or her valuable time. If the
project person has an easygoing personality, he or she tries to
accommodate everyones inquiries and questions. Valuable time
can be wasted and the project schedule can unintentionally go
down the drain. You have to caution your team members to let you
know if there are unnecessary interferences with their work. As
a project manager, you have to protect your team members from
these unnecessary distractions.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to protect our team members
from pressure coming from outside our team environment.
Time wasted by your team members due to outside inter-
ference can easily delay your project.
Case1.19: Dictatorial Micromanagement
We had six program managers in the chip design section of my
company. My company hired a new director of program man-
agers from a well- established Silicon Valley company. He was a
well- known authority in data chip design. He had started his job
two months ago and started to enforce his style of management. I
reported directly to him.
My boss had a dictatorial character. Everything was supposed
to be done the way he saw it. He never listened to me or to my
team members. He attended some of my weekly team meetings.
He took over the whole show. My team members and I tried to
give our input to solve an issue. He listened to our input half-
heartedly. He countered with his own ideas and he demanded
that our approach to a solution should be his way. I discussed his
behavior with the other ve program managers. He behaved the
same with his dictatorial style of management to all of them.
Sometimes he went behind my back and talked to my engi-
neers. He changed their ways of approaching an issue without
informing me. I told him several times not to circumvent me and
not to give mixed signals to my team members. He said okay
okay to me and kept enforcing his own style of management.
My bosss behavior was demoralizing to my team. ey started
to hold themselves back and they started to not give any input
whenever he joined our meetings. is was totally opposite of
my management style. I promoted empowerment of my team
members and everyone else contributing to my project. I listened
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Project ManageMent case studIes
to all input and chose the most logical approach. I treated my
people with respect and consideration. I told my team members
to hang in there and asked them to provide their suggestions
and input regarding our project to me. I told them that I would
deal with the director myself in protecting my teams suggestions
and input. I used to have a weekly one- on- one meeting with the
director. I defended my team members suggestions and input. He
started shouting and swearing and insisted that everything was to
be done his way.
I could not take his one- man- show behavior anymore. I made
an appointment with the vice president of human resources and
detailed my concerns to her. I told her that our people were the
most valuable asset of our company. I told her that my team
members, other program managers, and I were fed up with the
dictatorial behavior of our director. I emphasized that we could
lose some of our crucial assets, if the directors behavior did not
improve. She told me that she was aware of the situation. She
had received other complaints about the directors authoritarian
management style too. She asked me to sit tight and to keep the
director away from my team members as much as I could. She
promised me that there were going to be several big personnel
changes coming very soon.
e following week there was a layo at my company. My
company dismissed 10% of the workforce including the director
of program managers due to a slowdown in business. e dic-
tator was gone in three months. Everyone in the company was
very happy. My team members began to get motivated again.
I respected and encouraged their input. I continually tried to
develop my team members brainstorming and engineering skills
so that I could extract the highest possible performance from each
one of them. I always wanted to create a culture and environment
that supported and respected my people.
e company promoted a director of program managers from
within the company. e new directors management style was
very much like mine. We got along great. My team members per-
formed awlessly to complete my project on time and within bud-
get. I was lucky that three months of a distasteful ordeal with the
authoritarian director did not hamper my project.
During my 40-year engineering and management career, I
came across many dierent styles of managing people. e worst
management style belonged to this director who was micro-
managing everyone under him in an authoritarian fashion.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A dictatorial boss can overwhelm you and your project
team and cause damage to your project without realizing
the consequences.
You have to protect your project team from your authori-
tarian boss at all costs.
You have to take immediate steps to correct your bosss
unacceptable behavior.
Case1.20: Setting Up Two Automated
Assembly Modules in Malaysia
Labor costs were increasing fast in our Malaysian plant. Also,
computer component sizes were shrinking and their assembly
and alignment tolerances were getting tighter and tighter to the
order of 0.0001 inches or 2.5 micrometers. I was assigned to
develop an automated assembly module for our computer com-
ponent assembly processes and get two modules into operation
in Malaysia. I was assigned two full- time senior manufacturing
engineers from our U.S. plant to my team. Our rst task was to
search in the United States for an automation development house
and get the automated assembly module built to our specica-
tions. After a three- month search, we found an automation sub-
contractor in Boston whose cost proposal and whose technical
capabilities t our mission.
I made a half- hour presentation to my companys board of
directors about our options and their return on investment and
got the automation project approved. Our boards approval was a
requirement for projects over $2M dollars. is was the highest-
priced project for the company and it had to be completely installed
and in operation in Malaysia in nine months. All the automation
drawings had to be in both British and in metric units. All fas-
teners had to be in metric so that they could be easily sourced in
Malaysia. I sent two of my engineers to Boston and made them
live with the project at the subcontractors plant day in and day out.
I also had to nd three Malaysian engineers who were mechani-
cally savvy so that I could bring them for the automation module
qualication runs to Boston for three months. ey were going
to be trained in-depth for the operation and maintenance of the
automated assembly modules by the subcontractor. ese three
Malaysian engineers would ultimately be responsible for running
the automated assembly modules in our Malaysian plant.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
I communicated with our Malaysian general manager and sent
him the requirements for the Malaysian engineers. ey found
nine candidates. I traveled to Malaysia to interview the nine can-
didates face to face. e Malaysian general manager and I agreed,
after interviewing all the nine candidates, to hire three of the can-
didates. ese Malaysian engineers were also responsible for writ-
ing the equipment operation and maintenance manuals in English
and in Bahasa Malay. I made sure that they had the correct entry
visas into the United States for three months. I arranged for an
apartment for them within walking distance to our subcontrac-
tors plant. ey traveled to Boston after six months into the proj-
ect when the module was getting ready for the qualication runs.
During those six months in Malaysia, they prepared the site for
two automated assembly modules. e site had to have tempera-
ture and humidity control and had to have a class 100 clean room
environment. e site oor had to be vibration- free and the power
supply had to have voltage regulators and the power supply had to
be uninterruptible. ey also had to source a precision machine
shop close to our plant in Malaysia for precision spare tools.
Everything was on schedule and within my cost prediction for
the rst six months of the project. When we started to assemble
and test the system we started to have clogging problems with
the automated epoxy dispensing unit. In our specications, we
required a periodic maintenance for half an hour at every eight
hours to the automated assembly modules, namely at the begin-
ning of every shift. However, the epoxy temperature control and
dispensing required the system to be cleaned and maintained every
hour. is was totally unacceptable because it reduced our through-
put from the assembly system by 25%. It took our subcontractor
and the project team another three months to nd an acceptable
solution to the epoxy dispensing units short operating cycle. With
better temperature control and with a modied epoxy dispensing
unit, the periodic maintenance interval was increased from one
hour to four hours. During this unfortunate event, the cost of the
project soared by 40% and I had to go in front of the board again
to explain the failing adhesive dispensing submodule and the pro-
posed solutions and to ask for a three- month extension and a 40%
cost increase for my project. at was a painful experience to face
the board members, but the company board realized that there
was a light at the end of the tunnel and shelving the project at this
juncture would have been more harmful for our company.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
After a three- month delay, the qualication runs in Boston
started and went well. e Malaysian engineers learned the sys-
tem hands on and in great detail. However, we had to accept the
automated assembly modules with a four- hour periodic main-
tenance interval that resulted in a 6% throughput loss. I had to
again go in front of the company board to explain the nal status
of the automated assembly modules. I got their approval to accept
the system with 6% throughput loss, not to push our subcontrac-
tor to meet the system specications to the letter, and not to delay
the project further out.
We shipped two unassembled automated assembly modules by
air to Malaysia to gain time. We reassembled the two systems
in Malaysia and started to make qualication runs. Two engi-
neers from our subcontractor, two engineers from my team, three
Malaysian engineers, and myself got two automated assembly
modules ready for production in two weeks in Malaysia.
ere were some other unforeseen glitches in the Malaysian
operation of the two automation assembly modules. One glitch
was with the spare parts. In a three- shift operation a day and
six days a week, we were always short of spare parts. We had to
increase our spare parts supply by twofold in a hurry. Also, we had
to set up a two- day delivery system with Federal Express from the
United States from several of our automated assembly modules
component manufacturers.
Another issue in Malaysia was with one of the Malaysian engi-
neers. He had to leave the company for medical reasons. I had to
scramble and get one of the U.S.-based engineers on my team to
go to Malaysia and support them in the operation and mainte-
nance of the systems. He had to live in Malaysia for six months
until another Malaysian engineer was found and properly trained.
e Malaysian plants general manager was very helpful in nd-
ing a new Malaysian engineer.
Another nagging issue was the shortage of computer compo-
nents for assembly for a given customer. Some of the components
were delayed in customs or at the original manufacturer. Some
of the component lots were rejected at the receiving inspection
stage. Initially, two automated assembly modules were idle about
15% of the time in a given month. e Malaysian plant had to
increase the inventory of the computer components that had to be
assembled for a specic customer. After six months of operation
and a diligent component inventory control, the two automated
assembly modules idle time was reduced to 4%.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
After operating the two automated assembly modules for one
month in production, the precision alignment pins started to wear
out. Computer component assembly locations started to shift. I
requested our subcontractor to come to Malaysia urgently. We put
our heads together and decided that we had to replace all of the
precision alignment pins with ones that were made out of harder
material. We updated all the aected drawings and were able to
source the new harder precision pins in Germany. is retrot
to the two systems took two weeks and it made the automated
assembly modules operation much more stable.
After we qualied the two automation assembly modules, we
had to invite our customers to our plant in Malaysia for produc-
tion qualication runs for their specic computer component
assemblies. One of our customers was Japanese and the other was
French. We rst brought the Japanese customers representatives
into our plant and showed them our new automation assembly
module. We made a shifts worth of assembly runs for them, about
1,000 assemblies. We measured the critical parameters of all the
assemblies and studied their means and spreads. e means were
very close to the customers specication nominal. e spreads
were about 50% narrower than the manual assembly control
charts. e Japanese customer accepted the new automation
assembly module without any reservations. e following week,
we performed a similar qualication process for our French cus-
tomer. e French customers qualication also went smoothly.
After 14 months of challenging problem- solving sessions,
board meetings, communications, and travel between our U.S.
plant in California, our subcontractor in Boston, and our plant in
Malaysia, my project team, our subcontractor, and the Malaysian
project team did a great job of developing and implementing the
two automation assembly modules in our Malaysian plant.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
e diculties in setting up automated assembly lines in
developing countries.
As a project manager, details of a task are very crucial.
An issue can always pop up that you might have easily
overlooked.
Budget overruns are a part of life for a project manager.
How to deal with them in a timely fashion is a must.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
It is sometimes not feasible to comply with every speci-
cation of your project. You have to go to your customer
and ask for deviations using justiable reasoning.
You have to learn the infrastructure and capabilities of
each one of your teams personnel in utmost detail in all
foreign countries that you are dealing with.
Case1.21: Project ClosureLessons Learned Meetings
I was in the process of closing out a two- year project in advanced
electric bus design and manufacturing. My nal project status
report was accepted by my customer. I presented the nal project
metrics to the domestic and international upper management of
my company. I received a favorable nal project evaluation report
from my customers project manager. Everything regarding the
projects closure was going smoothly. en, I was called to an
emergency re-ghting mission to South Korea. I had to travel
to South Korea immediately and ended up staying there for three
weeks in order to straighten out my companys urgent issue with a
casting subcontractor. e only thing that was left open from my
projects closure was the lessons learned meetings with my team
members, with my domestic and international upper management,
with my customers project manager, and with my subcontractors.
When I returned to the United States, I compiled a list of les-
sons learned items from my two- year project. I tried to get a meet-
ing going with my old team members, but everyone was assigned
to other project teams and it was dicult to come up with a com-
mon meeting time. Also, interest in such project closure meetings
faded away fast. Everyone involved had dierent pressing priori-
ties. Two of my team members were assigned to a project in Japan.
Finally, I was able to gather eight out of ten team members to a
luncheon meeting. Of course, I promised to buy lunch for every-
one. I presented my lessons learned list. We discussed what to
do in the future in order not to fall into similar situations. I later
did the same presentation to two engineers residing in Japan via
video conferencing. I gave a similar lessons learned presentation
to my team members in Germany via videoconferencing. en I
called a lessons learned meeting for my upper management team
to which only half of the upper managers attended. I also called
my customers project manager and my major subcontractors to
discuss pertinent portions of my lessons learned list. Finally, I
52
Project ManageMent case studIes
released the lessons learned list with constructive input from all
my contacts into document control so that all future project man-
agers could easily access it. It took me a good part of a week to
complete my nal duties for my completed project. I charged my
time to the company overhead account because all project num-
bers were already closed.
e nal lessons learned list covered issues related to team
personnel, project specications, my company, my customer, my
subcontractors, project schedule, and project budget. In all of the
issues discussed during our lessons learned meetings, two of them
stood out and they were related to the projects cost. One lessons
learned item was the price of the bus frames which were built by
our subcontractor in Germany. We had to pay an extra 20% in
U.S. dollars for those frames due to devaluation of the U.S. dol-
lar against the Euro. In an international project like that one, my
company should have analyzed the future value of the U.S. dollar
against the Euro and should have bought Euros at the beginning
of the project to cover the cost of all bus frames. In our future
global projects, our chief nancial ocer was very careful in deal-
ing with my companys liabilities in dierent foreign currencies.
After this lessons learned event, my company bought sucient
futures in dierent foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar that
were required for our global projects.
e second lessons learned cost issue was due to the price
increase in special high- strength steel purchases. During the
course of the project, the price of special high- strength steel
increased substantially due to increasing worldwide demand. Our
purchasing department bought the steel in three segments from
three dierent customer- approved sources due to our tight cash
ow. is strategy worked against us as the price of steel skyrock-
eted. We should have bought all of the required steel at the begin-
ning of the project or we should have bargained with one steel
supplier to deliver the required amount in three installments at the
same initial price. Again, our purchasing strategies were improved
and scrutinized very carefully after this lessons learned event.
Closing a project appropriately can be painful and time con-
suming. However, rewards of a properly closed project can be
invaluable. Lessons learned from a completed project can be one
of the most important items on a project closure to-do list. As
project managers, we have to nalize lessons learned meetings
at all costs even if the interest in the completed project is quickly
fading away.
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Lessons learned from the execution of a project should
be documented and presented to everyone who played a
part in your project.
After a project winds down, it is dicult to get your old
team together for a meeting.
Case1.22: Penalties in a Project Contract
Penalties in a project contract can come with quite dierent word-
ing and meaning. As global project managers we have to fully
understand the meaning of these penalties. We need to bring our
lawyers into the picture if we have to clarify or modify certain
contract clauses. en we have to relay all of the information
related to a project contracts penalties in detail to our team mem-
bers and to our upper management. Liquidated damages are good
examples of a project contracts penalties.
In one of my project contracts, the liquidated damages were
worded as follows:
If Seller does not deliver goods in conditions stipulated and
in accordance with delivery times provided in this Contract,
Purchaser is entitled to recover reasonable liquidated damages per
each week of delay.
is was a vague penalty statement. What was the meaning of
reasonable? Who decided on the reasonable damage? I had to get
this statement modied before the start of the project. I got my
upper management and my legal department involved to clear up
this vagueness in the contract. After two weeks of negotiations
with the customer, the nal version of the contract for liquidated
damages read as follows:
If Seller does not deliver goods in conditions stipulated in this
contract and in accordance with delivery times provided in this
Contract, Purchaser will recover 4% of the total purchase price
per each week of delay as liquidated damages. A delivery delay
in goods caused by a force majeure impediment is excluded from
liquidated damages.
In another project contract, a penalty clause was stipulated as
follows:
Seller is obliged to deliver all goods according to packing, preser-
vation and marking instructions of Purchaser. If Seller does not
carry out these instructions, Purchaser is entitled to a price reduc-
tion of 5% of the total contract price.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
I reviewed the entire contract in order to nd these instructions,
but there were none. I called my customers project manager and
discussed missing packing, preservation, and marking instruc-
tions. We agreed on all the details in such a way that the price
of the contract did not change. He sent me a written conrma-
tion of all packing, preservation, and marking instructions. I
was relieved to nalize a missing item from my projects contract
before it was too late.
In a chip design project contract, the following contract
statement was very restrictive to the progress of my project in a
timely fashion.
Purchaser shall have the right to request changes from this con-
tract agreement. Seller shall not proceed with any such change
until an ocial change order is received from the Purchaser.
is clause was impossible to implement. e chip design speci-
cations were very uid. My team members and my customers
engineers conferred daily for specication clarications and for
additions and deletions to specications. e project could not
progress if I waited for an ocial change order from my cus-
tomer for every specication change event. I discussed this show-
stopper clause with my customers project manager. We agreed to
modify this contract clause as follows:
Purchaser shall have the right to request changes from this contract
agreement. Seller shall not proceed with any such change until
an e- mail describing the change is received from the Purchasers
Project Manager. All changes approved by e- mails shall be col-
lected monthly into an ocial change order by the Purchaser.
In one of my oshore oil platform equipment delivery projects,
the contract stipulated the delivery time as the date the equipment
in question was installed and was operational on the platform. If
I missed that date I was penalized by a liquidated damage clause
in my contract. I had to watch like a hawk for any equipment
installation delays caused by my customer. Several times their
power lines were not ready. On one occasion they had to perform
extensive welding, which blockaded the area of our equipment
installation. I recorded all these delays caused by my customer
and immediately informed my customers project manager so that
I would not get penalized for events that were beyond my control.
Penalties in a projects contract can be ambiguous, too general,
vague, inconsistent, redundant, and conicting. As global project
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case studIes In stakeholder ManageMent
managers, we have to catch these sinkholes before the execution
of our contracts and have them claried without any reservations.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to fully understand all
penalties written into our projects contract.
We have to get vaguely worded contract penalties well
dened by our customer and if necessary with the help of
our legal department.
We have to explain project penalties and their conse-
quences to our team members, to our upper management,
and to our subcontractors at the beginning of our projects.
57
2
Case studies in
sCope ManageMent
As project managers, we have to watch the scope of a project like
a hawk and we have to be the nal authority for the projects scope
changes. Changes and misinterpretations of a projects scope can
occur very easily behind our backs.
In a chip design project, the specications were written in a very
concise fashion and they were open to many interpretations. As the
design progressed, my team started to have numerous questions
about the specications that needed clarication. Also, my customer
in Germany wanted to add several enhancements to the chip design
along the way. Specications that are in a constant ux can be very
challenging to control as depicted in Case2.1.
During the manufacturing phase of a research safety vehicle proj-
ect, there was a sudden program manager change with our customer.
e new program manager was clueless about the history of the
program. He started to demand changes to the vehicle design that
were above and beyond the specication clarications and changes we
had agreed to with his predecessor. As project manager, I had to put
the brakes on and bring him back to reality in my project as detailed
in Case2.2.
In a xed price contract, the customers specications had quite a few
TBDs (to be determined items). For a project manager, TBDs required
a lot of attention and caused tremendous headaches between the cus-
tomers project manager and myself. I had to watch these TBDs like a
hawk. When a TBD specication was nalized by the customer, I had
to make sure that the claried specication was doable and that it did
not aect my projects cost and time constraints as shown in Case2.3.
In one project, I had dual customers and therefore two customers
project managers. To keep both customers project managers in sync
and happy took a lot of extra eort during the execution of my project.
58
Project ManageMent case studIes
I detail the issues I encountered with the dual customers project man-
agers in Case2.4.
We had to nish the manufacturing phase of a project destined
for Russia by the end of January so that we could test and ship the
heavy equipment mover system for installation and training during
the summer months there. Our customers project manager called me
and told me that several of their other subcontractors were delayed in
completing their tasks. ey also had some cash ow issues so they
wanted to delay our mover system to be installed during the following
summers window. A year delay to complete a project requires several
adjustments to tasks as shown in Case2.5.
I took over a project right in the middle of its design phase. My
customers project manager was accustomed to calling my teams
design engineers and ordering minor variations to the specications
on the telephone without my knowledge. Nothing was documented
and we were drifting away from the original project technical speci-
cations. Apparently, the previous project manager closed his eyes to
these minor specication variations and my customers project man-
ager became used to forcing these minor specication changes on my
design engineers as detailed in Case2.6.
I had several projects where minor scope changes occurred. I went
along with my customers requests without going through the mind-
boggling change approval cycle. My customers project manager followed
a similar process. is was a documented bartering process of minor
scope changes between my customer and me as detailed in Case2.7.
Software used in a project has to be scrutinized for compatibil-
ity very carefully. ere can be many unforeseen conicts and issues
between customers, subcontractors, and internal users of software. I
ran into several serious issues with software as detailed in Case2.8.
Case2.1: Specication Clarications
with a Customer in Germany
I had a nine- month project to develop the software for a mobile
phone wireless application connectivity chipset for a German cus-
tomer. I had six chip software design and test engineers working
on my team on a full- time basis. Our oces were in California
and my customers oces were in Munich, Germany. is nine-
hour dierence in the time zones brought to the surface several
59
case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
communication challenges, especially as the chipset specications
were written in a very concise fashion and they were open to many
interpretations. As the design progressed, my team started to have
numerous questions about the specications that needed clarica-
tions. Also, the customer wanted to add on several enhancements
to the chipset design along the way.
I was lucky that this custom chipset software development
project was not a xed price contract. It was a time and materi-
als agreement. I had to inform the customer weekly of how his
money was being spent on the project. ere were no punishing
scope changes and specication revisions. I only had to record
every specication clarication and every additional specica-
tion enhancement as the project moved on. is custom software
development project required precision and on-time communica-
tion methods with the customer. ese communication methods
had to eliminate any specication ambiguities in their uid state.
At the project kicko meeting with the customer, I oered to
have a daily one- hour telecommunication with my team and on
his end with him and the others that he wanted to bring into the
teleconference from Monday through Friday. e teleconference
time would be at 8a.m. Pacic standard time, which would make
it 5p.m. in Munich, Germany. He accepted my meeting proposal.
I also proposed that we both record the teleconference proceed-
ings so that we would not miss any specication clarications,
additions, or deletions. I also told the customers project manager
that I would review the meeting tape recordings daily and sum-
marize the contents and issue the meeting minutes by e- mail to
him for his approval within 24 hours. I would update the chip-
set design specications weekly, release the new revision to our
document control, and distribute them to the customers project
manager and to my team. e customers project manager was
very happy with my specication control procedures. We started
the project this way.
After the second week into the project, I started seeing delays
in my engineers performance. Specication clarications and
customers additions or deletions were not being handled on a
timely basis. is was such a dynamic project that my engineers
required instant clarications and solutions to specications. My
team and customers interface had to be in more real time. We
could not wait 24 hours to get a response from the customer for
specication clarications. e communication setup was bog-
ging down my engineers and hampering their progress.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
I had a team meeting to discuss the specications and cus-
tomer interface issues. Two of my senior software engineers
oered to change their schedule and work a swing shift from
6p.m. to 3a.m. from Sunday night through ursday night. ey
were used to these kinds of odd work hours from university days.
ey thought they would be more productive by not being dis-
turbed by other colleagues in the oce. is setup would give my
team four hours of direct interface with Germany from 11p.m. to
3a.m. ese two software designers were responsible for the most
critical segments of the chipset. I told them that their proposal
would be a great solution for our teams progress. is new setup
would give us ve hours of real- time interface with the customer.
My condition was that they had to tape record every conversation
with the customer so that I could collect all the clarications and
changes regarding the chipset specications. Also, I would have a
meeting with these two engineers from 6p.m. to 7p.m., Sunday
through ursday, in order to review their progress, to discuss the
issues they were having, to give them updates as to what was hap-
pening during the day shift, and to bring them up to date from the
results of my morning call with our customer.
I told them we would propose our new interface setup to our
customers project manager in the morning. I also told them that
I would discuss new working hours with their supervisors and
with human resources so that there were no hidden kinks in the
new proposal. ere could have been company security issues.
ere could have been overtime payment requirements. ese
engineers were salaried engineers and there was no overtime work
adjustment to their salaries. e supervisors of the two engineers
and human resources found no drawbacks for them to work from
6p.m. to 3a.m., Sunday through ursday night, for the duration
of my project.
e next morning, during our teleconference with our cus-
tomer, we discussed the new working hours of my two senior
engineers and how this new setup would improve real- time com-
munication to clarify ambiguities in specications. e custom-
ers project manager was very receptive to our proposal. My two
engineers started to work in the swing shift and this new setup
increased our real- time communication with the customer to ve
hours a day. is new setup was very eective in getting quick
responses to questions regarding chipset design specications
and it lasted for six months. Also, these two software designers
worked very eciently without being disturbed.
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
My team nished the chipset software design and test on
time. I generated a complete set of specications for the chipset
which was up to date. My customer appreciated the complete set
of specications tremendously. At the end of the project, I wrote
a resounding recommendation for the two software engineers
who had volunteered to work the swing shift. e beauty of this
solution was that the swing shift idea came from the engineers.
is was a win- winsituation for my project, for my company, and
above all for the customer.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a global project environment, real- time communica-
tion between your team and your customer might require
unusual work schedules.
As project managers, we have to notify our project team
members supervisors and get their approval for chang-
ing work schedules.
Keeping track of all changing project specications and
their clarications during the execution of a global proj-
ect can be very time consuming.
Case2.2: A Change in the Customers Program Manager
in the Middle of a Project
I was the project manager for the research safety vehicle develop-
ment for the National Highway Trac Safety Administration, an
agency for the Department of Transportation. e design phase
of the project was completed. We started to manufacture proto-
type vehicles and got them ready for crash testing. During the
course of the design and development process, there were many
specication clarications and changes to the vehicle. All speci-
cation clarications and changes were document controlled in our
company. Every revised version of the specications was submit-
ted to our customer.
During the manufacturing phase of the project, there was a
sudden program manager change with our customer. e new
program manager was clueless about the history of the research
safety vehicle program. He started to demand changes to the vehi-
cle design that were above and beyond the specication clarica-
tions and changes we agreed upon with his predecessor. He wanted
specication changes in the vehicles ground clearance, the vehicles
maximum curb weight, the vehicles side impact crashworthiness,
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Project ManageMent case studIes
and so on. e vehicle design had already been completed and it
was not possible to implement his new specication requests at this
stage of the project. When I refused to implement some of the
changes that he requested, things started to get tense between us. I
sensed a rising tension from his tone during our telephone confer-
ences. I had to do something urgently to bring this customers new
program manager to our level of understanding of vehicle speci-
cations and contract requirements.
I decided that I could not bring him up to date from 3,000miles
away in our research safety vehicle project, which had been going
on for three years. I kindly asked him to plan a trip to come to
our facilities in California and spend a week with us so that he
could meet my team members and could see our operations and
capabilities in person. My main purpose was to go over the history
of the project step by step with him. I wanted him to understand
all the specication clarications and changes that were made
during those three years. e customers new program man-
ager accepted my proposal, decided to leave his desk behind in
Washington, DC, and visit our facilities.
I sent him a proposed agenda for his visit. He accepted all of
my proposed agenda with some minor variations. e rst day was
dedicated to meeting my team members and our upper manage-
ment. On the second day, we concentrated on our manufacturing
facilities and our test facilities. On the third and fourth days, we
went through the history of the research safety vehicle project. We
went over every specication one by one. We reviewed all the spec-
ication clarications. We reviewed all the new specications that
were added on by my team or by his predecessor. en we reviewed
every contract modication and every monthly status report. He
was very impressed with our precise document control procedures.
On the fth day, we went over the master project schedule and
reviewed tasks that were on the critical path. He was brought up
to speed on every aspect of the project. He was very appreciative
of such a detailed project review. I was ecstatic too that he was
nally at the same level of understanding of the project as me and
my team.
By the afternoon of the fth day, we had covered everything we
could regarding the project and we deserved a break from work. I
took him to our city center for lunch and I played tour guide and
showed him the highlights of our city. During this interaction, I
learned a lot about the personal side of my customers new program
manager. He was also a tennis bu like me. Later, I invited him to
63
case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
play an hour of tennis with me. I provided him with all the tennis
gear. e customers new program manager left California with a
good understanding of the research safety project. He gained trust
in our project team and in our project processes. Above all, he
became a project contributing colleague and a good friend.
ese kinds of changes to critical personnel can happen in any
project. It is the project managers responsibility to bring the new
team member up to speed about the project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Bringing your customers new project manager up to
speed might need patience and require careful planning
and execution.
Mutual trust and respect established between you and
your customers project manager along with a personal
touch are signs of a matured project manager.
Case2.3: TBD and Erroneous Specications for a Project
We were doing a mooring system project for an oshore oil rig in
the Gulf of Mexico. It was a xed price contract, but the speci-
cations were sprinkled with a lot of TBDs (to be determined)
items. As the project manager, the TBDs required a lot of atten-
tion and caused tremendous headaches between the customers
project manager and myself. I had to watch these TBDs like a
hawk. When a TBD specication was nalized by the customer,
I had to ensure that the claried specication was doable and that
it did not aect my projects cost and time constraints.
Out of a dozen TBD specications, one was for the smoothness
of a stainless steel surface. I had to negotiate this TBD specica-
tion rigorously with the customers project manager. I did not want
to accept a tight specication that would have required extra ne
machining of stainless steel surfaces of our system. We rst agreed
on the smoothness measurement technique and then the mea-
surement sampling location and measurement length for traces.
en we agreed on the maximum R
a
value, maximum value of the
arithmetic average of absolute values of vertical deviations of the
roughness prole from the mean line. I sent my customers project
manager an e- mail outlining the agreed upon smoothness speci-
cation in detail and asked him to send me his approval note for this
TBD specication. After I received his approval note, I initiated
an engineering change order for the project specications in our
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document control system. I distributed the nal smoothness speci-
cation to all the engineers and manufacturing people who were
involved with the stainless steel surfaces. I also sent a copy of the
released project specication to my customers project manager.
One by one, we negotiated and agreed on all the TBD specica-
tions. One of these specications was the interface drawings that
were supposed to be delivered to us after four weeks from the start of
the project. It took them six weeks to deliver the interface drawings
to us. We were lucky to receive them in six weeks and fortunately,
they did not aect the progress of my project. So I did not raise any
ruckus with my customer about this crucial delay. I kept their delay
as an ace in my pocket to exchange it with a future project delay that
could have happened on our side.
We nished all our stress calculations and system components
designs on time. We as a team were ready for the mooring sys-
tem design review. We had a two- day meeting at our facilities.
During the meeting, the customers chief engineer told us that
the slots that were designed into the mooring system were good
for the chain passage, but they were not sized appropriately for the
passage of the chain connectors. My team and I were quite sur-
prised by this announcement by our customer, because the project
specications clearly identied the chain size and dimensions and
also identied that there would be no chain connectors in this
mooring system. I showed them their specications. My custom-
ers team was embarrassed to realize their slip in project speci-
cations. My customers project manager emphasized that we had
to redesign the mooring system for the chain connector passage.
e only solution was to evaluate the impact of this major
change to our project for manpower, cost, and schedule. I asked
my customers project manager to give me two days to analyze the
eects of this major change and to provide him with a written
revised proposal. He accepted my oer and they left our facilities
after throwing a major twist into the project. We had to redo all
of our stress calculations and change our design drawings. On top
of it all, I was not even sure if all the designers on my team were
available for the expanding project.
I had a meeting with my team to get their time estimates for the
customers new change order. I estimated the time and cost impact
of the engineering change order to the project. I met with the man-
agers of each member of my team regarding their availability for
the extended project. After I had all the facts, I collected my upper
management team for a meeting and showed them the impact of our
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
customers change order. ey made some minor changes to my cost
estimates. I got the upper managements blessing for the change order.
en I wrote a formal response to my customers project manager for
their proposed change. e project was delayed by two months and
this major slip in my customers specications cost them 20% extra.
My customers project manager discussed my schedule and cost
impact on the project to their change order with his upper man-
agement. ey had no negotiation leverage but to accept my pro-
posal. e surprising change order was a major slip on their part.
My team nished the project two weeks earlier than promised. My
teams eorts to nish the project two weeks early received excel-
lent reviews from my customers project manager.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
At the start of a project, there can be several TBD speci-
cations in your customers documents. As project man-
agers, we have to have them claried as soon as possible.
Sometimes a customers specications can be in error or
missing, which might change the course of your project.
Any major project specication changes have to be ana-
lyzed very carefully and with the utmost detail by you
and then presented to your upper management for their
approval. Your presentation should cover change order
eects on your team members, on the project schedule,
and on the project cost. en, the change order should be
introduced to your customer.
Case2.4: Dual Customer Project Managers for a Project
I was heading an electric bus design and manufacturing project for
the municipal transit district of a large metropolitan city. It was a
two- year project. My team had to design, build, and test 15 elec-
tric buses for operation in the citys downtown area as a free people
mover. e 40-passenger buses had to have a range of 50miles in
a stop- and- go downtown environment before changing their bat-
teries with a fully charged set. is was a dream and a leading-edge
project in the 1980s. e project was sponsored by the Department
of Transportation. e interesting part of the project was that I
had two bosses for the project. One was the project manager from
the Department of Transportation who sponsored the project and
the other was the project manager from the citys municipal transit
district who was going to utilize the electric buses.
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We also had to deliver the buses to the citys municipal transit
district and had to train their personnel for operation and main-
tenance of the buses. As a project manager, my duties were almost
doubled. I had to communicate ins and outs of the project to both
project managers. I had to keep both of them up to date regard-
ing the project. Both project managers had to be present at all the
critical meetings. Critical meetings had to be set up by consid-
ering both project managers schedules. Whenever there was an
engineering change order, both project managers had to sign it
o. I had to keep track of all the correspondence with both project
managers. ese routine tasks were ne and dandy, but when the
two project managers had conicting ideas and demands about
the project, things got out of hand. I acted as an ombudsman and
tried to resolve the conicting issues by having telephone con-
versations between the three of us. If telephone dialogue did not
work out, I had to bring all three of us into a meeting room.
One of the conicts came from the minimum ground clear-
ance specication. e initial minimum ground clearance speci-
cation was 9 inches. All the design was done per this specication.
During the design review meeting, the municipal transport dis-
trict project manager requested this minimum ground clearance
to be increased to 12 inches. I explained to them that at this stage
of the project it would be dicult to change this specication and
I explained the reasons. I told them if they insisted on increasing
the minimum ground clearance of the buses, we had to redesign
several subcomponents. is would delay the project by at least
two months and it would also have a cost increase impact. e
Department of Transportation project manager insisted that we
stay with the original specication, but the municipal transport
district project manager did not budge from his request. I saw
that we were not going to resolve this conict during the meet-
ing. I requested a recess. I gathered the two project managers
into a smaller conference room away from my project team. We
discussed the pros and cons of increasing the minimum ground
clearance specication in detail. I made the municipal transport
district project manager agree to the fact that the citys downtown
route was very at with no dips or bumps. I also listed all the
changes that had to be implemented in order to comply with
his request. e Department of Transportation project manager
allowed me to do all the talking and convincing. I asked both of
them to sleep on this conicting specication and to make a deci-
sion by tomorrows design review meeting.
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
e next morning at the beginning of our design review meet-
ing, both project managers announced that they agreed to stay
with the original minimum ground clearance specication. is
was quite a relief to me and to my project team.
Another conict between the two project managers surfaced
toward the end of the project about the driving cycles that were to
be used to test buses for a range specication of 50miles. We pro-
posed to load a vehicle with fully charged batteries with sandbags to
simulate 40 passengers and run it on an airport runway mimicking
a citys downtown stop- and- go environment. e municipal trans-
port district project manager bought into our proposal. He asked us
to repeat the test three times with dierent buses in order to get an
accurate understanding of the electric buses range. is time, the
Department of Transportation project manager had issues with my
range test proposal. He wanted us to ship two completed buses to
the city and run those two buses there for a week while transport-
ing people, using its air conditioning, and operating its wheelchair
ramps. He wanted a real life test in the citys downtown driving
environment before accepting our buses. ese proposed range tests
were risky because of the uncontrolled environment. I had a tele-
conference with both project managers to discuss the range test pro-
cess. After an hour of negotiating they both agreed that we would
perform the controlled range tests as I proposed. en after they
accepted the buses, we would ship two buses to the city to be tested
for range in the actual downtown environment. is agreement was
a win- win agreement for both sides. We got what we wanted because
my priority was the acceptance of the buses. e Department of
Transportation project manager got what he wanted, too.
Both range tests were performed without a hitch. At the simu-
lated range test, we got close to 60miles of range. At the citys
downtown range tests, we got higher ranges because the buses
were not always fully loaded.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, you can have more than one boss
on your projects customer end.
Conicts can arise between your multiple bosses at the
customers end that can negatively aect the progress of
your project.
You might have to bring your multiple bosses together to
discuss and to negotiate a just solution to the issue at hand.
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Case2.5: A Customer Delays Installation and Training
I was heading a two- year heavy equipment mover system proj-
ect for Russia to be installed at a Siberian location. e project
had four phases, which were design, manufacturing, testing
and installation, and training. e design phase was completed
in eight months on time and within budget. e critical design
review was held in our facilities in the United States and it went
very smoothly. We were in the nine- month manufacturing phase
of the mover system. We had to nish the manufacturing phase by
the end of January so that we could test and ship the mover system
to Russia for installation and training during the summer months
there. e customer gave us a four- month window for the instal-
lation and training phase in Siberia, namely, the months of May,
June, July, and August.
We worked hard to complete manufacturing by the end of
January. I had to authorize some overtime work due to several inef-
ciencies during the Christmas break. We were almost about to
complete our manufacturing operations and the customer came
to us with surprising news. Our customers project manager called
me and told me that several of their other subcontractors were
delayed in completing their tasks. ey also had some cash ow
issues so they wanted to delay our mover system to be installed
during the following summers window. I told him that I would
discuss this sudden shift of events with my upper management
and would get back to him with my response in two days.
First, I collected my team for a meeting and discussed the
implications of the installation and training delay for a year.
Everyone on my team concurred that we should test the mover
system in our facilities during February and March without delay
and we should have our customer come to our facilities to accept
the mover system. After the mover system was accepted we should
crate the system for surface shipment. en, we should nd a stor-
age space that was clean and that was temperature and humid-
ity controlled to store the mover system for a year. We should
also charge the mover system transfer and storage expenses to
our customer.
en I had a meeting with my upper management team to
inform them of my customers delay and to discuss my teams
counterproposal to this delay. Upper management was very recep-
tive to our proposal. A one- year delay in completing the project
would have a minimal eect on our cash ow. All my team mem-
bers would be allocated to other projects by the end of March.
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
Four of my engineers would be reassigned to my project the fol-
lowing May for installation and training in Siberia. We decided
not to apply the penalty clause of the project agreement for their
delaying the project. My upper management gave me the green
light to make our counterproposal to our customer. During these
internal negotiations with my upper management, I asked two
of my engineers who had some slack time to investigate the
expenses for a storage facility. We needed about 2,000 square feet
of space for a year. ey found a couple of alternative storage spots
close to our facility. e mover system transfer and storage costs
for a year were estimated to be between $40k and $50k.
e next day, I called our customers project manager in
London and gave him the details of our counterproposal. He also
wanted to delay the acceptance tests, but I stood my ground in
order not to delay the acceptance tests. I told him that we were not
applying any penalty clauses of our agreement for their delay. And
that we were doing extra work to nd a storage space to store the
mover system under very secure and favorable environmental con-
ditions for a year for just $40k. He said he had to go back to his
people and get their input for my counterproposal. I did not hear
from him for two days. During this time, I put our counterpro-
posal in an item- by- item written format and e- mailed it to him. I
called him back to see what was going on. He asked for another
week before he could make a decision on our counterproposal.
During this time, we started testing the completed subsystems
of the mover system. I allocated two months of testing and nal
acceptance for the completed mover system.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Completion of your project can be delayed by your
customer.
Always get your project team involved for major changes
and decisions to your project.
Always get your upper managements approval for major
changes and decisions to your project.
Stand your ground with your customers during negotia-
tions if the issue at hand is caused by them.
Case2.6: Project Scope Changes
I was brought in as the project manager of an advanced vehicle
development project during the detailed design phase. e previous
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Project ManageMent case studIes
project manager had to resign from our company due to health rea-
sons. My customer was the U.S. Department of Transportation. I
had a team of six automotive design engineers working on my team.
When I came into the project, the rst thing I did was to learn the
advanced vehicle specications and the deliverables timeline. en I
learned the responsibilities and capabilities of every team member.
I went to Washington, DC from California to meet with my cus-
tomers project manager and to generate a close rapport with him.
According to the original schedule, we were about two weeks
late and the project was running over budget by 6% when I took
over. One thing that bothered me was that my customers project
manager was accustomed to phoning my teams design engineers
and ordering minor variations to the specications without my
knowledge. Nothing was documented and we were drifting away
from the original project technical specications. Apparently, the
previous project manager closed his eyes to these minor speci-
cation variations and my customers project manager got used to
forcing these minor specication changes on my design engineers.
e rst thing I did was to have an emergency team meeting.
I went over all pending redlines that were not released through
document control. e original specications were still at revi-
sion A. I asked my team members not to accept any changes to the
specications without my knowledge. If a specication change
was requested by the customer over the telephone, it did not
matter how minor the change request was, it had to go through
me. We all agreed to the new strict specication change rules. I
revised the specications to revision B and sent it to my customers
project manager for his approval.
en I asked my customers project manager to travel to our
plant so that we could nalize the revised technical specications.
I sat with him for three days face- to- face to go over each redline
and got his nal approval for revision B to the contracts technical
specications. I told him that we were falling behind in the project
due to the minor changes that were piling up. I asked him politely
to go through all the changes with me whether they were minor
or not. I told him he could talk to the individual design engineers
as many times as he wished, but if there was a change looming on
the horizon, he had to go through me. I emphasized that if the
change was urgent, I could redline the technical specications,
sign it, and release it to the responsible design engineer that same
day. en I could have the technical specications go through
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
an ocial revision after piling up a couple of minor changes. If
a change were going to aect the project schedule and cost, then
I would provide him with my new schedule and cost estimates. I
then could get the change approved and implemented only after
his written concurrence with me regarding the new project sched-
ule and project cost. He agreed with me on all my scope change
procedures.
I kept the project technical specications current. I made
sure that changes went through our document control with
top priority. I always kept my design engineers on top of the
technical specications. I reviewed all the changes during our
weekly team meetings. When the project design phase was
completed after nine months, the technical specications were
at revision K.
Similar technical specication control rules apply between your
subcontractors and your company. Your customer should not be
able to go to your subcontractor directly and ask for a scope change.
Technical specications make up one of the critical legs of a
project structure. e other three critical legs of the project struc-
ture are the schedule, the cost, and the team. If one of those legs is
out of sync, the project will start to wobble, lose control, and sink.
As project managers, we will denitely fail. Keeping the scope
changes of a project under tight control without causing your cus-
tomer to become frustrated and angry is a must.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Taking on a project in the middle of execution is very
courageous and risky.
You have to absorb and evaluate all aspects of your new
project very fast.
You have to initiate changes to project activities that you
see as inappropriate.
It is always quite challenging to be able to change old
established habits in a project environment.
Case2.7: Bartering Minor Scope Changes
In a project, scope changes are a fact of life. Every time there is
a scope change initiated by your customer, by yourself, and/ or by
your subcontractors, you do not have the luxury of going through
several approval signatures and specication revisions. As a project
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Project ManageMent case studIes
manager, you have to assess if a scope change aects your projects
cost, schedule, and team members. For minor eects, you do not
have to rattle the apple cart and go through a tedious approval cycle
and specication revisions. Many times, minor scope changes can
be agreed upon between two project managers. You can receive an
e- mail from your customers project manager for his approval of a
minor change you proposed or vice versa. You have to store these
e- mails in case a conict arises in the future.
I had several projects where minor scope changes occurred. I
went along with my customers requests without going through
the mind- boggling change approval cycle. My customers proj-
ect manager followed a similar process. I applied similar rules to
my subcontractors. I had to be practical. I bartered minor scope
changes with my customers and with my subcontractors. For
some picky customers project managers, I collected all minor
scope changes during the course of the project and revised all
contract specications at the closure of the project.
One example of bartering minor scope changes occurred dur-
ing the design and construction of the equipment of an oshore
oil platform. e control panel window size was specied as 10
by 16 with no tolerances. In the nal design, our control panel
window size came out to 9.5 by 15. I asked my customers project
manager for a deviation. He accepted and conrmed the new con-
trol panel window size by e- mail. He told me that he was going to
ask me for a minor change too. e customer specication asked
for a -inch thick tempered glass cover for the equipment gauge
panel. e customers engineers wanted to change from glass
material to Lexan polycarbonate with a UV-resistant exterior sur-
face. Also, Lexan oered 250 the impact resistance of tempered
glass at half the weight. I told him that I would investigate his
change oer and get back to him in two days. We had already
bought the tempered glass for the project. I called the glass vendor
and discussed the material change in our design. He said that he
would accept the return of the glass and only charge us a restock-
ing fee, which was a small amount. I then called the Lexan vendor
and got pricing and delivery information for the amount needed
for the project. e delivery time was acceptable and the pricing
was 6% higher. All these changes caused by the new material were
minor and acceptable from my point of view. I called my custom-
ers project manager and explained in detail the material change
process. I bartered his scope change and sent him an acceptance
e- mail. We did not go through a formal specication revision at
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
that time. We did the update on all project specications at the
end of the project.
In another project for an advanced electric bus design and
construction, plastic hanging passenger straps and their plastic
fasteners came from the vendor in a cobalt blue color. e cus-
tomers specication asked for a gray color. I did not have time
to reject the straps and their fasteners. Lead time was an issue.
I called my customers project manager and explained the color
dierence and what it would take to change them. I had done
some minor specication changes for him in the past without a
fuss. So he owed me one. He accepted the new color and con-
rmed it by e- mail.
ese kinds of minor scope changes frequently occur especially
in software design and development. e customers project man-
ager requests several minor software specication changes almost
every day. My team members will also ask me to ask our customer
for some minor changes in software specications daily. A gentle-
mans understanding between two project managers is a must for
the project to ow smoothly and not to have to wait through sev-
eral approval signature cycles and document control procedures
for specication revisions. As the project manager, the bottom
line is to document these bartered minor specication changes in
order to avoid any conicts downstream.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Approval of project scope and specication changes can
be very tedious and time consuming both at your com-
pany and at your customers company.
Minor scope and specication changes can be accom-
plished in writing between you and your customers proj-
ect manager without going through the formal scope
change process.
Case2.8: Keeping Up with Software Revisions
During the execution of a project, team members use several
dierent types of software. We have to deal with internally and
externally developed software. We have to deal with customers
and subcontractors software. We have to make sure that the soft-
ware is compatible and at the same revision levels. I have come
across several issues with software during my project management
career. I will cover four such cases in this section.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
We had an internally developed magnetic recording head y-
ing height calculator software. All of the design engineers on my
team used this software. e developer of the software was a well-
known scientist who worked in the companys research and devel-
opment group. He was good at what he developed, but he was
not meticulous in document controlling his softwares revisions
and updating his softwares user manual. My teams design engi-
neers were using dierent versions of the software and they were
making errors. I had to take this sloppy situation under control. I
went to the scientists oce and politely explained several issues
we had with his software. He accepted that his revision release
process was not perfect. He told me that he was a sloppy, but good
scientist and not a disciplined revision controller. It was going to
be hard to change his sloppy behavior at his level. So I oered
to release new versions of his software and user manual on docu-
ment control myself and to inform all users. I wanted everyone to
be on the same page when they used his ying height calculator
software. He agreed with my proposal. I took over releasing new
versions and user manual updates. All user errors diminished.
My design engineers had no issues using our internally developed
ying height calculator software.
I was heading a team in an oil platform subsystem design, man-
ufacturing, and installation project for the Russian Federation.
I used MS Projects latest revision as my project management
software. I presented our projects schedule and critical tasks to
my customer during the customer kicko meeting. Everything
was ne and dandy. My customers project manager asked me to
send him by e- mail an updated project schedule with percentage
completed task estimates every Monday. e problem was that
they could not open my MS Project le and review my updated
project schedule. My customers company used dierent proj-
ect management software, which was not compatible with MS
Project. I oered to send him my weekly updates in a PDF format.
He accepted my solution. Every week after updating my projects
schedule, I had to convert it to the PDF format and e- mail to my
customer that way.
In another project software case, a subcontractor was design-
ing and manufacturing some trolleys for a transport system on an
oil platform. My design engineers were using the most current
release of AutoCad to design the transport system. My trolley
subcontractor was using an old version of AutoCad. By the way,
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case studIes In scoPe ManageMent
AutoCad had 28 revisions from its rst release in 1982 through
2014. e subcontractor sent us his AutoCad drawing les for
trolleys so that my design engineer could interface them into the
system drawings and verify that there were no issues. Several
callouts and dimensions on the trolley drawings were transferred
erroneously. My design engineer had to check each and every call-
out and dimension for the trolleys and correct several of them so
that our system drawings were intact. Backward compatibility of
software releases should be checked very thoroughly at all costs.
ere can be some hidden surprises in dierent software releases.
In an integrated circuit design case, my teams design engi-
neers used Verilog, a hardware description language software. My
engineers were trained at school and at work to use Verilog soft-
ware to describe functionalities of the circuit. One of my German
customers required us to use VHDL software for the integrated
circuit design for them. ey put this requirement into their tech-
nical specications. I discussed this design software choice issue
with my customers project manager. He insisted that internally,
his company only used VHDL software. at was the reason they
put this requirement into their specications. So as their subcon-
tractor, my designers had to use the VHDL software. He did not
budge at all in using the Verilog software. Our sales group missed
this critical point when they signed the contract with our cus-
tomer. Most experienced ASIC (application specic integrated
circuit) designers could use both kinds of software, but my teams
design engineers were fresh out of school and they were only
trained in using the Verilog software. I had to scramble and get
a training program going for the VHDL software. I had my six
design engineers trained in VHDL software in a crash course in
two weeks. ey designed all parts of the circuit for my German
customer in VHDL language. ey were slow at the beginning
of the project, but they became more ecient as the project pro-
gressed. At the end of the project, all my design engineers were
very thankful to me for making them learn the VHDL software.
ey became ecient in both kinds of software, which was good
for them and for my company.
e software used in a project has to be scrutinized very care-
fully. ere can be many unforeseen conicts and issues between
customers, subcontractors, and internal users. Errors generated by
using dierent software and dierent software releases can sink a
projects schedule and cost performance.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Software used during the execution of your project by
your team members, by your customers, and by your
subcontractors has to be compatible and has to be at the
same revision levels.
Internally developed software has to be released through
your document control and the softwares revision levels
have to be the same across your company.
77
3
Case studies in
knowledge ManageMent
Knowledge management is the foundation of your project. Depth
of knowledge in your team members to your subcontractors can sail
smoothly or sink a project.
My subcontractor was designing and constructing trolleys with a
10-ton load capacity for one of my projects. Contract specications
called for a bronze coating over the trolley wheels for a nonspark
operation with very tight tolerances. My subcontractor insisted that
a bronze coating with such tight tolerances was not manufacturable.
He had to educate me on bronze coating techniques. He had to show
me what was doable and what the limits of the bronze coating process
were. I was a bridge between my subcontractor and my customer in
order to get tight specications relaxed. Details of this case are pro-
vided in Case3.1.
My project management experience spanned several dierent
technology- based companies. Leading-edge technical knowledge is
the basis of an engineering project. I made sure that my engineers
were trained and excelled in state of the art technological advances.
When we bid for a project contract, we sold our technical knowledge
and expertise in that particular eld. I had to orchestrate to have an
excellent collective technical knowledge internally and through our
partners and consultants as depicted in Case3.2.
As project managers, we have to make sure that all our team play-
ers are ready and up to par for presentations in front of the customers,
regulatory agencies, inspectors, and upper management. Many factors
can spoil a presentation as shown in Case3.3.
As project managers, we should always encourage our project team
members to record their new ideas and ndings in engineering books
and have them signed and dated by a colleague so that their new
ideas and ndings can be veried and patented for the companys
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Project ManageMent case studIes
and their benet. An interesting patent application is described in
Case3.4.
e not invented here syndrome can happen at an individual
level or at a company level. Some company ocers sometimes refuse
to change company designs or procedures by better and proven ones
available from the outside. is organizational level of not invented
here syndrome can degrade a companys performance and aect your
projects performance as shown in Case3.5.
As project managers, we have to encourage our team members to
attend technical conferences and shows as long as they are within our
companys guidelines. However, we have to establish with our team
members as to who is going where at the beginning of the project. It is
our responsibility to balance our projects responsibilities with techni-
cal conferences and shows as detailed in Case3.6.
Methods of interpretation for a callout on a drawing can be quite
dierent even from person to person in a global project as depicted in
Case3.7. Inviting the nal user of the design drawings to the design
review meeting is a must. As project managers, it is our responsibility
to bridge the gap between the designer and the user.
Paying attention to details and checking out all possible conse-
quences of a task is the rst amendment in the laws of global engi-
neering project management. In one of my global projects, I made a
mistake in believing a departed project manager and my teams engi-
neers regarding the equivalence of U.S. and European certication
standards as detailed in Case3.8.
Some project managers are closed- minded. ey are intolerant and
unreceptive to others new ideas. eir actions discourage team mem-
bers. Team members stop contributing for the good of the project.
Even some out- of- line suggestions can have value. As project manag-
ers, we should listen to and weigh all options before deciding on a
course of action in a task as depicted in Case3.9.
As a global team, your team members should be knowledgeable
of all pertinent project specications and requirements. ey have to
trickle down as required to all the people involved in your global proj-
ect as depicted in Case3.10. In a global project, a personalized trickle
down project management is not possible. In such cases, you have to
rely on your oshore managers.
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Intellectual property guidelines have to be sorted out at the begin-
ning of a project. Dos and donts have to be advised to all team mem-
bers. As project managers, we are totally responsible for honoring
the intellectual property rules of a project. My several challenging
encounters to protect intellectual property are given in Case3.11.
Case3.1: Respecifying Bronze Coating ickness on Wheels
In project management, you are constantly destined to negoti-
ate contract specications with your customer and with your sub-
contractors. You start the project with claried and agreed upon
specications during the bidding phase of the project. Most of
these bidding phase deals might be done by the sales group of your
company. When you get into the execution phase of the project
you might realize that some of the specications are not doable.
You have to inform you customers contract manager immediately
and come to terms with him or her.
I had several heated negotiations with my customers project
manager about specications during the design, construction, and
installation of an oshore oil platform system. e design was
for a Class 1 hazardous environment in which ammable gases
or vapors could be present in the air in sucient quantities to be
explosive or ignitable. According to the contract specications, all
moving part surfaces had to be nonsparking.
One of my subcontractors was designing and constructing trol-
leys with a 10-ton load capacity. Contract specications called
for a 0.010 0.001 thick bronze coating over the wheels for a
nonspark operation. My subcontractor called me one morning
and told me that his man, a sub- subcontractor, said that doing the
bronze coating would not control the 0.001 thickness tolerance
all the way around the wheel, especially at the radius between the
bottom of the wheel and the sides of the wheel. He said that he
talked with several other bronze coating people and received the
same response. e best bronze thickness tolerance they could do
around the radius was 0.005. He asked me to authorize a speci-
cation deviation for bronze coating tolerance over the radius of the
wheels. I told him that I would contact my customer immediately
and get back to him with a written specication deviation in a day.
I called my customers project manager and explained the situ-
ation. He had to discuss the bronze coating tolerance issue with
his engineer. I received a response from him in the afternoon that
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they could not relax the tolerance around the radius because of
the Class 1 hazardous environment. His response was not accept-
able. I had to pursue this specication relaxation so that my sub-
contractor could get the trolley wheels built. Wheel radius was
a noncontact area and it did not touch the rails at all for spark
generation. I asked him if I could discuss the tolerance relaxation
issue directly with his engineer. He gave me permission to do so.
I called the mechanical engineer who put together the trolley
specications. He was a novice engineer right out of college. He
was very adamant about the bronze coating tolerance specica-
tions. I told him that no manufacturer in the United States could
comply with his tight specications around the radius of the trol-
ley wheels. I assured him and showed him on our assembly draw-
ings that there was no contact at the surface of the radius with the
rails where I was requesting the relaxation of the bronze coating
tolerance. I proposed to perform a 100% inspection for bronze
coating thickness and for pinholes in coating around the radius.
He felt better after I threw in the 100% inspection requirement
and agreed to relax the specication. He informed my customers
project manager about his change of mind after the discussion
with me and after my proposed 100% inspection requirement.
I received an e- mail conrming the bronze coating thickness
relaxation around the radius to be 0.010 0.005 with the 100%
inspection requirement in the radius region. I forwarded to my
subcontractor the relaxed specication. He was happy for the
specication relaxation, but not happy about the added inspec-
tion. He told me that the 100% inspection was going to cost him
four hours of extra inspection time for every trolley. I convinced
him that you win some and you lose some in these specication
negotiations. In this case, we won a more signicant victory. e
added burden of four hours of inspection per trolley was minor as
compared to the bronze coating thickness relaxation in a hazard-
ous environment.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we are the conduit connecting our
subcontractors and our customers.
You can learn a lot from your subcontractor about his
special area of expertise.
You have to evaluate your subcontractors change requests
in a timely fashion and help them to progress smoothly
in their portions of the project.
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Case3.2: Technical Training Needs
My project management experience spanned several dierent
technology- based companies. Leading-edge knowledge was the
basis of our strength. I had to make sure that my engineers were
trained and excelled in state of the art technological advances. When
we bid for a project contract, we sold our knowledge and expertise in
that particular eld. I had to orchestrate collective technical knowl-
edge internally and through our partners and consultants.
I was managing a project for an oil company in the Arctic
region where the temperature plummeted down to 50C. We
had to perform our stress analyses of structures for 100-year seis-
mic events at very low temperatures. I had four mechanical design
engineers on my project team. Two of them needed to come up
to speed in the latest developments in very low temperature stress
analysis. I asked these two engineers to search and come up with
a training plan for their upcoming tasks.
One of the design engineers came back to me with an exten-
sive proposal. He wanted to take two classes and attend two con-
ferences during the rst three months of the project. He wanted
to take a course online entitled, Fracture Toughness of Materials
Crack Tip Displacement eory at Very Low Temperatures.
Another course he wanted to take at a local university was entitled,
Alternating Stress Fatigue Analysis at Very Low Temperature.
He wanted to attend two conferences. One was the Oshore
Technology Conference and the other was the Mechanics of Time-
Dependent Materials Conference. ese courses and conferences
were very good ones for our technology base, but that he would have
to spend 20% of his time during the rst six months of the project
on training. Also, our companys overhead budget allowed for only
one course and one conference expense per engineer every year.
I went to his cubicle and discussed his training proposal. I told
him that I was very much in favor of getting training in leading-
edge technologies. I also emphasized that my projects sched-
ule and our companys education budget could not handle two
courses and two conferences in the next six months. I asked him
to prioritize his choices and take one course this year and the sec-
ond course next year and to make similar choices in attending
conferences. He agreed with me and decided on his course
and conference choices for the rst year. I took his choices to his
supervisor and to human resources for their approval. Everything
worked out so that my project was not delayed and one of my
mechanical design engineers was trained appropriately.
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e second mechanical design engineer on my team had a dif-
ferent view on technology training. Online courses that he chose
were in game theory and in statistical process controls. He also
wanted to attend the International Conference on Ocean, Oshore
and Arctic Engineering in Oslo, Norway. I discussed his course
and conference choices with him. His main interests were in
mathematics. His game theory course choice did not apply to our
technology base at all. His statistical process control choice applied
only to our volume production products. His choice of a conference
in Oslo, Norway, was going to be way over the allocated budget.
I encouraged him to take courses more in line with our technol-
ogy base. I also encouraged him to nd an appropriate conference
closer to home. He did more searching and came back to me with
an online course in dynamic nite element analysis at very low tem-
peratures. He switched his conference to an international pipeline
conference in Houston, Texas. Both of his choices were approved
by his supervisor and by our human resources department.
Orchestrating the technical knowledge base of a company is one
of the most important and challenging tasks of a project manager.
Learning gives impetus and constant drive to your team members.
You have to have that ame for learning desire always lit in your
team. Broad- based technological ndings come out of collabora-
tive eorts between your team members, your company depart-
ments, your consultants, your subcontractors, and your customers.
Including the needed courses and conferences into your project
schedule for every team member should be one of your top priorities.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Keeping your local and international team members up
to speed with advancing technology should be top prior-
ity for an engineering project manager.
Necessary training courses and conferences should be
included in your projects schedule and budget.
Case3.3: Abysmal Performance at Design Review
I had an excellent group of ve software design engineers in a
one- year project to upgrade a data communication chip. My
customer was U.S. based. e project was moving smoothly on
schedule and within budget. I was updating my customers proj-
ect manager by telephone weekly and was sending him a weekly
document controlled progress report.
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We were scheduled to have our rst design review meeting in
two weeks at our facilities. My customers project manager, their
engineering vice president, and their two senior engineers were
going to attend the design review meeting. I arranged for our
internal design review meeting one week before the one with the
customer. First, I gave an overall status of the project. en each
of my software design engineers summarized their portions of the
project. After each presentation, I opened the oor for questions
and answers. Some engineers needed some polishing in critical
areas, especially related to complying with the customers speci-
cations. Overall, we were ready for the big day facing the cus-
tomer the following week.
e design review meeting started with initial introductions
and with small talk regarding the data communications industry.
My customers engineering vice president emphasized the impor-
tance of the chip we were designing for his company and how it
t into their future product plan. en I presented the overall
status of the project. I detailed the schedule and cost performance
indices for each task group. Afterward, my two software design
engineers presented the status of their tasks. ere were several
discussions regarding the specications and their clarications.
Everything was going according to my plan and my customer
seemed very relaxed and happy about the progress of the project.
Afterward we had a lunch break. Lunch was brought into the
conference room. After a quick bite to eat, everyone rushed to
check their e- mails and respond to their voice mails. I reserved
two oces for my customers people so that they could work in
privacy during their breaks in our facilities.
After lunch, the third software design engineer from my team
began his presentation. He started to deviate from his prepared
PowerPoint presentation and then stumbled over several speci-
cation clarication questions. I tried to intervene and correct the
situation. My software design engineer seemed to be in another
world. I was worried. I immediately asked for a recess. I took the
software design engineer to my oce to nd out what was hap-
pening to him. He started crying. He told me that he had a ght
at home with his wife. She was going to leave him. He could not
sleep all night. He was devastated. I told him that he should have
informed me before the meeting as to what was going on with
him. I could have canceled his presentation. He told me that he
had thought he could still perform well under his highly stressed
condition. He was very sorry that he botched his presentation in
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front of the customer. I told him to go home, to get some rest, and
to straighten himself out. I told him that I would take care of the
customer and would explain his situation to them.
We reconvened in the conference room after a half an hour
break. I explained to my customer that my software design engi-
neer had a family issue and he was highly stressed out. He could
not continue his presentation. I also told them that my software
design engineer was good and reliable. I oered to visit their
facilities with my software design engineer and he could give his
portion of the presentation as soon as he straightened out his fam-
ily issues. ey agreed to my proposal and they wished a speedy
recovery to my software design engineer. e rest of the design
review meeting went well. ey said that they would release the
partial project payment to my company after we had completed
the design review at their facilities. I informed upper management
and our human resources of what had happened, but I assured
them that everything was under control and my software design
engineer was an excellent talent for our company.
Two weeks after the eventful design review meeting, my software
design engineer settled down. He straightened out his family issues
and he was back to normal. He again apologized to me and to all the
team members during our weekly team meeting. I arranged for the
continuation of our design review meeting at our customers place.
He made a good presentation there and our customer was very sat-
ised with his much- improved performance. I fully supported my
software design engineer during his unfortunate ordeal. e only
setback was the two weeks of delay for our partial payment.
After this episode, I made sure beforehand that all my team
players were up to par for presentations in front of the customers,
regulatory agencies, inspectors, upper management, and so on.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A project manager has to prepare his or her team mem-
bers meticulously for project design review meetings
with customers.
If something goes haywire during a project design
review meeting with your customer, immediately request
a recess to correct the issue at hand.
Right before design review meetings, make sure that all
your team members are in top- notch condition to give
their presentations.
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Case3.4: Patent Rights
In the computer disk drive industry, the cost of the drives
decreased every year while the areal density of the information
that was recorded on a magnetic disk increased exponentially.
We had to keep ahead of our competition. ere was no breath-
ing room to pause or relax for a moment. I was heading a team
of magnetic design engineers to improve the performance of our
magnetic recording heads. My team came up with several ideas
to advance the magnetic recording process. One such idea was to
reshape the magnetic head slider so that it could y closer to the
magnetic disk and also it could be shaped so that magnetic ux
losses in the slider body could be minimized. is idea came from
one of my senior physicists.
I always cautioned my engineers to write down their nd-
ings in their engineering books and have them signed and dated
by a colleague. When the patent application time came for an
improved design, being detailed in your engineering write- ups,
and signatures and dates was very important. e improved mag-
netic head design idea had to be veried. Two engineers on my
team and the senior physicist got a couple of thousand magnetic
heads made to the new design and got them tested thoroughly
for a month. We saw statistically signicant improvements in the
magnetic head performance. We were elated and I immediately
called our companys patent lawyer for a patent application.
We kept the information about our improved magnetic head
design within our team and the patent lawyer until the patent
was ocially applied for to the U.S. patent oce. We wanted to
protect our intellectual property overseas too, especially in the
disk drive manufacturing centers such as Japan, Malaysia, and
Singapore. We also applied for a patent in those countries.
e senior physicist and the two engineers sat down with the
patent lawyer for a week and detailed the present invention. At the
same time they detailed the prior art in the magnetic recording eld.
ey put together 11 drawings to describe the preferred embodi-
ment. ey summarized the improved test results of the new inven-
tion as compared to current day magnetic recording heads. en
they formulated the claims, all 43 of them. Claims were the most
important portion of the patent application. It had a layer- by- layer
structure starting with the basic claim and then expanding the basic
claim to cover all possible variations to the basic claim.
Our patent lawyer went through a couple of revisions before
nalizing the patent application. He called me after a week and
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Project ManageMent case studIes
told me that he was ready to submit the patent application, but the
senior physicist wanted to have his name as the only inventor on
the patent application. I was very surprised at this development
because the two engineers on my team and the physicist worked
together for a month to verify the proposed invention. en they
all wrote portions of the patent as a team with our patent lawyer.
e invention was the senior physicists idea, but without experi-
mental verication his idea was worthless.
I called the senior physicist to my oce and expressed to him
how proud I was of their new invention. I told him that our com-
pany was going to benet a lot from the improved magnetic record-
ing head. Once the patent application process was completed, we
were going to announce the improved magnetic recording head to
our customers and at industry shows and conferences. I told him
that all this would not have been possible if all three of them did
not work diligently for a month as a team and veried his idea. He
argued with me that the improved magnetic recording head was
his idea. I emphasized that ideas are not patentable, but inventions
were. In order for his idea to be an invention we had to go through
a tedious test process. We had to show that his idea resulted in a
substantial magnetic head performance.
My senior physicist nally agreed to my logic and agreed to
include the other two engineers names on the inventors list.
e patent assignee was our company. After the patent appli-
cation, we announced our advanced magnetic recording head
to the world. Within a year, it became the main component in
several disk drives. My senior physicist and my two engineers
were given company appreciation plaques at a banquet for their
patent. ey were also handsomely rewarded during the annual
bonus distributions.
I have always encouraged my project team members to record
their new ideas and ndings in engineering books and to have
them signed and dated by a colleague so that their new ideas
and ndings could be veried and patented for the companys
and their benet.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
All contributors should share names on a patentable
invention.
As project managers, we have to encourage and guide
our team members to apply for patents.
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Patents increase the value of your company and give your
team members pride and an extra spark to create fresh
and leading-edge inventions.
Processing patent applications in foreign countries can
take a long time and they can be expensive. You have
to choose countries for patent application very carefully.
Case3.5: Not Invented Here Factor
I had on my team a senior mechanical designer who was an expert
in vehicle structural design. He designed vehicle structures dur-
ing his engineering career for 20years. He always resisted ideas or
input from his teammates and from external sources. He had an
extreme case of not invented here syndrome. When we were devel-
oping a light vehicle frame for our project, he never considered using
advanced technology materials in his designs such as plastics, alu-
minum, high- strength steels, and so forth, as suggested by others.
I had extensive discussions with him regarding advances in
vehicles. I encouraged him regularly to interact with a wider vehi-
cle design community, to read related journals and to go to per-
tinent conferences. He had high self- esteem and self- condence.
He was a good engineer, but he had an attitude that if he did not
invent or design a vehicles structural component it would be infe-
rior to what he would have come up with. His was a very coun-
terproductive behavior. Vehicle and materials technology were
advancing with lightning speed. If he looked around and listened
to his colleagues he did not have to reinvent the wheel.
I had to address his not invented here factor and remedy it. His
behavior was causing our vehicle design to be inferior to our com-
petitors designs. I could not rotate him to other tasks on my team.
He was the only player in his eld in our company. I could not re
him because he was a successful engineer. He was very good at what
he produced. I had to remove him from his enclosed pedestal and
make him consider all feasible design options. I started challenging
him with fresh design perspectives and asked him to look into them
during our weekly one- on- one meetings. I forced him to go to per-
tinent technical conferences. I asked several well- known vehicle
structure design consultants to attend our design review meetings.
He started to listen to our consultants reviews. at was encourag-
ing, but I had to bring him into a new way of global thinking.
en I went a step further to remedy his syndrome and asked a
vehicle structure design consultant to generate an independent design
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Project ManageMent case studIes
within the given parameters in order to create a design competition.
is design competition idea increased my projects budget by 5%. I
explained my design and personnel issues to my management and
received their approval to go ahead with a second design.
During the nal design review meeting with our customer,
I had both designs presented. Our customer preferred our con-
sultants design to my senior mechanical designers design. e
consultants design was more on par with the advanced vehicle
structural design concepts. e consultants vehicle structural
design used more plastics and it was lighter in weight, but a lit-
tle more expensive to manufacture than the senior mechanical
engineers design. is design competition and his designs defeat
really opened my senior mechanical design engineers eyes.
My senior mechanical design engineer came to my oce the
next day and discussed his status in our company. He was very
humbled. He was afraid that he was going to be red since he
lost the design competition. I assured him that his notions were
erroneous. I praised him as an engineer, but I reiterated that he
had to open his eyes to the outside world, soften his perception of
superiority, and utilize advances made by others. He thanked me
for initiating the design competition. He said that he learned a lot
from the consultants design. He was apologetic for his counter-
productive behavior in the past.
e not invented here syndrome can happen at an individual
level or at a company level. Some company ocers sometimes refuse
to change company designs or procedures by better and proven ones
available from the outside. is organizational level not invented
here syndrome can degrade a companys performance. Correcting
such cases might require signicant organizational restructuring.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
It takes quite an eort to open the minds of some sea-
soned and specialized engineers.
As project managers, we have to be open- minded and
prevent not invented here syndrome among our team
members and even within our company structure.
Case3.6: A Technical Conference Conicts
with a Projects Progress
Technical conferences and shows are a part of an engineers work-
ing life. He or she has to attend all pertinent events that would
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help to stay in touch and to compete in his or her eld of exper-
tise. I always encouraged my team members to go to technical
conferences and shows as long as they were planned well ahead
of time and they were accounted for in the projects schedule. All
companies that I worked for had well- dened rules, procedures,
and budgets for attending technical conferences and shows. If you
were making a presentation at a session, you always got priority to
attend. If you already attended a certain conference or a show the
year before, management would give priority to someone else in
your eld the following year. If you had a critical deadline or an
event at the company, you had to forgo the week at the conference
or at the show. Sometimes there were company cash ow issues,
which restricted travel expenses and the number of attendees to
technical conferences and shows. I remember going to one confer-
ence on my own dime.
During my career, I came across several surprising occurrences
to my team members regarding technical conferences and shows.
All these surprising occurrences aected the progress of my proj-
ect at that time. In one such case, four out of eight engineers
working for me on a yearlong project came to my oce one day
with smiling faces and informed me that they had gotten approval
from their managers to attend the Comdex show the following
week, a computer exposition show that occurred annually in Las
Vegas. I was dumbfounded. I told them that they should have
rst consulted me before approaching their managers. My project
was in a crunch time. All they thought about was a fun week at
Comdex in Las Vegas. ey forgot all about their responsibilities
to my project. I did not want to put my weight down, cancel their
attendance to Comdex, and disappoint them. We had to nd a
solution together. I went over each engineers tasks. If three of the
engineers worked 60 hours per week for two weeks after the show,
they could catch up to the projects schedule and would not cause
any harm. So three of the engineers were okay to go, but one test
engineer had to perform crucial training for two Malaysian engi-
neers during the week of the show. e Malaysian engineers were
already at our plant and they were scheduled to y back to their
country immediately after the training. I had another test engi-
neer on my team. I decided to bring him into our meeting too to
see if he could help us out of the bind we were in. We went over the
training tasks one by one. e other test engineer agreed to take
over the following weeks training tasks. He agreed to work an
extra 20 hours the following week so that his teammate could
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Project ManageMent case studIes
attend Comdex. at was good camaraderie in a project environ-
ment. I agreed to let four engineers attend Comdex the following
week. I advised them to approach such a technical conference or
show requests in the future in a timely fashion by considering all
of their project responsibilities.
Another surprise came from an urgent replacement presenter
at the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
annual conference of industrial electronics in Europe. A physi-
cist at our company became ill and could not y on an airplane
to Europe. My upper management decided to send a replace-
ment. e upper management decided to send one of my team
members without consulting me or my team member. e vice
president of engineering called me and my team member to his
oce and explained the need for the replacement presenter at
the upcoming conference in three days. According to my upper
management, my team member was the best- qualied replace-
ment presenter in our company. What could I say? What could
my team member say? We could not object to such an emergency
request. I told the vice president that I was going to sit down with
my team member and nd a way to get him to go to the confer-
ence in Europe in three days without aecting his duties on my
project. I had to take over my team members project responsi-
bilities for the next 10days. I heard that he did a great job as
the replacement presenter at the conference in Europe and my
project had a minor setback.
A strange case happened regarding a Consumer Electronics
Show (CES). Apparently, a project team member of mine was a
regular attendee at this annual show. He thought that one week
every year at CES was a given to him by our company. He did not
even bother to inform me about his CES attendance at the begin-
ning of the project. I scheduled a critical design review meeting
with our customer, which unfortunately coincided with the CES
week. He came to my oce a couple of weeks before the show and
told me that he made his arrangements to attend the CES. I was
quite surprised. I told him that we were going to have a critical
design review during that week with our customer and he had to
be present at that meeting. I insisted that everything was set up
with our customer and he could not go to the CES. He had to
cancel all arrangements that he had made for the show. He was
very upset, left my oce, and went to his supervisor to complain.
His supervisor called me to discuss the conict. After I explained
the details of the case, his supervisor agreed with me that critical
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design review took priority and canceled his engineers trip to
CES. It was an unfortunate coincidence, but if he had declared
his plans to me at the beginning of the project, then I could have
scheduled the critical design review accordingly.
As project managers, we have to encourage our team mem-
bers to attend technical conferences and shows as long as they are
within our companys guidelines. However, we have to establish
with our team members who is going where at the beginning of
the project. It is our responsibility to balance our projects respon-
sibilities with technical conferences and shows.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Every team members schedule for attending technical
conferences and shows should be on our project schedule
from the start.
We, as project managers, have to balance fairly an engi-
neers wish to attend a technical conference and/ or a
show with his or her project responsibilities.
Case3.7: Redimensioning of Design Drawings
Generating design drawings for a project can be very tricky some-
times. If the construction of the parts will be done in Europe,
it is advisable to use ISO 128-21 standards. If the construction
of parts will be done in the United States, it is advisable to use
ASME 14.5 standards. If you study both standards, they look
similar, but there are many subtle dierences. A machinist in
Europe can misinterpret concentricity, symmetry, and so on, call-
outs on a drawing that is dimensioned according to ASME 14.5
standards, since they are trained and use drawings constructed
according to ISO 128-21.
In one of my projects we were designing several large and thick
steel plates with precision holes and slots to be used on an oil plat-
form. My engineers were trained in geometric dimensioning and
tolerancing per ASME 14.5 standards. We completed the design
drawings for the steel plates and our purchasing department solic-
ited bids domestically and internationally to build 20 steel plates.
Our purchasing department found the best deal with a French
company and subcontracted them to build the steel plates. In the
past, this French company had a good track record with our com-
pany for building complicated steel structures.
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Our purchasing agent and I started to have weekly teleconfer-
ences with the French subcontractor. During the rst call, they
asked us to update our drawings to relocate the datum refer-
ence planes, since their large milling machines could not locate
the precision holes and slots from the ones on the drawings.
We immediately updated four drawings, released them through
document control, and e- mailed them in four days. e French
subcontractor started to machine the rst article. During our tele-
conferences, they assured me that there were no other issues with
dimensioning and tolerancing of our drawings.
Two weeks passed and they were ready for the rst article
acceptance. I sent one of my quality engineers to France for the
rst article acceptance. During the rst article acceptance mea-
surements, my quality engineer discovered that the symmetry of
the holes was out of tolerance for what was called out on the draw-
ings. e French machinist misunderstood the symmetry toler-
ancing in the ASME Y14.5 standard. My quality engineer had to
reject the rst article. Luckily, I had a design engineer on my team
who was also trained in ISO 128-21 standards. I asked him to
update all four drawings again. is time he made sure that all
the dimensions and tolerances were called out per ISO 128-21.
I e- mailed the new revised drawings to France. ey rebuilt
the rst article. I sent my quality engineer to France again. e
French subcontractor passed the rst article dimensional inspec-
tion with ying colors the second time around. Finally, we got
our French subcontractor to build correctly our 20 large and thick
steel plates with precision holes and slots. e plates were delayed
three weeks for delivery. Fortunately, completion of the plates was
not on the critical path of the whole project.
In a global industry, as the project manager, you have to be
cognizant of the standards and procedures that are used in that
particular country. is applies to dimensioning and tolerances,
to certications, to material origins, to machines used for certain
processes, quality control practices, and so on. You would be sur-
prised to nd vast dierences from country to country.
What I should have done was to have the French machinist
review all four drawings for every dimension and tolerance during
a teleconference. I had to make sure that he was on the same page
as my design engineer. en I should have asked our purchasing
department to reword the contract.
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Methods of interpretation for a callout on a drawing can be
quite dierent even from person to person in a global project.
Inviting the nal user of the design drawings to the design review
meeting is a must. As a project manager, it was my responsibility
to bridge the gap between the designer and the user.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Your design drawings and user manuals have to be user-
friendly in a global project environment. Users in foreign
countries have to be able to understand and be able to
interpret them easily.
Always invite nal users of your design drawings and
user manuals to your design review meetings.
Case3.8: Component Certication
I took on a project in the middle of the design phase because the
original project manager was leaving the company. e project
was to design and build control consoles for a hazardous envi-
ronment with combustible gases and vapors. Our customer was
in Europe. e departing project manager and I had ve days
of overlapping period so that he could bring me up to date on
all signicant aspects of the project. e departing project man-
ager introduced me to every member of my new team. ere were
ve engineers in the group. ey were all experienced in their
specialties. e departing project manager, our customers project
manager, and I had a two- hour videoconference in order to make
a seamless transfer of responsibilities. e departing project engi-
neer went over all the critical specications with me. He briefed
me on the schedule, cost structure, and status. Everything seemed
to be in order and progressing smoothly.
All electrical components, enclosures, and assemblies had to be
certied for a Class 1 and Division 1 hazardous area environment.
Electrical control enclosures were going to be used outdoors. ey
had to be protected against corrosion, windblown dust and rain,
splashing water, and ice formation. e departing project manager
assured me that as long as the control enclosures were NEMA 4X
(U.S. National Electrical Manufacturers Association) certied,
we did not have to get recertication according to the European
standards, namely IP56 (ingress protection rating in Europe).
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My team completed the design on time. We bought components
that were certied both in the United States and in Europe for a
Class 1 and Division 1 hazardous area environment. e European
certication standards were written by IEC, Electrotechnical
Commission International. e only issue arose in the electrical
control enclosures. One of the assemblers notied me that the con-
trol enclosures were only NEMA 4X certied. I called the control
enclosures manufacturer and talked to them about the European
IP56 certication of their product. ey told me not to worry
because both NEMA 4X and IP56 certications were equivalent.
I received the same response from my teams engineers.
My last stop was our customers project manager. I called
him and asked him the same certication question about elec-
trical control enclosures. He cautioned me that both hazardous
area standards were very similar, but our contract called for cer-
tication of all electrical components, enclosures, and assemblies
according to European Union IP56 standards. He would not
budge on the electrical control enclosures certication. We had to
return all 15 control enclosures back to their manufacturer with
a minimum of cost penalty. I mobilized our purchasing depart-
ment and my teams engineers to source 15 control enclosures
that complied with our design and that were certied in Europe.
Delivery time was also an issue. We had to have these control
enclosures in three weeks time in order to meet our schedule. I
asked our customers project manager for his suggested sources
too. He could not be of much help.
After a week of frantic searching, we nally found a small elec-
trical control enclosure manufacturer in Germany who was will-
ing to build and test for us 15 control enclosures according to our
design and to the European hazardous area standard IP56. is
was quite a relief to me and to my team. I had to pay extra for
transportation to get them airfreighted to the United States on
a priority basis. In the end, we were delayed a week in delivering
of our product, which complied completely with the European
hazardous area standards including assemblies. I had to send a
400-page binder of compliance certicates to our customer along
with our deliverables.
It was my mistake to believe the departed project manager and
my engineers regarding the equivalence of U.S. and European
certication standards. I should have emphasized that all compo-
nents and enclosures were to be checked for IP56 standard certi-
cates at receiving inspection. ere were some minor dierences,
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but the bottom line was my customers specication, which
required that all electrical components, enclosures, and assem-
blies had to be certied for a Class 1 and Division 1 hazardous
area environment according to the IP56 standard.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Taking on a project in the middle of execution can be very
tricky. You have to have a long enough transition period
so that the project management transfer is seamless.
Certication standards in other countries can have slight
dierences from the ones we have in the United States.
Case3.9: A Practical Solution to Fluid Flow Simulation
I was a senior scientist on a team that designed and built a rotary
combustion engine for passenger vehicles. Our team was strug-
gling to optimize the design of engine housing coolant ow
deectors. ese ow deectors gave direction and increased tur-
bulent energy of the engines water coolant and thereby increased
convection heat transfer capability from combustion chambers.
ese ow deectors had to prevent any stagnant ow regions,
had to prevent cavitation, and had to prevent bubble formation on
housing walls. Optimized ow deectors decreased engine hous-
ing wall temperatures and therefore thermal stresses in the cast
housing material.
We had several team meetings regarding the ow deectors
optimization approach. Our teams project manager wanted to use
an advanced uid ow simulation program that was going to be
run for optimization by an expert consultant. en we were going
to verify the consultants uid ow simulation program results in
a laboratory at a nearby university by building a clear plexiglass
model of the engine housing with optimized ow deectors. is
approach was going to take three months and was going to be
expensive for the project.
I proposed a simpler solution for the optimization. I told my
team that we could build an engine housing model with several
dierent ow deectors from clear plexiglass and test them visu-
ally by running water at dierent ow rates through them. We
could watch and take pictures to see if there were any stagnant
ow regions. We could modify the ow deectors easily and rerun
the ow experiments until we found the optimum ow deec-
tor design by trial and error. My trial and error experimental
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approach was going to take about one month and be one-quarter
of the cost of the simulation program optimization eorts.
Our teams project manager insisted on using the simulation
program optimization. He was determined in that approach from
the beginning of the project. I discussed with him several times my
trial and error experimental approach in the laboratory. He never
listened to my quicker, cheaper, and simpler optimization sugges-
tion. He was the leader of our team. We had to go along with his
choice. e program manager contracted an expert consultant in
uid ow simulations. e consultants simulation optimization
took three months. en we had to build a model of the engine
housing with optimized ow deectors and test it. Simulation
optimization verication eorts took another two weeks. e
results were very discouraging. ere were two areas in the engine
housing where the water ow stagnated. However, ow simula-
tions showed normal turbulent ow in those two stagnant regions.
We wasted three and a half months and a lot of the projects funds
without success. We had to start the optimization process over
again. is time, the project manager came to me and confessed
that he should have listened to my proposal in the rst place.
e project was delayed for no good reason. Our project man-
ager was grilled by our upper management too. Upper manage-
ment got the gist of my practical proposal for a ow deectors
design optimization and got after our project manager for refus-
ing to go along with my proposal. ey were denitely stressful
times in our project.
We went back to optimizing the ow deectors design using
the trial and error experimental method that I had outlined for
the team. We had the engine housing model already. We only had
to change deector shapes and positions. After two weeks and
14 trials, we narrowed the deectors design to their optimized
shapes and positions in the engine housing. At our team meet-
ing, the project manager again thanked me for being practical and
achieving such a quick solution to a dicult problem.
Listening to others and evaluating all of the input are the most
important virtues of a good project manager. Some project man-
agers are very closed- minded. ey are intolerant and unrecep-
tive of others new ideas. eir actions discourage team members.
Team members stop contributing for the good of the project. Even
some out- of- line suggestions can have value. As project manag-
ers, we should listen to and weigh all options before deciding on
a course of action.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Some project managers are not good listeners and they
want things done their way.
As project team members, we should not get discour-
aged when a project manager shoots down our ideas. We
should be empowered by our projects goals and keep
providing constructive input to our team.
Case3.10: Traceability of Heat Lot Numbers
I was the project manager for a two- year project involving compo-
nent design, manufacturing, and installation for a new oil platform
destined for the Gulf of Mexico. e project technical specica-
tions and requirements were compiled into a 400-page handbook.
e handbook contained the scope of the project, component
performance criteria, classication, certication and regulation
requirements, operational life requirements, fatigue life require-
ments, operation criteria, installation criteria, environmental cri-
teria, transit conditions, corrosion protection and coating criteria,
marking and tagging criteria, quality plan requirements, inspec-
tion requirements, testing requirements, design drawing and
design calculations requirements, project management, reporting
and scheduling requirements, dimensioning, weights and center
of gravity requirements, shipping requirements, ship yard com-
missioning and preservation manual requirements, installation,
operation and maintenance manual requirements, and certica-
tion data book requirements.
As the project manager, I had to absorb every word in that
handbook and distribute the projects technical specications and
requirements to every pertinent team member. Some specica-
tions and requirements were hidden in the layers of the handbook.
For example, testing requirements were further broken up into
functional tests, load tests, nondestructive tests, mechanical tests,
electrical tests, and environmental tests.
As a team, we were able to deal with all of the specications
and requirements except one, namely, traceability of some raw
materials to their origins. e project requirements required
complete traceability of raw materials for steel plates, forgings,
castings, fasteners, pins, and shafts from their original heat lots
to nished products. We had to stamp the heat lot number and
the vendor designation on the part. If we could not use stamp-
ing due to component size or due to an available surface, we had
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Project ManageMent case studIes
to tag the part with the traceability information. I warned our
manufacturing manager about this traceability requirement at
the beginning of the project. However, this project requirement
information did not trickle down to our machinists. e machin-
ists worked on the special steel to manufacture the required com-
ponents for two months. After machining, all original heat lot
information for the special steel pieces were lost. We could not tell
which nished component came from which special steel heat lot.
We purchased the special steel for the project from two dierent
customer- approved steel vendors and according to our receiving
inspection records they were produced in ve dierent heat lots.
I called an urgent meeting with our manufacturing manager,
receiving inspection manager, stockroom manager, and our six
machinists. We brainstormed the issue at hand. e stockroom
manager and our six machinists were very helpful. ey came up
with a good idea for how to trace the special steel back to its origi-
nal heat lot. When a machinist requested a piece of the special steel
from our stockroom, the stockroom personnel recorded the date,
the heat lot information, vendor information, and the machinist
who received it. By going back to these stockroom records, with
the help of our machinists, we were able to determine where the
original material came from for every nished component. e
machinists had to remember when they built each part during the
last two months. By using the elimination method, we were able
to pin down every nished components heat lot number and ven-
dor. Every machinist stamped or tagged his own nished com-
ponent. e manufacturing manager was very apologetic about
missing a simple requirement for my project.
After this episode, I made sure that every project requirement
detail was understood and complied with by the people who did
the work. I discussed the project requirement with their manag-
ers, but more importantly with every one of them who did the
work individually. is kind of personalized trickle down project
management was not possible in a global project. In such cases,
I used written e-mails and also I had to verbally remind the o-
shore managers several times to make sure that their people knew
and complied with the applicable project requirements.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A projects technical specication and requirements can
be very complicated and tedious to understand. Some
technical specications and requirements can appear in
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several dierent customer documents and they can con-
tradict each other.
Every pertinent technical specication and requirement
has to trickle down to its user on our team.
As project managers, it is our responsibility to make sure
that every technical specication and requirement is
complied with during the execution of our projects.
Case3.11: Protecting Intellectual Property
During the execution of a project intellectual property guidelines
can be very complicated for a project manager to comprehend and
to apply. Before the project begins, the project manager has to
make sure that he understands all intricacies governing intellec-
tual property under his projects umbrella. If he needs clarica-
tions about intellectual property rules he immediately should seek
help from his companys lawyers and from his customers project
manager. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and secrecy rules gov-
erning his project should be crystal clear to a project manager
before the execution of the project starts.
In an advanced automobile design project, my company had to
defend at our cost, indemnify, and hold harmless our customer and
my company against a liability suit that a component manufacturer
opened against us. e lawsuit was for infringement of a patent that
my team members and I had overlooked for using a component in
contention for our design without the component manufacturers
permission and royalty payment. My company lost the case. at
was an expensive lesson I experienced during my career. After that
experience I was very careful to check all patents and pros and cons
before using someone elses intellectual property in my projects.
In another intellectual property case, an engineer on my team
wanted to apply for a patent. His new idea and design were a result
of technical input from our customer. I told him that he could
not apply for that patent because his invention was mainly based
on technical information received from our customer. erefore,
according to our contract his invention was the property of our
customer. I had to promptly notify my customers project manager
about his invention. After several discussions with my customers
project manager and his companys lawyers, we agreed to le a
joint patent for the new invention as long as my company paid for
the patent application expenses. My engineer, my customer, and
my company were all satised with the nal resolution.
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In another intellectual property case, my company had to share
my project teams inventions with my subcontractors company.
is subcontractor was crucial for our design. Before signing a
contract with us, the subcontractor requested that we share all
inventions that would result from our joint design. My companys
lawyers, my subcontractors lawyer, and I had several meetings on
this issue. We were doing a substantial portion of the design. We
negotiated that any inventions resulting from our design would
be applied for jointly. However, royalties coming in from such
patents would be split 80/20, namely, we were going to get a major
share of all the royalties. We signed the contract. Four patents
resulted from our joint design eorts. Both parties were satised
with the shared intellectual property rights.
Protecting a customers intellectual property can require
extensive planning and can be very time consuming in some proj-
ects. In such a project, I had to form a team which was totally
separated from my companys other duties. Everyone on my team
was 100% dedicated to that secretive and advanced technology
project. Even our oces were relocated to a remote corner of the
company. Coded locks were put on the entrances to our oces.
Only my team members and I could enter that remote area. All
design drawings and personally assigned laptop computers were
kept in a vault. Drawing copies were made only by receiving writ-
ten permission from the customers representative. I had to make
sure that all drawings and laptop computers were safely in the
vault before I left for the evening. We were sworn not to discuss
technical details of that project with anyone outside of our team.
e manufacturing side of that project was another nightmare.
Whole manufacturing and test areas were isolated by opaque
plastic walls. No one was allowed to enter those restricted areas
except the operators and the engineers who worked for that secret
project. We were constantly monitored by our customers repre-
sentatives. We had some minor security breaches during the two-
year project. My team members and I were very happy when the
project was completed. e whole project environment was like a
high-security prison. However, it was a very lucrative project for
my company. We were able to protect our customers intellectual
property with very detailed planning and control.
Intellectual property guidelines have to be sorted out at the
beginning of a project. All of the team members should be advised
about the dos and donts. As project managers, we are totally
responsible for honoring the intellectual property rules of a project.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we are responsible for protecting
the intellectual property of our company, our customers,
and our subcontractors.
At the beginning of a project, all intellectual property
protection rules pertaining to our project have to be
explained to our team members.
Protecting intellectual property in a global project envi-
ronment requires very tight controls
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4
Case studies in
sChedule ManageMent
Schedule performance management of a global project is very time
consuming for a project manager. Unexpected delays at your subcon-
tractors, at your suppliers, and in information ow can devastate your
projects progress.
I got devastating news from our subcontractor that his special steel
supplier in Germany delayed their delivery another four months due
to a large order from China. e whole steel factory capacity was ded-
icated to China for several months and our subcontractors small order
was pushed out another four months, which impacted my projects
schedule very unfavorably. I had to scramble to straighten out this
issue in Case4.1.
A French subcontractor in one of my projects informed me with
regret that his machinists voted to strike and they did not accept my
subcontractors terms for the new contract. An uncertain delay in
the subcontractors delivery schedule surfaced. I had to scramble to
nd another resource to replace my subcontractor in the middle of my
project as detailed in Case4.2.
Managing a monster- size project schedule for a large project can
be very tedious and time consuming. A project manager should break
down the monster project schedule le into manageable major task
groups and subcontractor groups. en he or she should create a mas-
ter project schedule that includes the results of major task groups,
all critical document delivery dates to the customer, all internal and
customer design review meetings, and the customers acceptance test
dates and payment milestones. I present a large such challenging proj-
ect in Case4.3.
Global projects such as the one detailed in Case4.4 put a lot of
excessive strain on a project manager. Precise time management in dif-
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Project ManageMent case studIes
ferent time zones is the only way to smooth out and eectively monitor
the progress of your project.
Critical path tasks need more attention and more detailed scru-
tinizing during the execution of a global project. Case4.5 details
changes and their impact on a critical path task that heavily impacted
several of my global projects.
Estimating task completion percentages periodically can be very
tricky in a global project as shown in Case4.6. As global engineering
project managers, it is our responsibility to determine task completion
percentages as accurately as possible. Our schedule and cost perfor-
mance can give false implications about the health of our projects to
us and to our upper management.
Case4.1: Material Delays in a Hydraulic
Cylinder Manufacturer
I was assigned to a yearlong project to build automated heavy
equipment movement systems for a Norwegian customer. Final
testing and acceptance of the systems were to be in California.
en the systems were to be surface shipped to Malaysia for
installation and usage. I had several critical subcontractors in the
project. ese subcontractors were controlled by our purchasing
agents on a part- time basis and these purchasing agents reported
to me for the project on a dotted line. A Dutch subcontractor
had six months to complete 20 high- pressure hydraulic cylinders
for the project and surface ship them to California. is Dutch
subcontractor also had a good track record with our company for
on-time and quality product delivery.
I let our purchasing agent control this subcontractor by calling
them every two weeks and getting updates on the progress of the
project. At the end of the second month, we learned that the spe-
cial steel provider from Germany for the casings of the hydraulic
cylinders would delay their delivery by a month. Our subcontrac-
tor assured us that even with this material delay he would com-
plete the project on time. We accepted the one- month delay for
the special steel delivery and the fabrication start-up. Our subcon-
tractor had all other components and materials in house to start
the fabrication.
Another month passed. We got devastating news from our
subcontractor that their special steel supplier in Germany delayed
the delivery another four months due to a large order from China.
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case studIes In schedule ManageMent
e whole steel factory capacity was dedicated to China for several
months and our subcontractors small order was pushed out another
four months. is push out of raw material was totally unaccept-
able. After several telephone conversations with our subcontrac-
tor, the best he could do was to deliver the completed and tested
hydraulic cylinders by airfreight three months late to our facilities
in California. is would delay the delivery of assembled, tested,
customer- accepted, and airfreighted systems to our customer in
Malaysia by two months. A two- month delay in the project would
cause heavy liquidated damages and a black eye to my company.
I raised the emergency ag immediately. I called an emergency
upper management meeting to discuss the grim situation and to
take the necessary steps to remedy the issue. I also invited the pres-
ident of our subcontractor to join the meeting by teleconferencing.
I depended totally on this subcontractor who had an excel-
lent track record and I did not put in more rigorous controls to
monitor their progress and to understand in detail the risks they
were taking. I prepared for the emergency upper management/
subcontractor meeting the next day. I put together several options
to remedy the issue. I prepared a risk analysis and cost benet
analysis for each option.
e rst order of business was to take full control of the
situation and not depend on the subcontractor. I was given full
responsibility to establish such control over this subcontractor.
e company provided the purchasing agent in charge of the sub-
contractor to report to me on a full- time basis. I also requested a
full- time quality engineer by name. I sent him to the Netherlands
after getting the Dutch subcontractors permission to monitor the
subcontractor on location.
One option was to nd another hydraulic cylinder manufacturer
who had the special steel material in stock and cancel the contract
with the Dutch subcontractor. is option was dropped during the
meeting because the hydraulic cylinder design was already com-
pleted by the Dutch subcontractor and it was approved by us, by
our customer, and by the regulatory agency. To start everything
from scratch after three months into the project was not acceptable.
Another option was to nd the special steel at a distributor at
a premium price and airfreight it to California for manufactur-
ing and testing per the Dutch contractors design drawings. is
option was also dropped since it was going to strain our manu-
facturing department and this new load on our manufacturing
would delay other projects.
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Another option was to go to the German steel mill with our
subcontractor and negotiate for overtime work and extra funding
for faster delivery. is option was also dropped since our special
steel order was a small dent in their total steel production scheme.
Our subcontractor had dealt with them face to face many times
and the German steel producer would not budge.
A good option that everyone agreed upon was to search the
world for this special steel during the next week to see if we could
nd it at a premium price. e steel had to be manufactured in a
customer- qualied country. e steel had to have material test cer-
ticates for the regulatory agency. We agreed that we would share
the premium price for the purchase of this special steel with our
subcontractor and also share airfreight costs to the Netherlands
with them. My company assigned me three full- time purchasing
agents to search for this material all over the world.
After the emergency meeting, I called my customer in Norway
and explained the unfortunate delays in the special steel delivery.
I outlined the steps that we are taking along with our subcontrac-
tor to remedy the issue. Our customer was very upbeat with our
proactive steps. e project manager at my customer informed me
rst verbally and then in writing that they would accept a month
delay in the delivery of the completed systems in Malaysia with-
out applying any liquidated damages to my company. is was
great news for my company.
It took us three days to nd the special steel with all the
required test certicates at a secondhand supplier in Houston,
Texas, at a premium price. We split the extra cost of the material
with our subcontractor and we airfreighted 30 tons of mate-
rial to the Netherlands. My quality engineer on-site, the Dutch
subcontractor, and I worked on a modied fabrication, test, and
acceptance schedule for the hydraulic cylinders. e Dutch sub-
contractor worked very diligently and overtime, when necessary,
with my quality engineer watching over every step of the way.
ey completed the hydraulic cylinders one month late per the
new schedule and airfreighted them to California for nal assem-
bly and testing. We were exactly a month late in the project when
the completed systems were ready for customer acceptance. When
my customer came to our facilities to accept the nal systems,
they informed us that the overall project had been delayed so we
did not have to airfreight the completed assemblies to Malaysia.
I wished I knew about this project delay a little earlier. However,
we completed the systems one month late and they were accepted
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case studIes In schedule ManageMent
by our customer without a hitch. Acceptance sign o was a big
milestone payday for my company.
As the project manager, I learned a lot from this special steel
sourcing asco by our subcontractor. Even if my subcontractor
was a very dependable one, I should have implanted my own engi-
neer at their site and gotten daily updates on this critical item. I
should have asked my subcontractor to line up a backup source for
the special steel if the German one failed to deliver. Also, I should
have required our purchasing department to include late penalty
clauses for critical milestones such as the special steel delivery
date to our subcontractors contract.
On the positive side, the issue was solved by working very
closely with the subcontractor. I helped them all I could to remedy
the issue. My company was generous enough to share the extra
costs for the material and shipping. One thing I did not allow
was for my company to squeeze the subcontractor into a corner
and beat him up to get the job done. Subcontractors are crucial
parts of the project team. Working together and helping them in
all aspects of their portion of the project is a must for a healthy
project conclusion.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Follow your subcontractors progress very closely.
Always implant your people at your crucial subcontrac-
tors to monitor on- site progress of your project.
If your purchased items are a small sh in a big pond, per-
sistently make sure that your items are not pushed aside.
Always consider several feasible options in order to get
out of a bind in a project.
Case4.2: Union Strike in France
I was managing a project to build an oil platform mooring system
for a new rig in the Gulf of Mexico. ere were several design
engineers, subcontractors, and consultants on my team. One of
the subcontractors was in France. ey were assigned to build
high- pressure hydraulic cylinders per our specications. e proj-
ect started on time and the rst couple of months went without
any incidents. In the beginning of the third month, I received a
telephone call from my subcontractors project manager in France.
He told me that his machinists might go on strike in the next
couple of weeks. ere was a slowdown in their work pace during
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Project ManageMent case studIes
contract negotiations. He assured me that his management was
negotiating with the machinists union and they would settle their
dierences before their contract deadline.
I started to get worried. I informed my upper management
about the potential strike in France. We had no choice but to wait
for the results of their negotiations. A couple of days passed and I
received no update from my counterpart at the French subcontrac-
tor. Finally, I called him and explained my concerns about delaying
the hydraulic cylinders for my project. He again assured me that
they were at the nal details of the contract negotiations. He was
going to let me know the results in 24 hours. e next day came and
I anxiously waited for his phone call. e telephone nally rang at
9a.m. and my counterpart at the French subcontractor informed
me with regret that the machinists voted to strike and they did not
accept the companys terms for the new contract. He again assured
me that this would be a short- term strike and work slowdown and
the strike would not aect the delivery of my hydraulic cylinders.
I immediately had an emergency meeting with my upper man-
agement and our purchasing department director. During the
meeting, I proposed a couple of options to get out of the French
strike dilemma. Before the meeting I discussed the level of com-
pletion of our hydraulic cylinders with my subcontractors proj-
ect manager. All components, assemblies, and machining were
about 40% complete when the strike started. One option was to
ship everything to our plant in the United States and to complete
them there. Our president assured me that we would not have the
capacity to complete the job on time. en we decided to look for
other high- pressure hydraulic cylinder builders around the world
that had enough capacity to complete our job in a timely fashion. I
was going to lose another week or two while negotiating and sign-
ing a contract with a new subcontractor. Also, partially completed
cylinder shipments from France to our new subcontractor would
have taken at least a week with an expedited shipment. We gave
our purchasing director top priority to nd a new subcontractor to
complete the hydraulic cylinders for my project.
e purchasing director started to contact all the other hydrau-
lic cylinder manufacturers that we had dealt with in the past.
Luckily, he found one in the Netherlands that had enough capac-
ity to complete our job on time. ey negotiated the terms of the
contract by teleconferencing and signed the contract online. I
informed my customers project manager of what was going on
with the hydraulic cylinders project. He agreed with my approach
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and he even suggested several hydraulic manufacturers to our
purchasing director. We called our subcontractor in France too
and told them what we were trying to do. ey agreed with us
too, since they could not propose any other viable option to us.
We paid 40% of our contract to our subcontractor in France. ey
agreed to truck the partially completed hydraulic cylinders to our
new Dutch subcontractor on their own nickel.
Two trucks had to be loaded at the French subcontractors
plant at night in order not to interfere with the strikers during
the day. With a two-week delay, the partially completed hydraulic
cylinders arrived at our new Dutch subcontractors facilities. e
Dutch subcontractor completed, tested, and shipped the hydraulic
cylinders to us on time. e French subcontractors strike lasted
10weeks. If I had stayed with the French subcontractor, my proj-
ects entire schedule would have been destroyed. I would have had
a very dissatised and angry customer even if the contract with
our customer covered us as harmless for unforeseen strike events.
ese kinds of unforeseen events can occur on any project. As
the project manager, it is my responsibility to nd other routes to
bypass these blockades. Extra eorts made to move the project
along smoothly make my customer and my upper management
very happy and raise their condence in me.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Labor unions are very strong and labor strikes are very
common in some countries.
Changing subcontractors in the middle of a project can
be very risky and requires very detailed and accurate
planning.
Sometimes, as project managers, we have to make
bold moves in order to get our projects going in the
right direction.
Case4.3: A Scheduling Challenge
I was assigned to manage a data communication chip design and
test project with a team of 16 engineers and two international
subcontractors. e project duration was a year. Initially, I put
together a project schedule in a week that included all domestic
and international resources, all dependencies between tasks, all
critical document delivery dates to the customer, all internal and
customer design review meetings, the customers acceptance test
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dates, and payment milestones. I also included all the pertinent
holidays and forecasted special events for each team member. e
whole project schedule ended up being a 570-line monster le on
MS Project. I did not have anyone helping me on scheduling. e
schedule was a very dynamic document. I had to update it daily
and I had to present it to my team, to my upper management, and
to my customer on a weekly basis. e schedule updates, estimat-
ing work- performed percentages, and nding errors in the sched-
ule took a tremendous amount of my time. I was falling behind in
managing my teams people and my subcontractors.
Work scheduled and work performed were critical inputs to my
earned value analysis for my project. I had to be fairly accurate in
my work- performed estimates. ese work- performed estimates
went directly into my projects schedule performance indices and
cost performance indices. My management judged my projects
progress and health with these indices.
I had to do my scheduling in a more ecient and a more accu-
rate way. I decided to break down the monster schedule le into
12 major task groups and two subcontractor groups. Each major
task groups schedule had about 40 tasks. en I created a mas-
ter schedule that included the results of major task groups, all
critical document delivery dates to the customer, all internal and
customer design review meetings, the customers acceptance test
dates, and payment milestones. I only presented the master sched-
ule to my team, to my upper management, and to my customer.
If they had questions about the progress being made in a major
task group or at the subcontractor, I also presented that particu-
lar schedule to them.
is breakdown of the total schedule helped me a lot in manag-
ing the updates to schedules and reduced my time to almost half
in dealing with my scheduling responsibilities. It was much easier
to update smaller schedules and to nd errors in them. During
the review meetings, my team, my upper management, and my
customer appreciated dealing with the master schedule. Schedule
review times in the meetings got shorter. On average, we were
spending an hour going over the monster schedule. With the mas-
ter schedule, the schedule review times averaged about 20 minutes.
Creating the initial schedule took about a week. I had to dis-
cuss and nalize each tasks duration, order, and dependencies
with its owner. Each team member had to buy in to what he or she
was committing to accomplish in a given time. Everyone on the
team had a dierent work pace and work experience. It was crucial
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case studIes In schedule ManageMent
to understand the work performance rate of every one of my team
members. I had to do the same thing with my two international
subcontractors by teleconferencing. I included an 85% work pro-
duction eciency factor to the schedule. I had to include extensive
training time for ve of my novice team members. I tried to keep
each tasks duration between one and three weeks so that the task
progress estimates could be predicted with accuracy. I included
all the observed holidays for my domestic and international team
members. For each team member, I included his or her personal
time- o days during the project duration. Gathering all this data
to input into MS Project was painstaking. It was worth the entire
week I spent to gather all the pertinent data for scheduling.
For a large project like this data communication chip design
and test project, I should have asked for a scheduler from my man-
agement to help me. Such a person was not in my project budget.
He or she would have had to charge the company overhead or
erode my projects margin. In hindsight, gathering all the sched-
uling data from my team members and from my international
subcontractors gave me a good insight on everyones capabilities
and work performance rates.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A well- prepared project schedule is a shining light on the
health of your project.
A large project schedule can be very cumbersome to
update daily by a project manager.
A large project schedule can be easily broken down into
smaller ones and a master one.
Work production eciencies should also be included
into necessary tasks with care.
Case4.4: Task Management between Dierent Times Zones
I had a challenging project management responsibility for a global
project that spanned ve dierent time zones. e chip design
project lasted for 18months and covered the software design and
verication phase, the chip prototype construction phase, and the
volume production start-up phase. My customer was in Munich,
Germany. I had four chip design engineers working for me in
California. My engineers were assigned to design major segments
of the chip and also test the functionality of the whole design. A
segment of the chip was being designed by a subcontractor at the
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Research Triangle, North Carolina. A second segment of the chip
was being designed by an Indian design company in Bangalore.
e prototypes of this high- performance chip were scheduled to be
built at a specialty foundry in Tokyo, Japan. Volume production was
destined for a semiconductor fabrication plant in Penang, Malaysia.
Time management in this global project environment was a
very strenuous task for me. e project started in June during day-
light savings time. My daily workday schedule was as follows:
Call customer in Munich: 78a.m. California time and
45p.m. Munich time.
Meetings with team members in California: 8a.m. to 12 noon.
Call subcontractor at Research Triangle, North Carolina:
12p.m. California time and 45p.m. North Carolina
time.
Time for other project tasks such as scheduling, earned
value analysis, and so on: 24p.m.
Call foundry in Tokyo: 45 p.m. California time and
89a.m. the next day Tokyo time.
Call volume production plant in Penang: 56 p.m.
California time and 89a.m. the next day Penang time.
Call subcontractor in Bangalore from home: 910p.m.
California time and 9:3010:30 a.m. the next day
Bangalore time.
Before the phone calls, we e- mailed the topics we wanted to
discuss during the call to each other, so that we could bring in
the right participants for the phone call. I directed the phone calls
with the agenda generated from the e- mails. I recorded the min-
utes of the phone calls and the action items with the responsible
people and delivery dates. I released the minutes of every phone
call through our document control and had them distributed to
the appropriate people.
ere was another issue hanging over my head. Some of the
countries that I was dealing with did not use daylight savings
time. Only the United States and the European Union (EU)
used daylight savings time, but they started and ended day-
light savings time on dierent dates. e United States started
daylight savings time on the last Sunday in March, but the EU
started it on the second Sunday in March. So during that two-
week gap, I had to call my customer at 89a.m., which corre-
sponded to my customers 45p.m. e United States ended
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case studIes In schedule ManageMent
daylight savings time on the rst Sunday in November, but the
EU ended it on the last Sunday in October. So during that one-
week gap, I had to call my customer at 67a.m., which corre-
sponded to my customers 45p.m.
When daylight savings time ended in the United States, my
daily schedule was as follows:
Call customer in Munich: 78a.m. California time and
45p.m. Munich time.
Meetings with team members in California: 8a.m. to 12 noon.
Call subcontractor at Research Triangle, North Carolina:
12p.m. California time and 45p.m. North Carolina
time.
Time for other project tasks such as scheduling, earned
value analysis, and so on: 23p.m.
Call foundry in Tokyo: 34 p.m. California time and
89a.m. the next day Tokyo time.
Call volume production plant in Penang: 45 p.m.
California time and 89a.m. the next day Penang time.
Time for other project tasks: 56p.m.
Call subcontractor in Bangalore from home: 89 p.m.
California time and 9:3010:30 a.m. the next day
Bangalore time.
Global projects such as this one put a lot of excessive strain
on the project manager. ere are numerous bumps on the way
before you reach the nish line. Precise time management is the
only way to smooth out and to monitor eectively the progress of
your project. e object of my time scheduling was not to disturb
the call schedules of my customers and my team members around
the world. As a conscientious project manager, I took the daily
call scheduling bumps on myself and I smoothed out everyones
call schedules related to my project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Time management for communications in a global engi-
neering project has to be precise. Communication time
rules have to be established at the beginning of your project.
Engagement slots assigned to dierent global teams
should not interfere with each other.
Daylight savings time can cause confusion to and alter
your communication schedules.
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Case4.5: Dealing with Critical Path Tasks
Critical path tasks on a global project can be very challenging for
a project manager. Tasks that lie on the critical path of a proj-
ect cannot be delayed without sacricing the projects schedule
performance and any delays in them most likely would ruin your
projects cost performance. A global project manager has to dou-
bly focus on critical path tasks. Several noncritical tasks can slip
during execution of a project and can become critical.
In a rotary engine design and development project that I was
heavily involved in, seals used between combustion chambers
became a major issue. After our initial design and prototype build,
structural integrity of the seals degraded fast. We had to perform
a thorough failure analysis, redesign the seals, and retest them. At
the beginning of the project, the seal design tasks had a handsome
slack time for an iterative development process so that it was not
on the projects critical path. After the third design iteration, seal
design tasks moved up to the critical path. e project manager
had to beef up the seal design team with several expert consultants
and had daily meetings on it in order to achieve the nal design.
We nally achieved the life expectancy out of the seals after the
fth design iteration. It delayed the project by a month and had
a 30% cost overrun for the seal design portion of the project.
Sometimes at the beginning, a technologically leading-edge com-
ponents design looks simple and straightforward, but by the end
it comes back to bite your project. When I look back on the seal
design task history, other project approaches come to mind. If we
had had the two expert consultants at the beginning of the task,
we might have achieved our goal with a couple of design iterations
within the allocated time and even within the allocated budget.
In another critical path task case, my projects chip soft-
ware design team always got tangled with the customers continual
design modications. e customers change approval process was
very bureaucratic and therefore it sometimes took a month to see
the nal approved change. Luckily, the project was managed on a
time and material basis. So these delays did not hurt my company
nancially, but they aected the duration of several critical path
tasks and the completion date of the project. Also, my team mem-
bers eciency dropped substantially while waiting for approved
design modications. I discussed this issue several times with my
customers project manager. He insisted on waiting for the nal
approved design modications before doing anything. I could not
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move my team members to other projects during these lull times.
Our projects productivity dropped, but we still charged our time
to the customer. A yearlong project lasted almost a year and a half.
In an electric bus design project, the batteries we purchased
for the buses were leading state of the art critical items, but they
were not on the critical path of the project. I had to call my battery
supplier daily along with my purchasing agent in order to ensure
that there were no issues in the manufacturing and delivery of
my batteries.
More often than not, a critical path task can be assigned to a
subteam in a faraway location in the United States or in another
country. Managing such a critical path task can be very challeng-
ing. In such a case, I had to plant one of my engineers with a
subteam in France for six months for the construction of several
advanced hydraulic components for my project. On top of that, we
had to teleconference twice a week to assure them that the critical
task was moving along smoothly. We were able to tackle all the
issues in a timely fashion and the critical task was completed suc-
cessfully on time.
In another critical task case, during setting up and quali-
cation of a new wafer factory, my senior sputtering equipment
engineer jumped ship and moved to our competitor. I had to
scramble to nd a replacement, which was not easy at all. At the
time, sputtering equipment engineers were on demand. rough
our human resources department and my contacts, we did a
very detailed search without nding any feasible replacement.
I decided to groom one of my novice engineers for this critical
task. I also decided to get help from the equipment supplier. We
agreed that one of their seasoned engineers would come to our
factory and qualify the new sputtering equipment and at the same
time train my new engineer. is was an expensive option, but I
had to go along with it in order to complete my project without
any delay.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
During the execution of a global project, several non-
critical tasks can easily slip back and become critical.
Critical tasks have to be completed satisfactorily on time
even if you experience cost overruns to nalize them.
If you have a critical task that is being performed in a
foreign country, you better have a constant and reliable
observer at that location.
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Case4.6: Estimating Task Completion Percentages
As global project managers we have one of the most dicult and
periodically required duties of estimating completion percentages
for every task. Our projects schedule and cost performance indi-
ces depend on the accuracy of our estimates. We present these
performance indices to our upper management and to our cus-
tomer at least monthly. ese performance indices also show us
the health condition of our project. We can see the tasks that we
are having issues with. In some tasks we are behind schedule and
in a few others we are ahead of schedule. In some tasks we are over
budget and in a few others we are under budget.
If possible, I always sat down monthly with the responsible task
owner(s) and decided together on completion percentage(s) of his
or her task(s). Task completion estimates became more blurred for
task owners in other global locations and for our subcontractors. On
many occasions, I had to travel to the site of the task owner in order to
get more reliable task completion estimates. I have found throughout
my project management career that most task owners overestimate
their task completion percentage in order to present a rosy picture. If
you peel back layers of his or her task and go into minute details then
a more reliable task completion percentage picture emerges.
I had the most diculty getting good task completion esti-
mates from my software design engineers. e software design
task was one issue, but testing the software and revising it and
documenting it was another. For the most part, the software
designer and the tester worked as a pair. When they told me that
they were 90% complete, I could never believe them. e remain-
ing 10% took forever to complete. I asked them to break down
the software structure into manageable substructures or modules.
We reviewed the status of each module. If I sensed any trouble in
the progress of the software design process, I had to take immedi-
ate drastic action. Several times I had to call in experienced senior
software design engineers to take over remaining tasks in order to
complete the project on time even if I ran over budget.
Another area of dicult task completion percentage estimates
was in design engineering calculations. I had separate task dura-
tion estimates in my project plan for design calculations and for
checking these calculations. In most cases, the checker found sev-
eral mistakes or missing items in the design calculations. en
calculations went back to the designer. e designer updated
his calculations per the checkers recommendations and ndings.
Calculations went back to the checker again for rechecking. is
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iterative cycle sometimes lasted four or ve times, especially in
complicated and detailed calculations with new in- house gener-
ated software. I always ran behind schedule and over budget in
extensive design engineering calculations.
Task completion percentages were also signicantly aected by
our customers review of the design drawings. Most of the time,
the customer was delayed in his or her review and approval of
drawings. When we received the delayed review and comments
back, there were always some minor tweaks to the design draw-
ings, which did not change the scope of the project specications.
My designers had to update drawings and resubmit them for
approval. is cycle was out of my control. I could not push my
customers with the same intensity as I pushed my team members
to get something done. Task completion estimates always tanked
when a customers action was involved.
Subcontractors always posed a problem in task completion
estimates. If a subcontractor was falling behind schedule, I did
not hear about it in a timely fashion so that we could formulate
corrective actions together without any delay. More often than
not, I had to implant engineers or purchasing agents into my sub-
contractors facility in order to be able to follow with ease of mind
what was going on with my projects tasks.
Most unreliable task completion estimates came from my
global subteams. According to my subteam leader, especially in
developing countries, everything was going hunky- dory. When
I visited them or sent one of my U.S.-based engineers to check
on them, I always received dierent perceptions about task com-
pletions. My subteams in developing countries needed continual
monitoring and hand- holding in order for me to be assured that
their tasks were on time and within budget.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Watch out for overestimated task completion estimates
by your team members.
You can run into surprising misunderstandings with task
completion estimates for tasks being performed in for-
eign countries.
Software design engineers and mechanical product
design engineers tend to always overestimate their task
completions.
You have to watch your customers and your subcon-
tractors like a hawk when it is time for task completion
estimates.
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5
Case studies in
resourCe ManageMent
Resource management in a global environment gets very tricky and
requires continual monitoring. In particular, a global projects bud-
get management can be a constant struggle. Listening to experts
and evaluating input from experienced people outside of your proj-
ect team always helps to avoid pitfalls during the execution of your
global project.
I had a challenging experience with my companys information
technology department in one of my long- term projects. Computer
and information technology was advancing at a mind- boggling speed
at the turn of the century. A computers operating system, processor,
memory, and hard drive capacity became obsolete in six months. I
took it upon myself to improve our information technology depart-
ment in order to save my project in Case5.1.
After two months into a high volume production project, our sub-
contractor in Japan announced that they were shutting down their
operations which produced a critical component for our assembly
in three months. is was quite a shock to me and to my company.
Case5.2 describes the actions that I took to remedy this issue.
While working with leading-edge technology small- sized sub-
contractors during a project, lots of unforeseen issues can pop up.
oroughly understanding the capabilities of the personnel, equip-
ment, and processes being used in these companies can cut down on
undesirable issues as shown in Case5.3.
In dealing with international project teams from dierent coun-
tries, there is always a dierence in adrenaline rush and excitement
for meetings and project tasks. I experienced an adrenaline rush and
excitement toward project meetings and tasks at the higher end of the
spectrum from team members in countries such as Japan and Germany
and at the lower end of the spectrum from team members in countries
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such as Malaysia, Mexico, and countries in the Mediterranean region.
I detail my encounters in dierent countries in Case5.4.
During the execution of a project, always keep the pressure on your
team members, but do not overdo it and burn them out. In this day
and age, continuous connectivity to our team members can be very
hazardous and stressful, if it is not handled with care. Such events are
detailed in Case5.5.
Listening is the greatest virtue of a project manager. When I ran
into trouble while executing a task, I listened to all ideas that would
cure the issue at hand. Such a nagging problem is detailed in Case5.6.
After trying a new interface system for over a month in our wafer fab-
rication lines, we saw signicant increases in wafer yields. Also, wafer
throughputs improved. Holdups for a shutdown process decreased
signicantly. I made this new process engineering shift interface
meeting a standard for our wafer factory.
If a task in a project reaches a re- ghting mode, your decision-
making process to cure the issue accelerates very fast. You are in an
urgent rescue mode. After being in a re- ghting mode for two weeks
to troubleshoot a control panel via telephone conversations in a remote
location in Norway with a novice engineer, I had to take drastic action
as detailed in Case5.7.
In some cases, we have to rescue our subcontractors from a bind. I
tasked two engineers on my team to improve a critical Japanese suppli-
ers falling yields. As a project manager, it was my responsibility to help
my subcontractor in any way that I could. As a result of this urgent
six- week long rescue mission, our products nal test yields improved
immensely and they were steady. ese details are given in Case5.8.
Listening to all of the input regarding your projects tasks and
ltering them down to useful ones is an art in itself. Such input is
detailed in Case5.9.
Some tasks in our global projects require us to deal with foreign
government agencies. Bureaucracy in a foreign government can hurt
your project in many ways. You have to go along with experts to solve
your problems with bureaucrats even if it costs your project an arm
and a leg as detailed in Case5.10.
As global project managers, we have to be on top of all ancillary
tasks such as shipping rules and regulations of our nished products.
If we leave these ancillary tasks alone, they might harm our project
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tremendously in one way or another. In Case5.11, I missed details of
the insurance coverage for my projects nished products shipment.
At the bidding phase of a project, we might have to partner with
other companies in order to strengthen our position. At the beginning
of a project, all project partners look eager and willing to win the bid.
Many unforeseen issues might surface with our project partners dur-
ing the execution phase of the project. As project managers, it is our
responsibility to remedy these project partner issues as fast as we can
without damaging the cost and schedule performance of our project.
An example is given in Case5.12.
Sometimes cost performance of a task might be hit by unexpected
increases in material costs. I had a project to design, build, and test
20 high- load capacity and high- pressure hydraulic cylinders for a cus-
tomer in Brazil. I had to scramble to get my cost performance under
control as detailed in Case5.13.
Monitoring schedule and cost performance of a global project very
closely at regular intervals is a must for a project manager. You have
to bring your companys other departments in sync with your projects
dynamic environment. e challenge is to be able to collect all sched-
ule and cost performance data in a timely fashion from your foreign
project partners as shown in Case5.14.
Case5.1: Dependence on Other Departments
During the execution of a project, a project manager depends on
performances of other departments in the company. e purchas-
ing department is the key player in purchased components for
the project and in establishing contracts for subcontractors and
consultants joining the project team. e accounting department
has to execute correctly and in a timely fashion the projects pay-
ables and receivables and charges to project charge numbers. e
drafting department has to prepare and release drawings, manu-
facturing process instructions, and quality assurance instructions
according to promised schedules. e sales department has to
coordinate with the project manager closely for a projects con-
tract extension and for related competitive bids to a project. Every
department in your company contributes to your project in one
way or another during the execution phase.
I had a challenging experience with my companys informa-
tion technology (IT) department in one of my long- term projects.
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Computer and information technology were advancing at a mind-
boggling speed at the turn of the century. A computers operat-
ing system, processor, memory, and hard drive capacity became
obsolete in six months. You had to improve your computers per-
formance at most in a year in order to keep up with the changing
world. In parallel to improved computer performance, software
that was used in my projects was going through revisions to uti-
lize enhances in hardware performance. I had an IT department
in my company, as the saying goes, that always liked to squeeze
the lemon to the last drop. ey dragged their feet in upgrading
my teams hardware, software, and communication tools. is
type of mentality aected the performance of my engineers who
always wanted to be in sync with leading-edge technology. When
I made an upgrade request, it took them two to four weeks to
respond. I had several meetings with the head of our IT depart-
ment regarding timely upgrades to our IT tools. I told him how
demoralizing the situation was for my engineers. I told him that
if our IT tools were not at the leading edge of technology then
our company could not stay at the leading edge for long. He kept
complaining about his budgetary and personnel issues. He did
not change his style of service a bit to my requests. After two
months of frustration, I went up the ladder to his boss. I called a
meeting with the IT manager and his boss. I went over all hard-
ware, software, and communication, especially videoconferenc-
ing, issues. I sensed during the meeting that the IT manager was
being protected by his boss. Changes were not going to happen as
swiftly as I liked. eir vision was to reduce the IT departments
budget and use all IT tools that we had as long as possible.
en I went and discussed the IT department issues with other
department heads. All department heads had similar complaints
to mine, but their complaints were not as urgent as mine. I con-
vinced all department heads that something had to be done fast
to change the existing IT department mission. Two of the other
department heads and myself agreed to take our case a notch
higher to the president of the company. I called a meeting with
our president and also invited the IT department managers boss
to the meeting.
e meeting with the president, the IT department managers
boss, two department heads, and I lasted over two hours. I pre-
sented all my teams IT department issues that I encountered dur-
ing the execution of my project. e other two department heads
presented their issues too. e IT department managers boss
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was continually in a protective mood. At the end of the meet-
ing, our president promised to take constructive action immedi-
ately to improve the situation. A week passed and I got the news
that our IT department head had resigned or been let go. ere
was also reshuing of responsibilities in upper management.
e IT department started to report directly to the president. e
company searched and hired a new vice president of IT from a
well- known computer technology company. After six months of
continual struggle, my engineers and I started to see a bright light
at the end of the IT tunnel.
e execution of a project can be bogged down and sometimes
a project manager can experience long delays and cost overruns to
his projects tasks due to poor performance by other departments
in a company. Taking immediate action to correct issues at hand
with other departments is a must. e whole company has to run
smoothly and eciently on all cylinders in order to complete a
project successfully.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
e IT department is a very crucial segment of your
company in this day and age.
Getting consensus with department heads to solve an
issue gathers momentum and helps you to achieve your
goal in a timely fashion.
All departments in your company have to function well
in order for your project to succeed.
Case5.2: Subcontractor Announcement
of Shutting Down Operations
We were qualied and were running a high volume production
of computer subassemblies for a U.S. computer manufacturer. A
critical component for our computer subassemblies was being sup-
plied by a sole source Japanese subcontractor. After two months
into the high volume production, our subcontractor in Japan
announced that they were shutting down their operations that
produced the critical component in three months. is was quite
a shock to me and to my company. At that time, I was head-
ing the engineering team for volume production of computer
subassemblies. I immediately had several telephone conversa-
tions with our subcontractor to understand the reasoning behind
their unexpected shutdown. Apparently, the critical component
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manufacturing was not protable enough for them and the new
president of the company decided to end this divisions operations.
My company proposed several options to keep them going until
high volume production of computer subassemblies for our U.S.
computer manufacturer continued. To qualify a new subcontrac-
tor for this critical component would be a tremendous undertak-
ing at this stage of the game. My company oered to help them
nancially or even buy their division out to no avail.
I told our president that we should not inform our U.S. cus-
tomer until we had a detailed solid plan to qualify alternate
sources for this critical component. Our president agreed with me
and assigned me to prepare the qualication plan in three work-
ing days. After the internal review of the qualication plan, we
were going to go to our customer and present it in person.
I had three alternate subcontractor choices for this critical
component. One was in the Bay Area. e second one was again
in Japan, and the third one was in Malaysia. I immediately went
to our purchasing director and asked him to nd out in two days
their available production capacities for this critical component
and their pricing. ese were the two most important inputs to
start our qualication plan. It turned out that the sum of any
two of the subcontractors production capacities could satisfy our
needs. We ranked these three subcontractors with the purchas-
ing manager using several critical criteria such as quality control,
product reliability, stability of the subcontractor, pricing, and
capacity. e subcontractors in the Bay Area and in Japan came in
on top. We decided to prepare qualication plans with these two
subcontractors and present them to our customer.
I called our customers project manager immediately and
explained the unfortunate upcoming snag to our volume produc-
tion. I detailed our course of action with two new subcontractors.
I also detailed the qualication plans that we would be pursuing
in the next three months. I emphasized their involvement in the
qualication process. Our customer had to evaluate 200 computer
subassemblies, 100 from each new subcontractor, with new criti-
cal components in two weeks. Our customers project manager
agreed to do his part on time so that we would not disrupt the
volume production process.
I sent two engineering teams, one to each potential subcon-
tractor, for a detailed qualication process. Major areas of concern
were operator training, product change control, quality control,
and incoming material control. It took the teams one week to
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evaluate these two potential subcontractors. Both teams had
very promising reports about these two new subcontractors. We
decided to bring both subcontractors on board on equal footing.
We did not want to rely heavily on one of them. Both subcontrac-
tors provided us with qualication components with measured
critical parameters in four weeks. en we built computer sub-
assemblies for qualication using these new critical components
in ve weeks.
I hand carried the qualication lots to our customer. ey
tested 200 computer subassemblies in their computers while
I watched over their shoulders. Fortunately, there were no sur-
prises. Our customers project manager gave us the green light to
use the new critical component in our computer subassemblies as
promised in two weeks.
is surprising change to our product came without adequate
warning. I had to adapt to this change fast. I had to also con-
vince my customer about the steps I was taking to deal with this
change. We were lucky that there were other alternate solutions
to this problem. My mistake was originally to go with a single
source for the critical component. I should have qualied at least
two subcontractors for this critical component at the beginning of
the volume production process.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A surprising event can occur unexpectedly at a reliable
subcontractor.
Prepare a detailed and complete alternate plan before
approaching your customer with a way out of the
showstopper.
Always qualify multiple sources for critical components
of your project.
Case5.3: Subcontracting to Small Leading-Edge
Technology Companies
Subcontracting to small leading-edge technology companies can
be very tricky and time consuming during the execution of a
global project. Continual monitoring of such companies is a must
in order to assure that they are always up to a high level of opera-
tional standards and their personnel turnover does not hamper
your projects progress.
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I was leading a team of engineers to supply high-volume mag-
netic recording sensors to our customers around the globe. Our
supply chain originated in our wafer fabrications in California
and branched into higher assemblies in South Korea, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Puerto Rico. Surfaces of our read- write sensors
had to be free of any contaminants before being installed into
disk drives. Our nal operations were performed in class-10 clean
room environments. We were supplying thousands of sensors a
week to dierent customers. Our major sensor lot rejection cause
by customers was contamination. Several lots per week were put
on hold or rejected by our customers for sensor surface contami-
nation. I had a subteam whose mission was to identify surface
contaminants, track down their sources, and eliminate them from
occurring again.
For U.S. customers, we brought contaminated sensors to our
material evaluation laboratories in California. We did failure
analysis using advanced state of the art auger spectroscopy, energy
dispersive x- ray spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. We
had well- trained technicians in all three shifts. We were able to
get surface analysis reports in a day to respond with our correc-
tive actions to our customers. Fast turnaround in corrective action
was a must in just- in- time supplier chain requirements from our
customers. I had to set up failure analysis laboratories for our cus-
tomer centers in Singapore, Japan, and Europe.
My team and I searched and sourced three leading-edge technol-
ogy contamination evaluation laboratories in each location. I sent
my engineers to these laboratories for qualication. We explained
our failure analysis requirements for surface contaminants on our
sensors. We checked their operations, nancial stability, measure-
ment costs, type of equipment they had for measurements, equip-
ment downtime, equipment repair structure, equipment spare
parts situation, their technicians measurement training and expe-
rience, sample preparation techniques, measurement prioritization
and turnaround time, failure analysis reporting time table, and so
on. After a thorough comparative analysis, we chose one labora-
tory at each location to be our failure analysis center.
My team and I had to check on these three leading-edge tech-
nology laboratories periodically. We had to make sure that they
were upgrading their equipment to the most advanced ones that
provided accurate elemental and chemical compositions of con-
taminants on the surfaces of our sensors. We had to make sure
that they were not losing their experienced technicians. We had
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some issues with lost sensors and miscommunication. We were
constantly discussing how to improve and how to expedite our
failure analyses within our partnership.
Several times while the failure analysis was going on, I had to
send one of my engineers and a couple of inspectors to my cus-
tomers facilities to sort our sensors. We had to separate good sen-
sors from contaminated ones under high- powered microscopes in
a Class-10 clean room environment so that my customers auto-
mated assembly lines would not slow down or come to a halt due
to the lack of our sensors.
In a just- in- time high- volume relationship with our customers,
I had to form such a global failure analysis group with leading-
edge technology small laboratories. It took my team and me six
months to form our failure analysis network, but in the end it
worked out very successfully for many years to come. Our cus-
tomers were very satised with our response time and corrective
actions to contamination issues in our magnetic recording sensors.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
To qualify small leading-edge technology companies for
your project will require extensive scrutinizing and will
take more time.
To set up a global network for a crucial project task is
always a challenge for a project manager.
Case5.4: Latitude versus Attitude
When dealing with international project teams from dierent
countries, there was always a dierence in adrenaline rush and
excitement toward meetings and project tasks. I experienced
adrenaline rush and excitement toward project meetings and tasks
at the higher end of the spectrum from team members in coun-
tries such as Japan and Germany and at the lower end of the spec-
trum from team members in countries such as Malaysia, Mexico,
and countries in the Mediterranean region.
I dealt with team members from Malaysia, Mexico, and
Southern Turkey who often claimed that they never committed
to completing a given task on a mutually determined completion
time. eir behavior was inconsistent and uncooperative, and they
ignored my multiple requests and task deadlines. ey had to be
micromanaged and pushed to complete a task with quality. ey
had a lackadaisical work behavior. Of course this behavior was not
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true for all team members from those regions, but most of them
had lower concentration and negative behavior. I attributed this
kind of behavior to the warm and humid climate in those coun-
tries and to their traditional work ethics.
In colder climates such as in Japan and Germany, people devel-
oped survival intelligence, they became practical, aggressive, and
competitive. Science and technology mushroomed from these
kinds of behaviors in the Western world.
For example, during my projects in Malaysia, I had issues with
my team members coming to meetings late and not being pre-
pared. Some team members walked into the conference room 10
or 15 minutes late. Some of them did not have a clue as to what
they had to present or what to contribute at that meeting. ey
obviously did not read their meeting invitation e- mail in detail.
I constantly reminded my team members that meetings were not
for kicking back and for being in another world. Everyone had
to be on their toes and contribute during a meeting even if it was
not their turn to present their part. I joked with the latecomers to
the meetings that I was going to charge a U.S. dollar per minute
that they were late to the meeting so that we could all go out and
have a feisty lunch every week. I kindly asked the latecomers to
be on time to the meetings with no success. en I went to their
supervisors and asked them kindly to correct the situation by talk-
ing to their people. e supervisors discussions with their people
helped the situation a little, but it was dicult to get rid of bad
habits. en I went up to the general manager of the company
and asked him to issue a stern memorandum for timely attendance
and well preparedness to all meetings. e stern memorandum
did the trick and all my team members got the message. After two
months of determination, my team meetings got into a productive
and a precise rhythm.
I also had issues with promised action item completion times
in countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, and countries in the
Mediterranean region. If I were given an action item completion
time by a Japanese engineer, the task was done before or right at
the promised completion time. If a Japanese engineer had prob-
lems with completing his task, he came and asked me for help or
for an extension to complete the promised action item. However,
in Mexico if an engineer promised me an action item completion
time, he came with his results a day to a week late. In these warm
regions of the world, the only way to keep my team members on
their toes was to micromanage them. I had to talk to them daily
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or even hourly to push them and to monitor their progress in a
given task.
Most of my team members in these warmer regions of the world
also had a relaxed behavior toward our customers and our subcon-
tractors. I emphasized that when a customer or a subcontractor
visited our plant we had to be well prepared and had to be sharp.
I want to emphasize that these lackadaisical behaviors surfaced
in the majority of my team members and not in all of them. It is
very dicult to change human behaviors in other countries. You
have to be exible, adjust, and learn how to deal with the situation
at hand. Jimmy Buetts song lyrics describe project team mem-
bers behavior in dierent countries well. With these changes in
latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a global project environment, work habits and atti-
tudes vary vastly from country to country.
Changing well- ingrained habits in your global team
members can take lots of patience and continual guid-
ance on your part to correct.
Case5.5: Stress from 24/7 Connectivity
Internet and cell phone connections are getting faster, cheaper,
and more reliable every day. ese wireless connections are
achieved from anywhere on Earth, even ying at 35,000 feet
above the ground or while vacationing on a remote Tahitian
island. Continual advances in e- mailing, tweeting, cell phoning,
text messaging, ease of data transfer, videoconferencing, and wire-
less networking make the life of a global project manager much
easier. Anyone on your project team can instantly work with their
les, programs, and networks from anywhere on Earth just as if
they were at their own desks. A global project manager has to lay
down ground rules for 24/7 communication with all team mem-
bers, including subcontractors and customers around the world, at
kicko meetings of a project.
During the execution phase of a global project, a team member
can get inundated by e- mails, cell phone calls, text messages, and
so forth. ese 24/7 communications can occur during lunchtime,
dinner time, sleep time, or even during weekends, holidays, and
vacations. A conscientious team member will try to respond to all
messages in a timely fashion while sacricing his or her personal
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life. ese kinds of 24/7 connections can cause overload and burn
out team members and the project manager fast. A 24/7-con-
nected environment will bring good things to a global project, but
the global project manager has to orchestrate and apply a fair bal-
ance between continuous connectivity and the private life of every
team member so that stress levels stay at normal levels during the
execution of a global project.
A good engineering friend of mine was working on an interna-
tional companys restructuring project team. He was a very con-
scientious worker. He checked his e- mails every half an hour from
the time he woke up until he went to bed. He always answered
his cell phone. One Saturday night we agreed to go out to dinner
together. He made a reservation at a good Italian restaurant, which
was very hard to get into. He brought his girlfriend. I brought
my wife. We were about to sit at our reserved table and his cell
phone rang. He answered his phone and ran out of the restaurant
to talk to the caller. We sat down at our table and waited for my
friend to return. After ve minutes he returned with a very sul-
len face. He told us that the call came from his project manager.
His project manager urgently wanted a couple of graphs from him
during the next hour. My friend told his project manager that
he was at dinner with us, but his project manager insisted on his
untimely demand. My friend had to excuse himself from dinner
and go home to his laptop. I learned later that his project manager
was a workaholic and was very rigid with his untimely demands.
He sometimes called my friend at midnight and during weekends
with excessive requests. My friend worked on that project team
for a month and then gave his notice to leave the company. He was
totally stressed out from 24/7 connectivity to his team and from
an unreasonably demanding project manager. My friend immedi-
ately started his own company and became quite successful. In a
way he was thankful for his previous project managers unaccept-
able behavior.
Interactive design and development by teams around the globe
are also an integral part of a global project. I was the project
manager of a chip design team in California that was constantly
interfacing with our German counterparts. Eight hours of time
dierence between the two design locations made me structure
feasible meeting and interaction times in order to reduce work
stress on both parties. I even allowed two of my design engineers
to work the night shift in California for two months in order to
have real- time interaction with their German counterparts. e
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
proposal to work the night shift in real time with the Germans
during the design of the chips software was suggested by my engi-
neers. Real- time interaction between two design parties reduced
time and error in completing their design tasks.
A project manager colleague of mine was working with a sub-
team in India to manufacture computer components. A twelve
and a half hour time dierence between India and California
required him to take several steps to reduce work- related stress
from continuous connectivity. He set up videoconferencing from
7:30p.m. to 9p.m. California time on every Monday. He asked
his California team members not to call their Indian teammates
from 6:30a.m. to 7:30p.m. California time during the work week
and during weekends. He also listed all Indian holidays when
communication was to be stopped. e project manager had to
establish these communication rules for his project during the
kicko phase of his project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Stress levels of your global team members can increase
exponentially in a 24/7-connected environment.
24/7-communication rules between your global team
members, your global customers, and your global sub-
contractors have to be laid out by you at the kicko meet-
ings of a project.
Case5.6: Engineering Interface
among Wafer Fabrication Shifts
Wafer fabrication engineering requires detailed recording and cor-
recting for out- of- specication conditions, scrap reasons, equip-
ment malfunctions, corrective actions, and variations in control
charts. Our wafer factory was working in three shifts for seven
days. Wafer fabrications process engineering hours were 7a.m. to
3p.m. for the day shift, 3p.m. to 11p.m. for the swing shift, and
11p.m. to 7a.m. for the night shift. I had six process engineers
in each shift. One was a principal process engineer for deposition
processes and the backup for ion milling processes. e second one
was a principal engineer for ion milling processes and the backup
for deposition processes. e third one was a principal process
engineer for photolithography and the backup for plate and etch-
ing processes. e fourth process engineer was the principal for
plate and etch processes and the backup for photolithography. e
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Project ManageMent case studIes
fth process engineer was the principal for wafer testing and the
backup for clean room environment. My sixth process engineer
was the principal for the clean room environment and the backup
for wafer testing. All the important events that happened during a
shift were recorded in six dierent logbooks, one for every process
center, and critical action items were being sent to the next shifts
engineers by using six dierent e- mail folders, again one for every
process center.
e system was working okay, but it was not perfect. Several
items, some of them critical, were falling through the cracks.
ere were misinterpretations of messages written in logbooks
and in e- mail folders. I was getting several telephone calls a
night from the swing shift and the night shift engineers ask-
ing me to explain some of the comments written about a pro-
cess or about malfunctioning equipment. Even I could not help
explain some of the condensed phrases. Comments like sput-
tering equipment 1 is acting and photolithography curing
plates had temperature problems were causing us to do exten-
sive detective work to nd the particular malfunction. We had
to improve our wafer yields continually and the process engi-
neering communication system between shifts was hampering
our progress. I had several meetings with my engineers from
every shift and we discussed in detail how to improve our com-
munication procedures between shifts. We decided to record
more precise and detailed information regarding every issue
during a shift. All of my engineers complied very well, but still
it was not a good communication system between the shifts.
We had over 200 operations and equipment in six process
centers in the wafer factory. is kind of very dynamic and con-
tinuous process environment did not allow any mistakes or any
shortcuts to overcome the issues that popped up. All of the sput-
tering engineers had to be on the same page on all shifts. All of
the photolithography engineers had to be on the same page, even
on the same line, on all shifts.
During one of my process engineering meetings, one of the
engineers proposed a good idea to extend our shift hours by half
an hour and have a face to face between the shift engineers. I
talked to every engineer and got their consent to extend their
work hour by half an hour. I also talked with human resources
to make sure that we were not violating any overtime regula-
tions. Salaried engineers did not get paid for overtime in this
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company. Everyone agreed to the new schedule and to the shift
interaction meeting.
Wafer fabrications process engineering new hours were 7a.m.
to 3:30p.m. for the day shift, 3p.m. to 11:30p.m. for the swing
shift, and 11p.m. to 7:30a.m. for the night shift. We started to
have process engineering shift interface meetings from 7 a.m. to
7:30a.m. for the night shift and day shift engineers, from 3 p.m.
to 3:30p.m. for the day shift and swing shift engineers, and from
11 p.m. to 11:30p.m. for the swing shift and night shift engi-
neers. I attended all three meetings every day. I took the meeting
notes and distributed action items list to the appropriate people.
Sometimes we could not complete all current issues in a half an
hour meeting. Some meetings extended to an hour.
After trying this new interface system for over a month, we
saw signicant increases in wafer yields. Also, wafer throughputs
improved. Holdups for a shutdown process decreased signi-
cantly. I made this new process engineering shift interface meet-
ing a standard for our wafer factory. I also covered the extra time
that engineers were spending in these shift interface meetings in
their annual bonus awards. My boss and the company president
agreed to award extra bonuses for my process engineers for their
voluntary agreement to spend extra time for shift interface meet-
ings, which caused our wafer yields to improve continually.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
24/7-production operations require face- to- face interac-
tion between shift engineers and operators.
Depending on only written communications between
production shifts can cause misinterpretations.
Written communication plus face- to- face interaction
between production shifts reduces the possibility of errors.
Case5.7: Fire Fighting during the Installation
of a System on an Oshore Oil Platform
I was the project manager of a large project to design, build, and
install an automated positioning system on a new oshore oil
platform. e design and construction of the system were com-
pleted in the United States. e system components were shipped
to Norway for installation. I had to send an application enginee
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to Norway to see the installation of the positioning system on the
new oil platform and train the responsible people from our cus-
tomers team for its operation and maintenance.
I had a young and very inquisitive engineer on my team who
was trained for six months during the construction and testing
of the system in our facilities. He knew all the intricate details of
the automated system. He was also well versed in troubleshoot-
ing the system components. I decided to send him to Norway for
three months to oversee the installation of the system and to train
the customers team members. I discussed his mission with him.
He was very excited and elated that he was going to represent our
company by himself in such a detailed project. I told him that we
were going to have a daily telephone conference ve times a week.
I promised him that I would bring in other design specialists to
the telephone conference calls if there were any issues during
the installation. I asked him to keep an engineering notebook to
record all the daily tasks, mishaps, issues, and all important facts
regarding the system installation. I also cautioned him to carry
along a complete toolbox to be used during the system installation
and some cold weather clothing.
e rst month in Norway went well. e engineer did a great
job during the installation of our automated positioning system.
We had a telephone conference call at 8a.m. California time and
5p.m. Norway time during every working day. ere were some
minor issues such as interference with another equipment, which
was solved by removing a quarter of an inch from the side anges
of our equipment. Several bolting patterns with the oil rig oor
did not match. We had to slot our bolting holes to match theirs.
Installation was completed in a month and test runs were starting.
My engineer was freezing in Norway in the month of February,
but he was upbeat and ready to start the test runs.
e control panel of the system started to have problems during
the test runs. Watertight pressure switches were not sometimes
switching at their set points. My engineer on location tried to nd
the cause of this intermittent malfunction without any success.
I immediately collected the available brains in our plant and an
application engineer from the pressure switch manufacturer and
brainstormed the control panel problem in Norway. We provided
several suggestions to our engineer over the telephone for him
to try. Nothing seemed to work to correct this malfunction. We
tried all the re- ghting ideas for two weeks without any success.
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
I had another option. ere was a very experienced consultant
in electro- mechanical system design. My company used his ser-
vices from time to time in the design of our control panels. I tried
to reach him by telephone and by e- mail. I learned from his fam-
ily that he was on a sailing vacation in Tahiti for a month. I asked
his family as to how I could touch base with him. Apparently,
he called his family at least twice a week when he was on land.
I asked his family to help me to touch base with him on a cru-
cial issue. I asked them to ask the consultant to call me as soon
as possible.
After two days, I received a call from the consultant from Bora
Bora in Tahiti. I explained the situation and told him that we were
in a bind. I asked him if he could cut his vacation short and y
from Tahiti to Norway and help my resident engineer solve our
control panel issue. I proposed an incentive to help him make up
his mind. I told him that I would pay him his regular hourly rate
even during his travel time and reimburse him for business class
airline fares. He agreed to my proposal and promised me that he
would be on the rst ight out of Tahiti to Europe.
After troubleshooting the control panel together with my nov-
ice engineer in a very methodical way, the consultant found the
problem that was causing our control panel to malfunction. e
power that was feeding the control panel was sometimes below
the allowable lower limit and was causing the pressure switches to
not function properly.
Being in a re-ghting mode for two weeks to troubleshoot the
control panel by telephone conversations in a remote location in
Norway with a novice engineer did not work out well. My hind-
sight told me that I should have sent my novice engineer to this
important oshore assignment in a foreign country along with an
experienced engineer as a team. In the end, my customer was not
happy because it took us three weeks to troubleshoot the control
panel malfunction. We were lucky that we were not penalized
for this delay because the new oil platform had other functional
issues. My solution to our problem was an expensive one. I was
over budget and my management was not thrilled about it.
I thanked my consultant for saving our butt by cutting his
vacation short. I showed my gratitude to him with a bonus pay-
ment. I did not forget to praise my novice engineer for performing
a very detailed and a courageous job by himself working the rst
time on an oil platform. He also received an outstanding perfor-
mance review from our customers project manager.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a project, sometimes it takes very unusual and expen-
sive decisions to solve a nagging problem.
A novice engineer and an experienced engineer work-
ing as a team on a complicated project task can be more
ecient and more eective.
Case5.8: Engineers Sent to Japan
to Improve Manufacturing Yields
A Japanese supplier was providing ceramic magnetic recording
heads for our head stack assemblies for a U.S. disk drive manufac-
turer. Each head stack assembly was being tested for performance
and the yields were low. We formed a team of six engineers, two
from design, two from quality, and two from manufacturing, to
improve the yields of our head stack assemblies. I was heading
the yield improvement team. We investigated every process in our
plant. We tracked every suppliers component lots to nal testing.
We realized that our nal test yields were varying from 30% to
70% depending on the ceramic magnetic recording head lots we
received from Japan. ere were wide swings in performance of
ceramic performance heads from lot to lot.
I called the chief engineer at our Japanese supplier and dis-
cussed our surprising conclusion for low product yields with him.
He promised he would investigate his processes and report his
ndings to me in a week. A week passed and I did not hear any-
thing from him. I called him again to emphasize the yield issue.
He nally spilled the dire situation he was in. He told me that he
was down to one manufacturing engineer. He lost two of them
recently. He could not investigate and control all the processes for
our ceramic magnetic recording heads. I proposed to help him by
sending two of my seasoned manufacturing engineers from my
team to Japan for four weeks. I asked his company to pay for travel
expenses for my two engineers. He accepted my oer. Two of my
teams senior manufacturing engineers, one a lapping expert and
the other a grinding expert, were o to Japan.
We had a mission- dening meeting before the two engineers
left. I wanted a daily update via e- mail from them detailing their
investigation steps, their design- of- experiments, and their nd-
ings. We were also going to have a telephone conference call twice
a week on Mondays and ursdays at 5p.m. Pacic standard
time, namely, 9a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays in Japan.
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My two engineers started to go over each manufacturing step of
ceramic magnetic recording heads at our Japanese supplier. Some
of the inconsistencies in their processes and in dierent shifts
were corrected. ese did not make any dierence in our over-
all yields. I asked them to conduct several design- of- experiments
involving lapping and grinding processes and especially speeds
and send me products from these experiments by specifying all
variables for a given lot. We built these special ceramic magnetic
recording head lots to nal assemblies and tested them to see the
changes in nal test yields.
e Japanese manufacturing personnel were helping my engi-
neers day and night. ey were doing up to 10 dierent experi-
ments at once. We could not nish all the designed experiments
in four weeks. We had to extend their stay in Japan another four
weeks. At the end of the sixth week, we received several special
lots with slower lapping and grinding speeds. Our nal test yields
with these slower speed lots shot up to 90%. e stresses induced
on the ceramic slider body were much lower and therefore the
stresses induced on the magnetic sensor were much reduced. I
gave my engineers and the Japanese chief engineer the exciting
good news. I asked them to send me ve more conrmation lots
with slower lapping and grinding speeds. All these special lots
too went through nal testing with ying colors. We had a very
steady 90% nal test yield.
Apparently, the Japanese manufacturing engineers increased
lapping and grinding speeds to jack up the throughput due to
increased demand from us. I emphasized to the Japanese chief
engineer not to change anything in their processes without my
approval. He agreed to it. He was very apologetic about the whole
chaos that was created by his novice engineers.
After all the 24/7 work that my manufacturing engineers per-
formed in Japan, I asked them to relax and spend a couple of days at
their leisure before heading back. e Japanese chief engineer took
them to a close by ash- spewing volcano and to some hot springs
(onsen) near the volcano. My teams two manufacturing engineers
did a great job performing a very structured design- of- experiments
at our ceramic magnetic recording head supplier. I wrote a praising
review regarding their excellent work in Japan to their supervisor
and sent a copy of my review to our human resources.
is Japanese supplier was a critical part of our product. As a
project manager, it was my responsibility to help them in any way
I could. As a result of this urgent six- week project, our products
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nal test yields improved immensely and they were steady. Our
Japanese suppliers ceramic magnetic recording head sales doubled.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Degradation of crucial production parameters such as
the nal product test yield can be traced all the way to
your subcontractors processes.
You have to do all you can to help your subcontractor to
nd and correct manufacturing problems that are aect-
ing your nal product yields.
Case5.9: Listening to an Engine Assembler
I was a senior scientist on a team of ve engineers and two design-
ers. We designed from the ground up a 70 HP at 5000 RPM
rotary engine for compact cars. e design was completed in one
year and we contracted a British rm to build the engine proto-
types. We were bench testing the rst prototype engine. During
test runs from cold start, the oil pressure was always showing high
and exceeding the preset limit. Initially, we thought that there
was a design ow in some of the oil passages in the engine. We
did some investigative work, but we could not pin down where the
problem was. My teams engineers, including myself, were pulling
our hair out trying to determine the cause of this malfunction.
One of the engine assemblers, named Freddie, thought that
the oil pressure relief valve exit hole that dumps excess pressure
oil directly back into the oil sump was too small in diameter. He
showed me the relief hole and insisted from his experience with
other similar engines that it should be larger in diameter. I listened
to his constructive input and went to the project manager to inform
him about the observation from the engine assembler. I asked the
project manager if we should repeat the oil exit hole sizing calcula-
tions to see if there was an error in them that we missed.
e project manager agreed with me and asked one of our
engineers to repeat the oil pressure relief valve exit hole sizing
calculations. He asked me to be the checker for the new calcula-
tions. e oil ow velocity equation that was used initially in high
oil pressure cases was wrong and during these initial calculations
we predicted higher velocities in small diameter holes. Our new
calculations with the correct oil ow velocity equation predicted
that the required oil pressure relief valve exit hole diameter be
doubled. We changed all the required drawings and released
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them for the next set of engines to be built. We also modied the
existing engines. e updated engines ran with great performance
even in cold weather conditions without exceeding the preset oil
pressure limit.
I went back to Freddie and thanked him for his valuable advice
and asked him and his wife to join us for dinner at an exclusive
restaurant in the city. He was very grateful. We had a great time in
celebrating Freddies constructive input to our project.
Listening to the engine assembler saved us precious time
in nding the solution to a simple nagging malfunction in our
engines. ese types of events happen many times during the
life of a project. Listening to your customers input, to your sub-
contractors input, to the regulatory agency input, to input from
people around you from secretaries to assemblers might save your
project. Listening to all input and ltering it down to useful ones
for your project is an art in itself. As a project manager, you have
to be appreciative of all input, good or bad, and you should not
forget to reward the good ones.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A nagging problem can be solved easily by listening to
others.
As project managers, we have to be very open- minded
to ideas and suggestions given by others. Our easygoing
and appreciative attitude will encourage everyone around
us to sound their input for the goodness of our project.
Case5.10: Russian Federation Technical Passport Issue
Bureaucracy was a major hurdle in shipping equipment to a project
for a Russian Federation oil platform. As a part of the project, tech-
nical passports were required to ship our equipment to Russia. e
Russian Federation regulatory authorities review and approve the
equipment documents ahead of shipment. ey issue a GOST- R
certicate of conformity for customs clearance. I had to send all the
equipment drawings, specication sheets, quality and conformity
certicates, certicates of origin, and operating manuals in Russian
to the Russian authorities about three months before the shipment.
at would give them enough time for their review and for a ques-
tion and answer period and to release the certicate of conformity.
I estimated that all the documents that had to be submitted
to be around 1,000 pages. I got bids from two agencies that were
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experts in obtaining these certicates. ese agencies do all the
translation into Russian, submit the documents, do the follow- up
and resolve all the conicts, and get the certicate in time before
shipment of our equipment. ese agencies asked $60,000 to
do the entire job. is expense was not funded in our original
bidding for the project. We had to spend this amount from our
margin. My upper management asked me to look into other ways
of obtaining the Russian Federation certicate. I researched and
found a certied Russian technical translator for $15 per page. If
we got our documents translated and submitted them ourselves,
we would increase our margin by $45,000.
I went to my management and explained to them the alternate
way of getting the certicate of conformity. We all agreed to submit
our documents to the Russian Federation regulatory authorities our-
selves. I got all the documents translated into Russian, which took
two months. I sent all the documents by FedEx three months before
the shipment to the Russian Federation regulatory authorities.
I followed up the approval process by e- mail and by telephone
with my Russian translator next to me every week. We always
received an answer from a secretary that our documents were in
the review cycle and we should get the approval any day. A month
had passed and I started to get edgy. Two months passed and
we got the same response, that the review cycle was almost com-
plete. I could not wait anymore. I had only one month to ship our
equipment according to our contract with our customer. I talked
with my customers project manager about the runaround I was
getting from the regulatory authorities in Russia. He warned me
that their response was typical. He advised me that I should have
gone with an expert agency to get the certicate of conformity.
ese agencies knew how to push the paperwork and get the cer-
ticate of conformity on time.
I immediately contacted one of the agencies I had dealt with
before. I got a new bid from them to obtain the certicate of confor-
mity in a month with all documents already in Russian. is time I
received a $40,000 price tag. I went to my upper management and
laid out the details and the risks to them. We decided not to wait
anymore. We had to go with the expert agency to obtain the certi-
cate of conformity. ese agencies had oces in Moscow and they
hand carried all the documents and followed their progress daily. If
there was a hiccup they took care of it right there. ey promised to
obtain the certicate of conformity within a month and I received
it by overnight FedEx two days before our equipment shipment.
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After all this hoopla, I made an extra $5,000 in our margin,
but it was not worth it. I had several sleepless nights and spent a
lot of my time following a Russian Federation regulatory author-
ity process, which I had no control over. I should have put my foot
down with my upper management and should have gone with an
expert agency from the beginning of the process.
I received the certicate of conformity for my original applica-
tion four months later by mail. Bureaucracy in a foreign govern-
ment can hurt your project in many ways. You have to go along
with the experts to solve your problems with the bureaucrats even
if it costs your project an arm and a leg.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Let certied people or companies handle government
bureaucracies in foreign countries.
Do not cut corners to reduce your cost when dealing with
foreign governments.
Case5.11: Natural Disaster Insurance
We were contracted to design, build, and install communication
equipment in a gas pipeline in Bangladesh. We prepared and
tested all subassemblies of the equipment in our facilities. en
we packaged them in waterproof crates and shipped them using
land/ ocean/ land routes to their destination. We had a reliable
freight forwarder who insured the goods that were being shipped
against all risks of physical loss or damage for door- to- door trans-
portation. All risks cargo insurance covered damages during
loading and unloading, all transportation, war, strikes, riots, civil
commotion, theft, and nondelivery of any portion of the ship-
ment. Our cargo insurance even covered jettisoning of containers
during the voyage in the ocean that could be encountered due to
adverse conditions.
e total cargo insurance cost for all the equipment that lled
up two 40-foot containers was over $60,000. e shipment was
scheduled to arrive at the port of Chittagong, Bangladesh in ve
weeks. At the beginning of the fth week, I received an e- mail
from our freight forwarder that the shipment had arrived at the
port of Chittagong and our containers were unloaded success-
fully. I got ready to send my engineering team to Bangladesh for
the installation process.
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One of my engineers informed me that there was a cyclone
forming in the Bay of Bengal and it was heading north toward
Bangladesh. I immediately called our freight forwarder regarding
the status of our two containers at the port. He assured me that he
would talk to his agent in Bangladesh and get the two containers
transported inland away from the cyclone hit areas of the coast.
He also told me that our all risk insurance did not cover natural
disasters. at was very disturbing news to me. Apparently, we
had to buy separate insurance coverage for natural disasters such
as earthquakes, cyclones, ooding, and so on. To save us around
$10,000 our shipping department and our freight forwarder
decided to bypass the natural disaster insurance for my projects
equipment. I was very worried at that point. I called my manager
and the company president and explained to them the pickle we
were in. en I called my customer to warn them about the status
of their equipment shipment with the upcoming massive storm
and our lack of insurance coverage for natural disasters.
I could do nothing, but wait and pray. I was hoping that my
freight forwarders agent in Bangladesh could move our containers
inland before the cyclone hit land. I started to follow the cyclone
news on the Internet. It was a massive and powerful cyclone pack-
ing heavy rains and destructive winds. It was heading toward the
Indian and Bangladesh coastlines. Satellite images showed the
cyclones spinning tails covering a huge area. Weather forecasters
predicted the storm to make landfall the next day near the border
between India and Bangladesh.
I could not sleep that night. I followed the storm very closely.
ere was no news from our freight forwarder regarding our two
containers whereabouts. e next morning I saw on the news
that the cyclone had made landfall closer to the Indian shoreline.
Chittagong and its vicinity got hit by heavy rains and 100-mph
winds. At 8a.m., I received a call from our freight forwarder that
our two containers were still at the Chittagong port. ey could
not move them inland due to the storm. Our two containers were
under 3feet of water. Luckily, our equipment was very well pack-
aged and all weather protected. e cyclone had a large footprint,
but only its tail hit the port of Chittagong. We came very close to
losing all of our equipment.
As a project manager, I should have questioned in detail the
insurance coverage of my shipment. When I heard that we had
all risk insurance, I did not dig into further detail. at was a
mistake. My team, my management, my customer, my freight
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forwarder, and myself had a very scary 36 hours. I wished we had
the extra coverage for natural disasters. What we went through
was not at all worth the $10,000 saved.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to cover and ask smart
questions about every segment of our project. We cannot
leave any unturned stone that might come back and bite
us at the end.
Saving a little money in a large project is not worth the
trouble and the agony you have to go through.
Case5.12: Project Partners
Bidding for a project can get quite complicated. You have to
strengthen your companys position in a bidding war by partner-
ing with other companies in order to have a winning chance. In a
project you might partner with another company or companies for
nancial reasons, for technical reasons, for domestic content rea-
sons (in international bids), and for rules and regulations coverage
reasons. Project management can get complicated in a multicom-
pany team environment. You have to have the responsibilities of
each party well dened. You have to have a well- agreed- upon
pecking order for project management authority.
In a volume production project to build an advanced passenger
vehicle, a complex team of international companies agreed to par-
ticipate in a start- up automotive company. I performed a detailed
feasibility study for the volume production project. Design of the
vehicle was completed by the start- up company and the vehicles
manufacturing was in the prototype phase. In volume production,
the vehicles unibody frame construction was going to be man-
ufactured in Italy by a well- known automotive company. e
drivetrain was going to be supplied by a well- respected French
automotive company. e nal assembly and test of the vehicle
were going to be done in a new volume production plant in the
United States by the start- up automotive company. e project
was being nanced by a couple of high- powered venture capital
investors in the United States. It took about a year of negotia-
tions to bring all involved companies together as a team and to
sign nal contracts. e technical project partners and nancial
project partners were all on solid ground. Everyone was upbeat for
a successful project.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
e project manager of the whole project, a good friend of
mine, formed three separate project teams, one in Italy, one in
France, and one in the United States. Every team had well- dened
project tasks, project schedules, and a team leader who reported to
him. e project manager had to travel a lot between three project
groups to coordinate and be up to date regarding every task. is
project was in the 1980s, and Internet communication was just
starting and international calling systems were not as good. You
had to be on location in order to assess the true status of a project.
e projects manager had to present cost performance analysis of
the project to nancing groups on a weekly basis. Final assem-
bly and test facilities for volume production were near completion
after a year. During that time, 60 prototypes of the advanced pas-
senger vehicle were built and tested thoroughly and successfully.
Everything for the volume production project was going as
planned. e rst vehicle was scheduled to roll out of the volume
production line in January of 1988. However, stock markets around
the world crashed all of a sudden in October of 1987. Financial
backers of the project had to drop out of the project with their losses.
Eorts to raise additional capital to get the project moving were
fruitless in that nancial turmoil. At the end of 1987, operations at
the new start- up automotive company came to a halt. e project
manager did a heck of a job for three years to bring this highly
complicated multinational project to the gates of volume produc-
tion, but his luck ran out as a result of an unforeseen nancial crisis.
In another project, I was leading a project team to design,
build, manufacture, test, and install high- pressure hydraulic cyl-
inders in a very low temperature environment. My company had
to team up with a seal manufacturer in Germany during the bid-
ding phase of the contract. e German company was responsible
for designing, manufacturing, and delivering to us special cyl-
inder seals. e German companys technical know- how was in
designing and manufacturing high- pressure seals operated in very
cold temperatures. e German company brought a good techni-
cal boost to the winning bid combination. e German company
had a well- dened responsibility, a schedule, and a project team.
ey were supposed to deliver the rst articles in six months. e
project was progressing on schedule. At the end of the fourth
month, there was a shue in the German project team without my
approval. e new team members were novices and they started
to delay their seal delivery dates. e special seals were constantly
failing very low- temperature life tests. I started to get worried.
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I met with my companys president and explained the alarming
situation to him. We decided to send our quality manager imme-
diately to Germany to evaluate our projects progress on-site. His
project status reports to me were not favorable at all. is private
and small German company was going through an upper man-
agement shake- up. ey had lost several of their experienced
designers. e quality managers recommendation was to drop
the German company and to nd another partner for designing
and manufacturing special seals for our hydraulic cylinders. I dis-
cussed this emergency situation with my companys president. We
decided together to cancel our seal project partnership with the
German company because of their failure to fulll our joint con-
tract commitments. We could go this route only after getting an
okay from my customers project manager. My customers project
manager agreed with my proposal to change our German part-
ner. My purchasing department and I scrambled to nd another
seal company that could design and provide us special seals in an
expedited schedule. Luckily, we found one close to our facilities
in the United States. My customers project manager and I visited
our new seal design and manufacturing partner for qualication.
e qualication visit was very successful. We signed a contract
with our new special seal design and manufacturing partner in
one week. I monitored their progress very closely. I also had one
of my project team engineers reside at the new seal company for
the duration of the whole project. When everything was said and
done, my company was late one month in delivering our hydraulic
cylinders to our customers site. However, I was very lucky to be
able to turn around the special seal crisis.
At the bidding phase of a project, all project partners look
eager and willing to win the bid. Many unforeseen issues might
surface with our project partners during the execution phase of
the project. As project managers, it is our responsibility to remedy
these project partner issues as fast as we can without damaging
the cost and schedule performance of our project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
In a multicompany partnership project environment,
there has to be a mutually agreed upon project manager
who is responsible for the whole project.
You have to be proactive and drop some of your project
partners in a timely fashion if they are not performing
up to par.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
Case5.13: Cost Overrun Due to Steel Price Increase
I was heading a project to design, build, and test 20 high- load
capacity and high- pressure hydraulic cylinders for a customer in
Brazil. Each cylinder was priced at $200k. e total project rev-
enue was $4M. Each cylinders cost was broken down to distrib-
uted design costs, manufacturing costs, and testing, which was
$120k per cylinder. Material costs for each cylinder were $40k.
Packaging and shipment of the cylinders were the customers
responsibility, namely, delivery was ex- factory. So each cylinder
would have a cost of $160k with a total project cost of $3.2M,
which resulted in a project margin of 20%.
e material cost was mainly the special steel cost used in build-
ing the hydraulic cylinders. We could only use steel from the cus-
tomers qualied countries and qualied suppliers in those countries.
My purchasing agent was screening all the qualied steel manufac-
turing suppliers and dealers. Due to a large demand for steel from
China, steel prices skyrocketed during my project, which we did
not account for in our pricing. With high steel prices our material
costs were going to increase by 50% to $60k for each cylinder. is
unexpected cost increase in steel would have lowered our project
margins to 10%. I had a meeting with my team and with my upper
management to brainstorm the skyrocketing price of steel for my
project. One of the vice presidents suggested that I should discuss
this issue with our customers project manager too. Our customer
had large steel construction projects. Maybe purchasing our steel
under our customers umbrella would give us some relief in price.
After our internal meeting, I immediately sent an e- mail to our
customers project manager to set up a teleconference with him
regarding our projects steel costs. During the teleconference, I
told him that we were going to get a big hit to our project margin
with the current steel prices. We discussed several ways to solve
the high steel pricing issue at hand. He promised to look into the
matter in his company to see if they could help us in any way. ey
also purchased a lot of steel themselves for their other projects.
Our customers project manager got back to me in a week with
exciting news. He said that they just qualied a new steel ven-
dor in South Africa. ey were ready to purchase a substantial
amount of steel for themselves for another project. He discussed
our high steel price issue with his material purchasing manager.
His material purchasing manager agreed to piggyback us onto his
order in order for us to get a reasonable discount. His material
purchasing manager was leaving for South Africa in two days to
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
nalize his steel order. I proposed that I send my purchasing agent
along with him so that we could get steel for my project at a rea-
sonable price by riding on their coattails. Our customers project
manager and their purchasing manager were very understanding
and helpful in accepting my proposal.
My purchasing agent traveled to South Africa with our cus-
tomers purchasing manager. After a couple of days of negotia-
tions, together they negotiated a good deal for us with the new
South African steel supplier. We only had to pay $8k extra for
each cylinders steel. is steel supplier was also able to provide
the steel in a timely manner for my project with the required
material certicates. I was lucky that I was able to piggyback my
projects special steel order with my customers substantial steel
purchase order. is deal was quite a success story for my project
during continually rising steel prices. It saved our projects margin
from going down to 10%. With this new South African steel deal,
our projects margin eroded down to a reasonable value of 16%.
I was elated with the help I received from our customer on this
steel deal. I sent our customers project manager and his purchas-
ing manager two bottles of ne whisky for their excellent support
in helping us to get my projects steel at a very reasonable price. I
also gave my purchasing agent a dinner gift certicate for two at
a restaurant of his choice.
I kept my upper management informed continually about the
status of the South African steel deal. ey were very happy about
the nal steel deal. I asked the president of my company to write
a thank you letter to the president of our customer while praising
the help we got from our customers project manager and from
their purchasing agent in our steel deal. Teamwork like this went a
long way in making a project a success in a win- winsituation.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
An unexpected rise in material costs during the execution
of a project will bite into your companys prot margin.
It is a good practice to lock down material costs at the
beginning of a project without any delay before surprise
increases hit your project.
Case5.14: Actual Cost of Work Performance
As the project manager I had to keep track of the schedule per-
formance index and cost performance index for every task group.
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I presented these two important schedule performance and cost
performance indices to upper management every two weeks or at
most every four weeks. Schedule performance indices were eas-
ier to calculate because input to work completion estimates were
determined by me and task groups. However, it was very dicult
to obtain input for cost performance indices.
I had to chase our accounting department every month in
order to be able to collect all costs charged to my projects charge
numbers. e accounting department was always late in getting
all charges collected. ey also made unthinkable mistakes. I saw
many charges from unrelated company personnel to my project.
I saw several equipment costs charged to my project by mistake
or knowingly. At the end of every scal month, dened as four
weeks, four weeks, and ve weeks, I had to get these erroneous
charges cleaned up before I could determine the actual cost of the
work performed by every task group of my project.
I expressed my concerns about delays and errors occurring in
the accounting department to my manager. My manager set up
a meeting with the chief nancial ocer. During the meeting, I
voiced my concerns with examples. I emphasized that my project
was a very dynamic one with a tight budget. I had to know the
charges made to my projects charge numbers, 14 of them, at most
within a week from the end of the scal month. I asked them to
allow me to sit down with the accounting departments personnel
at the end of every scal month to go over all the charges made
to my projects account numbers. e chief nancial ocer agreed
to my requests and promised to improve cost reporting delays and
errors.
One month passed yet the situation with cost accounting did
not improve. Two months passed and it was the same old story. I
had to get my projects cost accounting xed. I, myself, made an
appointment with the chief executive ocer of the company and
laid in front of him the details of our companys cost accounting
delays and errors. He told me that he was aware of the slow pace
of our accounting department in preparing the scal monthly cost
report. I told him that I could not fulll my project management
duties in a timely manner and take the necessary steps to correct
for cost overruns at this tempo. He promised me that he would
discuss the accounting department issues with the chief nancial
ocer immediately and they would make the necessary improve-
ments to enhance the companys cost account speed and error rate.
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case studIes In resource ManageMent
At the end of the next scal month, the cost report came out in
two days. ere was one error in my projects cost report. I was so
happy. I sent thank you e- mails to our chief nancial ocer and
copied our chief executive ocer and my manager. I was able to
get the actual cost of work performed within two days after every
scal month. I was able to balance my under budget task groups
with over budget task groups and determine what actions to take
to improve my projects cost estimates to completion. More often
than not, my projects overran the budgeted cost of work. en I
had to present the overrun reasons to my upper management and
get their okay to dip into my projects contingency funds or dip
into the companys company margin.
ere was another major issue with the project cost account-
ing, which was the timely submission of travel expense reports.
My team members led their expense reports within a week of
their return to home base. However, some manufacturing depart-
ment engineers and some quality department engineers submitted
their trip expense reports one to six months late. I had to nudge
every one of them and their managers to get their trip expense
reports led with the accounting department in a timely fashion.
Finally, I got tired of nudging them and took the trip expense
report timely ling issue to my upper management. After a couple
of discussions with upper management, it became a requirement
in the company for everyone to submit their trip expense reports
within one week of their arrival to home base.
Monitoring schedule and cost performances of a project very
closely at regular intervals is a must for a project manager. You
have to bring your companys other departments in sync with your
projects dynamic environment. e challenge is to be able to col-
lect all schedule and cost performance data in a timely fashion
from your foreign project partners.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Your projects cost performance can be hampered by your
nance departments delays and errors.
A trip expense report for a project should be led and
approved within a week of completion.
Periodically always check every item charged to your project
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my task was to nd a remedy to this crisis fast without hampering the
progress of my project as described in Case6.5.
Traveling to foreign countries for a job can be very strenuous. It
requires detailed preparation. Passport issues, visa issues, money
issues, security issues, language dierences, hotels, transportation,
and foreign contacts all have to be dealt with in utmost detail and
accuracy ahead of a trip. As project managers, it is our responsibility
to make sure that all the is are dotted and all the ts are crossed before
a foreign trip is made as shown in Case6.6.
Nonperforming and/ or underperforming team members are always
an issue during the life of a project. Keeping them on the team or
getting rid of them has to be weighed very carefully. Risk analysis of
your actions has to be thought out in utmost detail. e eects of an
underperforming team member can be very destructive in a dynamic
team environment. Such a situation is detailed in Case6.7.
One of the important tasks of a project manager is to attend special
ceremonies involving your team members. ese ceremonies can be
birthday parties, weddings, patent presentation banquets, technical
society presentations, and so forth. As a team leader one of your main
functions is to participate in your team members celebration events.
Such an international event is detailed in Case6.8.
A work environment should be like a second family environment
away from home. Every employee should be able to talk and express
his or her issues and concerns to their managers, upper manage-
ment, and/ or to human resources without any reservations or fears.
ese issues and concerns can be personal ones, work- related ones, or
community- related ones. As managers, our responsibility is to help
every employee as much as we can to make them feel that they are
always under our companys family umbrella as described in Case6.9.
In a project environment, during the course of events, several
unexpected sacrices can come from any one of your team members.
Sometimes these sacrices can come from people outside of your
team. As the project manager, you have to recognize and appreciate
these kinds of above and beyond duties. Such an example is detailed
in Case6.10.
I have seen many project teams go through a honeymoon period at
the beginning or at the middle of a project throughout my career. As
project managers, we have to watch for slacking signs from every team
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member and take the necessary action to keep the pressure cooker at
a constant stress level. An unfortunate slacking period is detailed in
Case6.11.
When a good employee who helped you a lot in your project is leav-
ing the company, you have to provide a memorable farewell to him or
her. I managed to give a great farewell party to my senior mechanical
tool designer when expenses were very restricted in my company as
detailed in Case6.12.
As I gained experience in project management, I only made prom-
ises that I could keep to my team members. I researched thoroughly
beforehand, if I could keep my promise. When I gave a time frame
for a promise, I always accomplished it within that time frame as
depicted in Case6.13.
Several unexpected events can occur during the course of a project.
Some project managers get upset and blow their tops, but this type
of behavior does not solve anything. Negative reactions make things
worse. You have to be coolheaded, versatile, and rm to nd other
solutions fast in order to bring the dicult situation at hand under
control as shown in Case6.14.
As project managers, we have to sometimes act as psychologists.
We should not take drastic actions on a whim or with a burst of anger.
We have to consider all repercussions that an immediate action might
cause in our project as shown in Case6.15.
Specialists and/ or scientists can be very moody and demanding in
a team environment. As a project manager, you need their expertise.
You have to treat them with respect. You have to create a exible
boundary with their needs and with your projects requirements. If
you become a hard- liner with such people, your project will suer in
the end as shown in Case6.16.
A projects work atmosphere can be very dierent after a personal
vacation or after holidays. As project managers, we have to settle
down anxiety or lackadaisical behavior after such events as detailed
in Case6.17.
Maternity leave can be very disrupting to a projects progress. As
project managers, we have to work with our human resources depart-
ment in order to make the right decisions and appropriate arrange-
ments to solve the issues at hand as detailed in Case6.18.
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As project managers, we have to encourage and empower our team
members constantly to make improvement suggestions to their tasks.
Such improvement suggestions can come from unexpected sources.
We have to praise and reward contributing suggestions to our project
as detailed in Case6.19.
Eciently run meetings are the backbone of a project. Meetings
have to be standardized and managed properly so that team members
precious time is not wasted. A team member should not be bored and
he or she should contribute constructively while present during a proj-
ect meeting. Especially in large team groups, as it was in Case6.20,
breaking up a meeting into smaller subgroups can be very eective.
Mishaps happen more often than not while preparing for critical
meetings or deadlines in a project. Overworked and overtired team
members become prone to mistakes and accidents. As project manag-
ers, we have to watch over our team members and over ourselves for
fatigue and for burnout conditions as detailed in Case6.21.
Case6.1: Getting a Senior Wafer Fabrication
Engineers Life Stabilized
e project was to set up a new 6 wafer fabrication for computer
disk drive heads into production. I had an engineer assigned to
every piece of equipment in the new wafer factory. ey were
tasked for sourcing the equipment, qualifying the equipment, and
optimizing that particular equipments process for the computer
disk drive head specications using design of experiments. e
project was fast paced with a duration of six months.
One of the senior engineers in charge of the nickel iron plating
module was starting to slack o and he was falling behind in his
tasks. He was the owner of the nickel iron plating module. He wrote
the specications for it. He sourced the manufacturer. He went
to North Carolina to accept the module. He was now performing
design of experiments to optimize the pulsed power supply, current
density, bath temperature, and agitation of the electrolyte solution
for critical nickel iron parameters.
I went to his oce and started to discuss the delays in his tasks
and asked him if he needed any help to catch up. He said he had
some family issues and he was certain that he would be able to
complete the design of experiments in time and qualify the nickel
iron plating module. A week passed. I sensed that things were
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not progressing smoothly. is plating engineer was under a lot
of stress. I called him to my oce and started to have a heart- to-
heart discussion about his missed commitments. He started to
open up and explain to me his family issues. His wife left him
and they were going through a divorce. During this turmoil,
his 12- year- old son was staying with him. He had to run every
day and take him to school and back from school. He was trying
to sell his house. e poor guy was ready to ip due to extreme
stress. I asked him if I could be of any help. I told him to think
about it. I did not want to lose him at this juncture of the project
and bring in a new engineer from the cold. I asked him if we could
have lunch together that day. He said okay.
Until lunchtime I made a couple of telephone calls to human
resources and I saw my supervisor to nd out if the company
could provide him a company- owned apartment for the next six
months. I explained my senior engineers situation in condence
and how it was aecting my project. I received favorable responses
from all sources. He did not have to pay any rent and the company
apartments were very close to his sons school.
We had a heart- to- heart discussion about his family situation
during our lunch. I told him about the companys apartment oer.
He was very appreciative and accepted it. I asked him if there was
anything else I could help him with in order to stabilize his family
life. He told me that he was looking for a good divorce lawyer. I told
him that I would investigate nding a good divorce lawyer for him
through our legal department. I emphasized to him the importance
of his work for the start-up of the 6 wafer factory. I also empha-
sized to him to come to me if he ran into any other dicult hurdles.
I had to walk a ne line when I dealt with this troubled senior
engineer. I wanted to help him all I could without becoming too
friendly with him and without losing his respect for me. Getting
sucked into non- work- related issues with a team member can be
very tricky for a project manager. I had to go along with the com-
pany rules and regulations. I would not promise him something
that I could not deliver. Above all, my projects health was my
main concern.
I went to our legal department and discussed the divorce law-
yer issue with the companys head legal counselor. He called a
divorce lawyer friend of his in town and arranged a meeting with
my senior engineer. e two met and agreed on terms. e senior
engineer was very grateful to me. On top of everything, he got a
substantially reduced rate from the divorce lawyer.
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In two days time, the senior engineer moved into the com-
panys apartment. He signed his son up for an afterschool pro-
gram so that he did not have to rush to school in the middle of
the afternoon. His performance at work improved instantly. He
put in some extra hours and nished his tasks only one week late.
As a project manager, I was very gratied that I could help
a troubled member of my team. Other options such as replac-
ing the team member in the critical segment of a project or
assigning another junior engineer to help him could have been
more risky.
Identifying risky areas in a project should be a continual task
for a project manager. After a risky situation is identied, you
should identify various paths to cure the risky situation. You
should choose the path that you as the project manager can have
the most control over. Risk management in a controlled fashion is
very crucial to a projects success.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to be good psychologists
too.
Identifying and dealing with a team members stress
level and risky condition are our number one responsi-
bility as project managers.
Helping a project team member to get on track in his or
her personal life is very gratifying.
Case6.2: A Recalcitrant Engineer on a Project Team
I was asked to develop the next generation of thin lm magnetic
heads with a team of four physicists and electrical engineers in
one year in order to keep ahead of the competition. e magnetic
head design had to be very ecient and increase the areal density
of magnetic recording at least an order of magnitude. I had a very
bright and innovative group on my team. e team was given to
me and I did not have any say in picking the team members.
We started the project on a very positive footing. After a week,
one of the prominent members of the team started spreading neg-
ative rumors about the company and he was not attending some
of our team meetings. He came to work late and left work as he
pleased. He had a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and he behaved like
a disobedient child. His behavior aected my teams morale and
started to hamper the progress of my project.
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I called him to my oce and had a heart- to- heart discussion
with him about his attitude. I told him that he was a very valuable
member of my team and we depended on his magnetic design
calculations and recommendations. He told me he was what he
was and he did not like to work in a team environment. I asked
him not to spread rumors against the company and discourage
the team members and asked him to try to work with the team
members as eciently as he could. I told him I would not mind
him using exible hours at work. He agreed that he would try his
best and left our meeting with good intentions.
Another week passed, but nothing had changed. His behavior
got worse. He started to bring some of the other team members to
his oce and shut the door to have hours of discussions. I learned
that these discussions were not about our project. ey were dis-
cussing the stock market, who was going to make a bid to buy our
company, when our companys president was going to be red, when
was a layo going to happen, and so on. is physicist was a team
breaker and not a team builder. I had to take more serious steps to
bring him in line so that the project could progress smoothly.
I went to his supervisor and discussed this physicists behavior
in condence with him. His supervisor told me that this physicist
was a recalcitrant person and he did not like to be under anyones
authority, he looked down on everyone, and he thought his knowl-
edge was superior to anyone around him. I told his supervisor that
I needed this physicists contributions to my project. I told him
that I was going to control this grown up and obstinate scientist
very closely so that my team could successfully complete the project.
I had a team meeting without the recalcitrant physicist. I asked
my team members not to interact with this physicist. I told them
that I would be the only interface between him and the team. I
went over the reasons for my actions. e rest of my team mem-
bers understood the delicate situation with this physicist. After
the team meeting, I called the disobedient physicist to my oce
and explained to him that team harmony was necessary to succeed
in our project. I told him that we needed his invaluable input to
the project. I asked him to interface only through me regarding
the project and not with the team members. I also asked him to
move his oce next to mine, which luckily was not occupied at
the time. I asked him not to attend the team meetings. I cautioned
him not to have demoralizing discussions with my team members.
I told him that my actions were not to punish him, but to make
the project a successful one. He reluctantly agreed to my requests.
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en I went to the human resources department and explained
to the head of the human resources department the diculties I
was having with this particular employee on my team. I outlined
all the actions I was taking to remedy the issue. I also emphasized
that I needed this physicists contributions for my project. She
asked me to write a review letter about him and list all the actions
I was taking to remedy the behavior of this physicist. I wrote a
detailed review letter and discussed it with the recalcitrant physi-
cist. I gave a copy to him. I also gave copies of my review letter to
his supervisor and to the human resources department.
is obstinate physicist worked under my very close supervi-
sion for the next six months and he contributed extensively to my
project. He heavily cut his demoralizing activities during these six
months. I made him work in a completely isolated environment.
Unfortunately, at the end of six months, he was let go during a
layo because of his behavior. He predicted the companys layo
timing right on the dot. He was a paragon of magnetism as a
physicist, but he was not a team player at all.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
You have to take immediate action to deal with people
who are disrupting your project teams harmony and who
are demoralizing your project team members.
Some high- level scientists behave like a child in a team
environment. ese kinds of people need to be micro-
managed with very close supervision.
Case6.3: Error in Motor Mount Moment
of Inertia Calculations
I was heading a vehicle design group to design an all terrain vehi-
cle for a German customer. e design was completed on time
and approved by the customer. My companys manufacturing
group was starting to build 20 vehicles for beta testing. All chas-
sis were built and all the motor mounts were built. ey were in
the process of welding them together. During this juncture of the
project, one of my structural engineers walked into my oce with
a red face and told me that he made a calculation mistake during
the design of the motor mount beams. He forgot to divide the
beams moment of inertia calculation by a constant, namely by
12, and he was very sorry about it. Another structural engineer
who checked his calculations also missed this moment of inertia
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calculation error. is error created unacceptable bending stress
levels in the motor mount beams during dynamic loading.
I immediately called our manufacturing manager and asked
him to put a hold on all chassis and motor mount construction. I
told my structural engineer to keep cool. I told him we all make
mistakes. e important thing was to learn from our mistakes
and not to repeat them again. I called the calculation checker to
my oce. I advised him in a similar fashion. I told both of them
that I would control the damage. I asked them to get together,
focus, and revise the motor mount calculation and come back with
relined drawings in a day. I called a team meeting to explain this
unfortunate error to all team members and to discuss what steps
we should take so that similar errors would not occur again.
e team meeting was very productive. I praised the structural
engineer for coming forward and discovering his error in the early
phase of manufacturing. e focus of the meeting was to nd a
better way to check our calculations so that they would be error-
free. We decided to double our checkpoints for all critical calcula-
tions. One of the checkers was going to be outside the project team,
namely an independent and a well- qualied checker. is new
design process would add a couple of extra days to the release of
calculation documents, but would give us more reliable results. e
manufacturing manager and the manufacturing lead for the proj-
ect were also invited to the team meeting. We discussed time and
cost damages due to the design error. All 20 motor mounts were
going to be scrapped. e total time lost in manufacturing would
be about ve days and it would cost the project an extra of $20k
to build the new motor mounts. Manufacturing processes in other
subassemblies would be able to move forward. ese schedule and
cost impacts were mild and they were recoverable.
en I called a meeting with my manager and the structural
engineers manager. I explained the unfortunate events to the two
managers. We went through my solutions. ey were both satis-
ed with my teams solutions to the error. However, the structural
engineers manager got upset with his engineers. He was a ashy
type of a person. He wanted to discipline both of them. He even
leaned toward ring them. I asked him to cool down a little bit.
I told him that we all make mistakes, but the key was to learn
from these mistakes and not to repeat them again. I asked the
structural engineers manager not to discipline his engineers. I
told him that these two engineers are very promising young ones.
ey needed grooming and needed a positive support from a
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negative event. ey would contribute immensely to the company
projects in years to come. I told the structural engineers manager
that the structural engineer came forward to me on his own with
a red face. He was very honest and very sorry about the error he
made. We were lucky to catch the error in the early phase of man-
ufacturing. My project was going to get a minor hit, but in the end
the two structural engineers would gain a real- life experience. We
discussed the issue heatedly for an hour. e structural engineers
manager nally agreed with my recommendations and promised
not to do anything counterproductive to discourage them.
Errors are part of real life in engineering projects. ey can
happen in design, in the customers specications, in manufactur-
ing, in quality control, in receiving inspection, at subcontractors,
at certication laboratories, and so on. e key is to catch them
before the project is completed. Hopefully, the error would cause
a minor distraction to the project. If everyone involved with the
project could learn from the mistake made, you could make a big
contribution to your company as a project manager. I have heard
of several major errors made during a project too, such as in a
space project when the payload of an unmanned space probe was
calculated in pounds instead of kilograms.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Errors are more likely to occur during the execution of
a project.
As project managers, we have to be coolheaded and make
sure that our team learns from a mistake made in order
not to repeat it again.
As project managers, we have to correct errors in a
timely fashion.
As project managers, we have to gather our project team
in order to explain what the error was and how we are
going to take care of it.
Case6.4: Training in the Japanese Language
My company, a customized computer component designer and
manufacturer, planned to increase our market share in Japan. I
was given the engineering responsibility for guiding our design
and application engineers to go periodically to Japan to visit our
potential customers. We had to present our future products and
convince our potential customers as to how advanced our products
case studIes In teaM ManageMent
were and how advanced and controlled our manufacturing pro-
cesses were.
I went to Japan several times with my design and application
engineers. We all were struggling to get to know the Japanese
culture and their workplace ethics, such as how to greet people
from your customers end, how to exchange business cards, how
to exchange small gifts, how to behave in a meeting, how to make
small talk, how to behave at lunches and dinners, and so on. When
I returned to the United States from my second visit to Japan, I
decided that we should be trained in the Japanese business culture
and language. I requested a meeting with my companys president
regarding the necessary training, if we wanted to succeed in busi-
ness in Japan.
My company president was very receptive to my training idea in
the Japanese business culture and language. He further proposed
that this training should be a requirement for all of our employees
who dealt with Japan. He asked me to arrange it with our human
resources department. Our human resources department found a
perfect trainer from the University of California. He was Japanese
and he was studying for his Ph.D. degree in psychology. He came
to our company every Tuesday for a year at lunchtime and trained
us on the ins and outs of Japanese business culture and business
language. He taught us important Japanese phrases that we could
use during our encounters with our Japanese customers. He gave
us recorded tapes lled with Japanese phrases so that we could
practice the pronunciations at our leisure. Since Japanese is a pho-
netic language, we learned pronunciation of phrases with ease.
Every one of my engineers who dealt with Japan, all of our
sales personnel, purchasing personnel, and even executives who
dealt with Japan took this one- year training course. Brown paper
bag lunches were provided by the company. ere were 26 train-
ees in the class. We had written and oral examinations once a
month. Fifteen of us passed the course with ying colors includ-
ing all of my engineers who dealt with Japan. Ten of us unked
the course and one dropped out because of health reasons.
e course taught us a lot of small talk phrases and greeting
phrases in Japanese. We learned greeting phrases such as pleased
to meet you (hajimemashite), good morning (ohayo gozaimasu),
and thank you very much (domo arigato gozaimasu). We learned
the telephone hello response, which was moshi moshi. At the end
of a long meeting in Japan, it was customary to write down action
items on the board with the names of owners and due dates. After
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everyone agreed on the action items list, the scriber of meeting
minutes sent the action items list to everyone involved by e- mail.
Once, at the end of a 12-hour meeting, I started the action items list
by writing action items in Japanese Kanji characters on the board.
All of our Japanese colleagues almost dropped out of their chairs.
ey had a good laugh at the end of a long and strenuous meeting.
We learned how to sit in pecking order around a conference
table. As guests, our team always sat on the side of the table that
was away from the conference room entrance door. We learned
when to talk during a meeting. e highest-ranking member of
our team always answered their questions. If that ranking member
needed help from other members of his team, he mentioned that so
and so would be responding to their particular question. Dinners
were less formal, but again high- ranking members of both teams
sat at the ends of the dinner table. A 12-hour meeting from 9a.m.
to 9p.m. and afterward a 3-hour business dinner until midnight
was a normal day in Japan.
e one- year business culture training course for Japan helped
my company to gain ground in their marketplace. After two years,
we saw a 10-fold sales increase for our products in Japan. e
president of my company thanked me for suggesting the Japanese
business culture classes for our people. Also, everyone who took
the course was very appreciative for gaining such an eye- opening
experience into Japanese culture and language.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Every member of your team dealing with a foreign coun-
try has to know that foreign countrys history, culture,
and workplace ethics.
Knowing the business language of a foreign country that
you are dealing with goes a long way in negotiations and
in gaining mutual respect among players.
Case6.5: A Project Engineer Left the Company
under Adverse Conditions
When I started a project with a team, I made sure that I had all
the information about each team members vacation plans, wed-
ding and honeymoon plans, and other time- o plans. I put every
team members personal time- o plan into the project schedule
and I made sure that there were no conicts with project tasks and
deliverables.
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In one of my projects, a senior engineer on my team decided to
take a three- month sabbatical leave from the company right in the
middle of the project. He was a crucial member of my team. He
was doing dynamic stress analysis for the product we were design-
ing. He asked me to have a meeting together with his manager.
During the meeting, he explained that he was an avid cyclist. He
was invited to train with a cycling team and to enter an interna-
tional race with this cycling team. He requested a three- month
sabbatical leave starting in two weeks. is was quite a shock to
me. I told them that it was not possible for him to leave my project
at that critical juncture. ere was no one else in the company
who could step in and take over his tasks. He insisted that he
had to take three months o from work, he had already made a
commitment to his cycling team, and no one could stop him. I
was upset with his irresponsible behavior. I told him that his rst
responsibility should have been to the project which he was an
important part of. He should have rst consulted with us before
making a commitment to his cycling team. He should have told
us his sabbatical leave intentions four months ago when the proj-
ect started. He understood that he was not going to get anywhere
with me. So he said to his manager that he wanted to give his
two- week resignation notice and leave the company. He immedi-
ately left his managers oce without saying goodbye.
His manager was very upset too with his engineers childish
and obstinate behavior. He called the human resources depart-
ment in front of me and explained to them the unfortunate situa-
tion. e human resources director immediately went over to the
senior engineers oce to discuss if there was a way out of this
quagmire. She reported to the senior engineers manager and to
me that there was no solution to the senior engineers adamant
request. ey decided to walk him out the door at the end of the
day without any delay. I was able to salvage some of the modeling
and test runs he had done for my project before he left for good.
I had to scramble to nd a replacement for my teams dynamic
stress analyzer. I had a design review coming up in two months
with the customer and my team had to nish all the pertinent
calculations and designs before the phase 1 review meeting. To
nd a replacement engineer with a similar skill set would have
taken at least two to three months. A novice engineer right out
of college would not be able to help me. I needed an experienced
mechanical engineer in stress analysis. Even if we had to steal one
from another company, it would have been awhile to get him or
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her to be productive on my team. e only solution was to go out
and nd a consulting rm in dynamic stress analysis and bring
them on board for my project.
I went to a couple of prominent stress analysis companies in
the United States and interviewed them for my project. ey were
expensive. I did not have any contingency funds in my budget to
cover these unexpected extra costs. I started to look at the possi-
bilities outside the United States. I found a stress analysis company
in India and one in the United Kingdom. I interviewed them by
teleconferencing. I also checked their references. I made sure that
they were using the same version of the stress analysis software
as we used in house. e stress analysis company in the United
Kingdom had the right expertise to help my project. eir price
was in the middle between the U.S. and Indian companies. I went
to my manager and discussed my search results with him and I
told him that I was going to sign a contract with the UK subcon-
tractor to complete my projects dynamic stress analysis require-
ments. He was pleased that I was able to nd a potential candidate
in a week. He assured me that the company would absorb the
extra cost of the UK subcontractor in the project margin. My pur-
chasing department and I completed the subcontract agreement
with the UK subcontractor in three days. ey started to work on
my team two weeks after the senior engineers departure.
I did all the communication by teleconferencing with the UK
subcontractor. ey came up to speed fast. ey also worked 60 to
70 hours per week without charging me overtime. I was able to get
all the required calculations and designs completed in two months
time before the phase 1 review. I did not inform my customer
about this crisis we had because this crisis was totally an internal
issue and it did not aect the progress of the project. I resolved
this crisis without disturbing my customers project manager.
ese kinds of unexpected situations can arise in any project.
As the project manager, my task was to nd a remedy to this crisis
fast without hampering the progress of my project.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to make sure that at the
beginning of a project, we have all the information
about each team members vacation plans, wedding
and honeymoon plans, and other time- o plans on our
project schedule.
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A team members work plan can change suddenly, which
can aect your projects progress adversely.
Replacing a specialized and experienced engineer is very
dicult at a moments notice.
Case6.6: On- Site Equipment Training
One of the requirements of building and installing a hydraulic
mover on an oil platform project was to train the customers person-
nel on-site. As the project manager of the project, I decided to send
a senior engineer for this training. e training was in the North
East region of Russia and it was for two weeks in April. April was
supposed to be the beginning of spring weather in that region. My
senior engineer prepared an extensive MS PowerPoint presentation
for the training. He got his laptop computer and his thermal under-
wear and left for this cold region of Russia in early April.
He was to connect with our companys liaison in Vladivostok
and then travel together to the oil platform site. My engineer did
not speak a word of Russian, but our companys liaison was going
to help translate his training presentations. e training was sup-
posed to be done with two groups of 10 personnel who did not
speak or understand a word of English. All the meeting dates and
locations in Vladivostok with the company liaison were arranged
and conrmed by Internet correspondence. My engineer arrived
at the airport. During passport control the agent asked him why
he was entering Russia. My engineer honestly said that he would
be training 20 Russian workers on an oil platform. e agent
emphasized that my engineer did not have the proper visa to enter
Russia for training purposes. On top of that, his passport expira-
tion date was within six months of his exit date. His passport
expiration date should have been six months beyond his exit date
from Russia. My engineer started to plead that he was there for
only two weeks to help the Russian workers get trained on crucial
equipment at an oil platform. e passport control agent took my
engineer to a small cubicle with a glass enclosure and called his
supervisor who spoke a little English. My engineer pleaded his
case to the supervisor. ey together tried to call our companys
liaison in town, who was not to be found at work or home. e
supervisor threatened to send him out of the country with the
next international ight, asked him to stay put, and left the cubi-
cle. My engineer waited in the cubicle for three hours and nally
the supervisor showed up again with smiles. He told him that
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he discussed his situation with authorities in Moscow and they
decided that he could enter Russia for only two weeks as a tour-
ist. Finally, my engineer said, Let me be a tourist for two weeks
in your country. en they shook hands and his passport was
stamped with the tourist entry date.
My engineer took a taxi downtown to our company liaisons
oce. He found a secretary there who did not speak any English.
ey were able to communicate with hand motions and by writ-
ing. Finally, my engineer understood that our companys liaison
was out of the country in South Korea for a two- day trip. Our
companys liaison never informed us about the change in his plans.
My engineer decided to stay in Vladivostok for two days and wait
for the company liaisons return. He checked into a boutique hotel
close to the company liaisons oce and called me to detail all the
hurdles that he crossed when he arrived in Russia. I agreed with
him that he should wait for two days for the companys liaison
before traveling to the training site because of the language barri-
ers. I told him to hang in there and told him that I would inform
our customer about the two- day delay in starting the training.
My engineer almost froze to death at the boutique hotel where
he was staying. Apparently, the hotel personnel turned o the heat
at night from 9p.m. to 7a.m. to save on fuel costs. e poor guy
had to buy extra blankets to keep warm at night. He started to
check out after two days at this freezing hotel, but his credit card
bounced because his credit account was maxed out. He did not have
enough cash on him to pay the hotel. He called the companys liai-
son oce and nally he was able to touch base with the companys
Russian liaison. e companys liaison came to the hotel and paid
my engineers hotel bill. My companys liaison was not even sorry
that he was two days late to his appointment with my engineer.
Together they traveled by bus to a village that was 20miles away
from the oil platform. en they took our customers shuttle boat
to the platform. ey stayed on the platform for 10days because
my engineers visa expired two days after the end of training. He
had to condense his training into two ve- day sessions. He could
not use his laptop computer on the platform because his computer
battery died. He could not charge his computers batteries since
he did not have the right adapter to the oil platform outlets. He
transferred his MS PowerPoint training le to the company liai-
sons laptop computer and used his computer during the training
sessions. It was so cold, 20C, in North East Russia in April that
my engineer had to sleep wearing his sweaters, pants, and alpaca
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socks at night. He was lucky that he did not get sick during those
10 training days. Overall the training went well. He exited Russia
without any issues and made it safely back home.
I had a long meeting with him when he got back. I told him
that it was my fault not to warn him about the validity of his pass-
port duration. It was also my fault that I did not advise him on the
type of visa that he should get for training purposes. He should
have gotten a business visa. We discussed his credit card balance
issue. He accepted that it was his fault not to straighten out his
balance before he left for his trip. I went to my upper management
and laid out the details of my engineers troubles in Russia and
made sure that my company cut ties with our liaison there.
Traveling to foreign countries for a job can be very strenuous. It
requires detailed preparation. Passport issues, visa issues, money
issues, security issues, language dierences, hotels, transporta-
tion, and foreign contacts all have to be dealt with in utmost detail
and accuracy ahead of a trip.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to be extra sure that people
working for us in foreign countries are dependable.
Before we send our team members oshore, we have to
verify the validity of their travel documents.
Case6.7: Getting Rid of a Lackadaisical Team Member
I was heading ve separate groups of engineers in a wafer fabrica-
tion project. Each group had its own manager. One of the engi-
neering groups was responsible for quality control of the incoming
materials and outgoing product. ere were visual inspection corre-
lation issues regarding the outgoing wafers with our South Korean
plant. My quality engineering groups manager and I decided to
send one of the seasoned quality engineers to South Korea to train
the South Korean engineers and inspectors per our inspection cri-
teria. We wanted to eliminate our dierences in visual inspection.
My quality engineering groups manager explained in detail to
our seasoned quality engineer what his responsibilities would be
in South Korea. He had two weeks to train the South Koreans
and then return to his home base. He made his trip and trained
the South Koreans and got back. He gave me and my quality
groups manager a brieng in my oce about his accomplish-
ments in South Korea. To our surprise, he only trained the South
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Koreans on one inspection parameter, which was the highest cor-
relation discrepancy on the Pareto chart. He did not deal with any
of the other inspection parameters. He made his trip and spent
thousands of dollars to improve our inspection correlation only
in one parameter. He overlooked all other 15 parameters which
were on his checklist. I asked him why he neglected all the other
inspection parameters. He responded in a spiritless manner that
he had time to x only one parameter. I asked him why he did
not call his manager to discuss an extension of his stay so that he
could complete his tasks fully. He said in a lackadaisical way that
he felt that he completed his mission in South Korea. I politely
asked the seasoned quality engineer to leave my oce and com-
plete his trip report.
I closed the door to my oce and started to discuss the per-
formance status of the seasoned quality engineer with my quality
groups manager. e seasoned quality engineer had been with our
company for 15years and his performance went downhill every
year. He was experienced, but he was denitely lazy. My quality
groups manager did not document instances of his poor perfor-
mance. His annual performance reviews were mediocre. I told
my quality groups manager that this seasoned engineer would be
a listless mentor for our young and dynamic engineers. I asked
him if there was a way to revive the spark in work habits of the
seasoned quality engineer. My quality groups manager told me
he discussed the mediocre performance with the seasoned qual-
ity engineer several times during his annual performance reviews
and told him that his performance was not good enough for his
advancement in the company. e seasoned quality engineer told
my manager that he is content with his job level and that he did
not care about advancement. I told my quality groups manager
that we should get rid of him as soon as we could. My quality
groups manager agreed with me.
I immediately called our human resources director and asked him
to come to my oce. e three of us discussed the seasoned quality
engineers poor performance, his spiritless behavior, and his termi-
nation steps. Our human resources director told us that our com-
pany had an at- will employment policy and that we could terminate
a nonperforming employee at any time without waiting for a layo.
He also cautioned us that my quality groups manager should docu-
ment the seasoned quality engineers poor performance and spiritless
behavior during the South Korean trip and discuss the performance
document with the employee. is performance document and his
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annual performance reviews provided legitimacy to his termination
and prevented any lawsuits that his termination was discriminatory.
My quality groups manager wrote a performance document for
the seasoned quality engineer. Our human resources director and
I reviewed the document. After some minor changes, my qual-
ity groups manager and our human resources director, together,
went over the performance document with the seasoned quality
engineer. I heard that even during his performance review, the
seasoned quality engineer was spiritless. He accepted all poor per-
formance claims and signed the performance review document.
In the late afternoon, our human resources director walked the
seasoned quality engineer out the door of our company.
We went through all that hoopla in order to get rid of an
underperforming seasoned engineer. My company had a layo
two weeks later. We could have gotten rid of him easily during
the layo process.
Nonperforming and/ or underperforming team members are
always an issue during the life of a project. Keeping them on the
team or getting rid of them has to be weighed very carefully. Risk
analysis of your actions has to be thought out in utmost detail. e
eects of an underperforming team member can be very destruc-
tive in a dynamic team environment.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
It is always dicult to spark a re under lazy and under-
performing personnel.
You have to coordinate with your human resources
department and go through the required legal process
step by step if you want to terminate personnel.
It is much easier to clean up underperforming personnel
during an ocial company layo.
Case6.8: A Japanese Wedding
One of the important tasks of a project manager is to attend special
ceremonies involving your team members. ese ceremonies can be
birthday parties, weddings, patent presentation banquets, technical
society presentations, and so on. As a team leader, one of your main
functions is to participate in your team members celebration events.
One of the most memorable events in my project management
career was to attend a Japanese wedding for one of my Japanese
team members. He asked me to attend his wedding ceremony as
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a guest of honor in Tokyo and he also asked me to give a speech
during the reception. His wedding ceremony date coincided with
my semiannual trip to Japan to check out the progress of my proj-
ect team there. I accepted his kind oer with excitement. is was
my rst experience in a Japanese wedding ceremony and recep-
tion. I was going to be the guest of honor representing our team
and our company and I was going to give a speech.
I had to research how to prepare for this honor. I had to learn
what to wear, what kind of gift to get for the couple, and what
to say during my speech. He also invited four colleagues from
our Japanese team and one colleague from our U.S. team to his
wedding ceremony and reception. I learned that the wedding cer-
emony and reception was going to be a nonreligious one taking
place in a banquet room at a very nice hotel in Tokyo. e recep-
tion party afterward was going to be in the same banquet room
and all my teams members and I were going to be seated at the
same table. I learned that we were required to wear tuxedos with
black ties. I decided to stay at the same hotel where the wedding
ceremony and reception were. I arranged for a tuxedo rental place
through the hotels concierge. e tuxedo rental places tailor came
to the hotel two days before the event and tted me with a nice
tuxedo. I investigated what the new couples needs were so that I
could get a wedding gift for them. ere was no registry process for
wedding gifts like we have in the United States. I learned from his
colleagues that a at-screen TV might be a good gift for their new
home. I went to Tokyos electronic stores district and bought a nice
42 at-screen Sony TV for them and sent it to their new home
with a congratulatory card from me, from our team members, and
from our company. Later, I discussed the wedding gift cost issue
with human resources. I was able to charge the wedding gift cost to
a human resources overhead account instead of my project.
e last thing I had to do was to prepare my speech during the
reception. I was allocated ve minutes for my speech. I was going
to be the last one to give a speech. I learned that the wedding
ceremony and reception followed a strict order of events and time
allocated for each event was xed down to the second. e entire
reception was going to take exactly two hours and ten minutes
with all the speeches, cake cutting, newlyweds rst dance as hus-
band and wife, and so on. I asked one of the engineers from our
team in Japan to help me to include several Japanese phrases into
my speech. My closing statement was also in Japanese. Anata wa
issho ni, otto to tsuma to shite, naganen, onaji makura no ue ni kenko
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
to kofuku ni kite taisetsu ni ari. In English it went something like
May you together, as husband and wife, cherish many years to
come in health and happiness on the same pillow. I reviewed my
speech several times and read it to the engineer who helped me
with the Japanese phrases. He said that my Japanese pronuncia-
tion was close to perfect. I was ready for the big event, which
was on a Saturday afternoon.
e wedding ceremony and the reception went like clockwork.
e bride wore a gorgeous kimono and she had heavy makeup,
a wig, and a head covering. e groom wore a standard tuxedo.
I gave my ve- minute speech very uently. At the end of my
speech, I asked everyone to raise their glasses and toast kampai
for the new couple. en the bride went to a changing room to
change from her kimono to a Western-style dress. Every guest
started to relax, eat, and drink. After dinner, the new couple cut
their colossal wedding cake and then they had their rst dance as
a couple to rock and roll music. Toward the end of the reception,
the newly wed couple went around to every table and gave every
attendee a gift for sharing their important event.
I attended similar events in Malaysia, South Korea, and in
Germany. Attending these special events takes a lot of thought
and preparation because you are representing your team and
your company.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
As project managers, we have to give lots of thought and
attention to our team members special events.
Especially if you are attending a special event in a for-
eign country, you have to learn all the dos and donts for
that event.
Case6.9: An Engineer Wants to Return to Her Old Job
I had an interesting employee rehire case during my career. I had
a quality engineer working on my project team and reporting
to the quality engineering department manager. She was a very
dedicated and a thorough engineer. She was commuting between
her home and work 120miles every workday. We always chatted
about her commute at the beginning of our weekly meetings. We
talked about speed traps, getting trac violation tickets, trac
jams, what are the best hours to drive on the freeway, and so on. I
had a good rapport with her. She did not mind the commute and
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I thought she enjoyed it. I valued her contributions to my team.
One day I got a call from her manager informing me that she gave
her notice that she was leaving our company in two weeks.
I was surprised at her departure announcement. I went to her
oce and expressed my disillusionment. She told me that she was
sorry to leave my team. She really enjoyed working on my team.
She said that she found a great job very close to her home at a
start-up engineering company. Her new job was a perfect t for
her and she would miss my team and also the daily commuting.
I had to scramble to nd a replacement for her in the company
to join my team. I nally got a novice engineer to replace her. He
needed a lot of monitoring and hand-holding. She and my novice
engineer were able to interface for about a week so that she could
transfer her tasks to him. I also asked her to leave all her engi-
neering books and e- mail les with me regarding my project. Her
manager and I gave her a great farewell luncheon. All of my team
members attended her luncheon.
After her departure from my company, I still kept in touch
with her. We e- mailed each other at least once a month asking
how things were going. About four months passed and I received
a telephone call from her. She told me that her new job was not
what she hoped for. She wanted to quit her job and rejoin my
company and especially my project team. I was very surprised to
hear her dismay at her new job. Apparently, there was no organi-
zational structure at the new start-up company. She had to take
care of everything on her own. Working hours were very long.
She was working on average 12 hours a day. Her boss was enforc-
ing unreasonable deadlines on her. All they did was to rush- rush
to get a prototype out to their customer so that they could guaran-
tee their next phase of funding. She wanted to return to our more
structured and employee- valued environment. I told her that our
company had a no- rehire policy, but I promised her that I was
going to try my best to get her back.
e next day, I set up a meeting with her old manager and the
human resources director. I explained to them in detail the call I
had from her. I expressed my favorable views about rehiring her.
After an hour of discussion, we came to a just solution to be able
to bring her back to our company. She was going to join my team
as a consulting quality engineer. e novice engineer would move
back to the quality department. She would contribute to my team
for the rest of my project, which had another year and a half to go.
After a year and a half, the quality department manager would
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
reinstate her as a senior quality engineer into his group. is way
we were not going to break the no- rehire rule of our company.
I called her immediately after our meeting and told her our
solution for rehiring her. She was ecstatic that she was coming
back to work for my company and very grateful for my help. She
accepted our proposal to work as a consultant for a year and a half
and join the quality group full time afterward. I told her that she
would get a formal call in the next day or two from the quality
department manager and the human resources director to nalize
the details of her return.
ree weeks after her pleading phone call to me, she started to
work for me. Her work ethic and contributions to my team were
of the highest standard. She was reinstated into the quality group
after 18months on a full- time basis as promised. I thought the
company gained an excellent employee by taking her back. We
did not break the no- rehire rule of our company, but we had to
bend it a little.
A work environment should be like a second family environ-
ment away from home. Every employee should be able to talk and
express his or her issues and concerns to their managers, upper
management, and/ or to human resources without any reserva-
tions or fears. ese issues and concerns can be personal ones,
work- related ones, or community- related ones. As managers, our
responsibility is to help every employee all we can to make them
feel that they are always under our companys family umbrella.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
After leaving your job at will from a company, it will be
very unlikely for you to go back to your old job.
Job hopping is an unwritten taboo between competing
high technology companies.
As project managers, we have to help a good person in
our team all that we can when that person makes a per-
sonal mistake.
Case6.10: A Deserving Vacation
I had a long- term project to ramp up volume production for a
communication chip in Malaysia. I had a good team of engineers
in the United States supporting our eorts in Malaysia. I was
sending them back and forth from the United States to Malaysia.
We were training the Malaysian engineers. ey were taking over
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full responsibility of their assignments after about six months of
training. One of the areas where I was having my doubts was the
wafer testing in the clean room. ere were three young, novice
electrical engineers trying to learn and take over all the testing
functions such as operator training, tester maintenance, tester
upgrading, and tester software development.
I had to send one of my senior test engineers to Malaysia the
beginning of November. I assured him that he would only stay there
for three weeks and he would be back home by anksgiving. He
was a strong family man. He had a wife and a 12- year- old son. We
put together a detailed three- week agenda for him. We discussed
and agreed on all agenda items with the Malaysian engineers.
e senior test engineers progress was going smoothly during
the rst week of his mission in Malaysia. However, when he saw
the reality of the testing environment in Malaysia, he started to
add more items to his to-do list that required extensive training.
e Malaysian engineers were struggling in the software develop-
ment phase of the testers. During our daily telephone discussions,
I asked him if he could stay another three weeks to complete his
extended tasks and skip anksgiving at home. He agreed to my
proposal. I thanked him for his dedication and I told him that I
would strongly emphasize his commitment to our company dur-
ing his annual review.
Another two weeks passed and Christmas was coming, but my
senior test engineers to-do list was growing instead of shrinking.
We again discussed what to do about his stay there. He missed
his family and he wanted to return home. I did not have anyone
else on my team and not even in the whole company with similar
extensive experience to send to Malaysia to relieve him. I had to
ask him to extend his stay until his mission was complete. I made
him a proposal for his extended stay. I told him if he extended his
stay until the end of January and completed his mission, I would
treat his wife and his son to a vacation in a place of his choice in
Southeast Asia. He was very appreciative of my vacation proposal.
He said that he would discuss my all paid vacation proposal with
his wife.
e next day during our telephone call, he informed me that
he would take my vacation proposal and spend the rst week in
February on the island of Langkawi at the northwest coast of pen-
insular Malaysia. Finally, they would get together as a family to
relax on a tropical island after three months of separation. He
and his wife enjoyed the marine life and beaches. His wife was
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
anxious to absorb some of the Malaysian culture. ey were also
able to take a week o for his son from his schooling. ey chose
the Langkawi Island as their vacation spot.
My senior test engineer stayed in the Malaysian plant for three
months instead of three weeks as originally planned and he com-
pleted his mission with ying colors. He missed anksgiving,
Christmas, and the New Year holidays at his home. My all
expenses paid one- week vacation proposal for him hit the spot.
at was his familys rst trip to Southeast Asia. ey had a
great time on Langkawi Island. My gesture cost my project about
$4,000, but every penny spent was worth it. He sacriced his
family and his holidays and completed his tasks in Malaysia with
exceptional professionalism.
In a project environment, during the course of events, these
kinds of unexpected sacrices could come from any one of your
team members. Sometimes these sacrices could come from peo-
ple outside of your team. As the project manager, you have to
recognize and appreciate these kinds of above and beyond duties.
A cash bonus, a gift certicate to a restaurant, a couple of tickets
to a sporting event, even a contribution to his or her choice of a
nonprot organization can go a long way.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
If a team member has to extend his or her stay in a for-
eign country for unforeseen reasons to help your project,
you should recognize and reward his or her sacrices
accordingly.
Being away from family for a long time in a foreign
country can negatively aect your team members overall
performance.
Case6.11: Honeymoon Period
I was assigned to lead an oshore oil rig equipment design, build,
test, and installation project. e project was to last one year from
the start of design to nal installation and acceptance on-site in
the North Sea. I had a team of eight design and manufacturing
engineers. Our customer was in England. I had a two- week vaca-
tion preplanned after the third week into the project. I left the
project team in the hands of a senior engineer and left for my fam-
ily vacation. I had a heart- to- heart discussion with my replace-
ment before I left for him to check on the engineers daily and to
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Project ManageMent case studIes
take care of their needs so that the schedule would not slip. We
had on the contract a 5% of total cost penalty for each week of late
acceptance on-site. Everyone on my team was very well aware of
our tight schedule and of the late acceptance penalty. No one had
any slack time for his or her assigned tasks.
I came back after two weeks from my vacation and got a brief-
ing from my replacement project manager regarding the status of
all current and completed tasks. I saw that we were behind about
a week to two weeks in several tasks. I went around and discussed
task- delaying reasons and the issues in detail with every engineer
on my team. I saw a relaxed atmosphere in the whole team. ey
all were behaving like they were on a honeymoon. It was sum-
mertime and excessive heat, beaches, surng, sailing, and outdoor
barbecues were giving them all a cozy feeling. My replacement
project manager did not do a good job of monitoring and putting
adequate pressure on the team members. ey all said to me we
would catch up eventually and not to worry. I heard the emer-
gency bells ringing in my head. I went to my oce to evaluate the
whole project task by task and to decide on my course of action.
e next day I called an emergency team meeting. During the
meeting, I went over every task with my team. I showed them on the
schedule that with the present pace we would be at least one week
and at most three weeks late for the acceptance of on-site comple-
tion. I emphasized that the progress we had made was not acceptable
to our customer nor to our company. I asked everyone for his or her
input as to how to catch up and not delay the project by even one day.
ere were some great suggestions from the team. I thought
the whole team woke up from a summer honeymoon dream.
ere were six critical tasks that fell behind. Six engineers that
fell behind oered to work some extra hours to catch up during
the next two weeks. At the same time, other engineers and I were
going to give them an extra hand in several minor tasks. I was
going to meet with every engineer daily for 15 minutes to discuss
the condition of his or her tasks.
e stress levels on the team members were high for the next
four weeks. We nally caught up to the critical task on the sched-
ule, which was the internal design review meeting. At the begin-
ning of the internal design review meeting, I praised all my team
members for giving extra eort in order to catch up to the sched-
ule. I invited them to a team beach barbecue with their families
on Friday afternoon. ey all accepted my invitation. We all had
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
a great time at the beach after roller coaster stress levels at work
for the last three months.
During the course of a project, stress levels go up and down for
every team member. A good project manager has to keep these
stress levels as normal as possible without burning out his or her
people. It is normal for the stress levels to go up before a criti-
cal design review meeting, before a regulatory agency inspection,
after an unexpected malfunction of your product, before a nal
product acceptance event, and so on. However, as the project
manager, your important task is to smooth out these stress levels
during the course of a project.
I have seen many project teams go through a honeymoon
period at the beginning or at the middle of a project. You have to
watch for the slacking signs from every team member and take the
necessary action to keep the pressure cooker at a constant stress
level. It is also a good idea for the project manager not to go on a
vacation during the course of a project that has no slack time on
its schedule and that has performance penalties in its contract.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A project managers replacement during his or her absence
from a project can have adverse eects on team members.
It is always dicult to shake o a honeymoon periods
relaxed atmosphere in a team environment.
As project managers, we might have to delay our vaca-
tions to after the completion of a project.
Case6.12: Farewell Luncheon
e computer company that I worked for had a chief operating
ocer whose top priority was to generate a favorable balance sheet
for Wall Street every quarter. When we could not meet our ship-
ment forecasts, he used to ship products that were in our inventory
out the door on the last day of the quarter and receive them back
as warranty return the next day. If the sales forecast for a par-
ticular quarter was down, he used to monitor all travel and extra
expenses such as luncheons and in- house birthday parties, and so
on. He tracked every penny that was spent.
During tight expenditure periods, we had to get the chief
nancial ocers approval before going on a trip or before taking
someone out to lunch or dinner at company expense. Airplane
travel was to be only in economy class. We had strict per diem
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expense limits depending upon the place we were traveling to.
We could not take our customers or colleagues to lunch or din-
ner without prior approval. Controlling expenses and austerity
policies were good for prot and loss management, but the chief
operating ocer should have given company managers reasonable
leeway in managing their budgets.
I had a senior mechanical tool designer on my project team. He
was moving to his home state to be close to his aging parents after
15years of service to our company. He participated in several of
my projects during his last 10years with his highly professional
work ethics. My team and I wanted to give him an unforgettable
farewell party. However, we were right in the middle of a nan-
cial crunch. I had to get every expense preapproved. My team
and I decided to throw his farewell party ourselves without going
through the expense preapproval process.
I met with each of my team members and asked for their sug-
gestions. First, we decided to give a morning break chocolate cake
party around his cubicle. My secretary volunteered to bake the
cake. We were going to invite all top management people includ-
ing the chief operating ocer to the morning break party. One of
the team members suggested that we get a commemorative plaque
for all his contributions to our team. We agreed to chip in $10
each for a silver plaque.
Afterward we planned to take him out to a farewell luncheon at
his favorite Mexican restaurant and to give him several presents. I
assigned a team member to get the presents before the luncheon.
I knew that my tool designer was a skier and a golfer. We decided
to get him a pair of ski goggles and half a dozen LED lighted golf
balls. e cost for each team member was $16.
e morning break chocolate cake party was well attended.
I gave a little speech praising my tool designer and wished him
well in his new life. I asked our chief operating ocer to present
him the silver plaque. e chief operating ocer said some inspir-
ing words and did his presentation. It was a great 20-minute get-
together and the delicious chocolate cake was all gone. I thanked
my secretary on the side for her great cooking skills. I also men-
tioned to our chief operating ocer that we were paying all fare-
well party expenses from our pockets. He was very tickled to
hear that.
en my team and I took him out to lunch and had outstand-
ing Mexican food in my tool designers honor. Everyone around
the table gave spirit- lifting speeches about him. I gave him his
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
presents and thanked him again for his outstanding contribu-
tions to my projects. He was ecstatic about his presents. He gave
a gracious farewell speech too thanking each individual on my
team and me for coaching, mentoring, and providing assistance
all throughout his career at our company. Lunch cost for each
team member was $7. Overall we had a great farewell party for
my tool designer. e cost of the farewell party for each team
member was $33.
e company overall saved a $330 expense. We managed to
give a great farewell party to my senior mechanical tool designer
without going through the pre- approval process for expenses. All
our eorts were for a good colleague and we accomplished every-
thing without any help from the company.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Sometimes you have to be creative and go around strict
company rules and policies without breaking any laws.
As project managers, we have to always show our appre-
ciation for good eorts put into our team by a fellow
team member who is leaving the company under favor-
able conditions.
Case6.13: Promises to Team Members
As a project manager, my ultimate target was to gain the respect
of my team members nationally and internationally. e best way
to gain respect was to keep all my promises to team members in a
timely fashion. I learned this approach the hard way. Earlier in
my project management career I made promises that I could not
keep. ese unkept promises created conicts and disharmony in
my project teams. A simple promise to upgrade one of my team
members workstation was not fullled on time due to my com-
panys budgeting conicts. My design engineer was livid about
my not keeping my end of the bargain in a timely fashion. I had
to authorize an upgrade to his workstation instead of waiting for
the IT department to act and charged the upgrade to my project.
More conicting promises arose from things that were outside
of my control as a project manager. Examples of these uncontrol-
lable promises were salary increases, bonuses, changing depart-
ments, and extra vacation times.
I had a design engineer from our Japanese division working
for me in California. I brought him to the United States for two
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years of extra training and for him to help me in projects dealing
with our Japanese customers. He brought his family to the United
States too. During his stay in the United States, he still reported
to his supervisor in our Japanese division. He was at engineer 2
level. Engineer 2 level was dened according to our Japanese divi-
sion standards, which was dierent from the U.S. engineer 2 level
ones. He was always complaining about his salary level to me.
Our level 2 engineers were making 20% more than what he was
making. He was a good and hard working engineer and his con-
tributions were as valuable as his U.S. counterparts. During one
of our weekly meetings, I promised him that I would discuss his
salary situation with his supervisor and request an increase in his
salary. I called his supervisor and negotiated hard with him about
increasing his salary by at least 10%. His supervisor would not
budge. His supervisor told me that this young Japanese engineer
had two more years to go at engineer 2 level. After two years
depending on his performance, he could be promoted to engineer
3 level and get a handsome bump in his salary, which would be
comparable to U.S. engineer 2 level. My hands were tied. I could
not do anything else to keep my promise. I made a promise that I
should not have. I should have called his supervisor and discussed
his salary increase before promising him anything. I called the
young Japanese engineer to my oce and explained to him my
discussions with his supervisor. I told him that I would give him
a very high recommendation for the work he was doing in the
United States for me. He could be promoted to engineer 3 level in
two years and then could achieve the salary level he was aiming
for. He understood his salary situation. He was working for me
in the United States under our Japanese divisions rules. He con-
tinued his good and hard work and he got his promotion on his
return to Japan after two years. He called me and thanked me for
my very favorable recommendation.
I had another unfullled promise early in my career. I had a
team of six engineers to design and create software for feasibility
studies of industrial investments. We tested and released the soft-
ware on time and within our budget. During our project closure
meeting, I promised my team members good year- end bonuses
for their extraordinary eorts. Our feasibility software was being
used for every new industrial project planned by our corpora-
tion. My six engineers reported to three dierent managers in
our corporation. I talked to every one of them about the success
of my team. I emphasized that our corporation was gaining a lot
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by optimizing investments made to new industrial divisions by
using our feasibility software. All managers agreed to recommend
handsome year- end bonuses for my teams engineers. In January,
all year- end bonuses were announced, but none of my teams
engineers got a penny. I was very disturbed and I could not face
my teams engineers. I went to see their managers to understand
what happened. ey all gave me the same story. Due to corporate
prot crunch, year- end bonuses were given to very few people.
My engineers missed the bonus pot. I had to explain to every one
of my teams engineers what happened despite my eorts. I was
wrong in raising the hopes of my teams engineers for something
that I had no control of.
In another empty promise case, one of the engineers on my team
was not happy at all with her supervisor. She wanted to change her
department and report to another supervisor whom she thought
very highly of. I promised her that I would talk to both supervisors
and would help her to switch departments. I discussed her wish
with both supervisors and with our human resources director with
no success. e department that she wanted to move to had to
generate a new opening at her level and her capabilities. en she
had to ocially apply for this new job opening. I did not have the
authority to accomplish her desired move in any way. Her options
were to quit the company or to learn to deal with her supervi-
sor. She chose the second option. She had to endure another three
years before her supervisor was assigned to another position.
In one of my design projects, we had a very tight schedule.
Our salespeople underbid my project. My project hours were
reduced by 25%. My four engineers were putting in 12-hour days
and working Saturdays and Sundays to keep up with our proj-
ect schedule. My team was close to burnout and they were not
enjoying their jobs. ey were joking with me by saying that they
wished they were hourly employees. ey would be making at
least double their salaries if they were hourly employees. I had to
keep them energized and happy. I worked the long hours along-
side them. I promised them an extra week of vacation time after
the project was completed. I talked to their supervisor in detail.
He did not agree with my generous vacation oer. He said that
his engineers were salaried personnel and they were judged by
the quality and the quantity of their accomplishments and not
by the hours that they put in. I was dumbfounded. I did not agree
with his assessment of salaried personnel at all. I took it on myself
to correct these unfair working conditions. I gave my engineers a
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day o during the week if they spent a weekend day at the oce.
I showed these days o as working days on my project. is way I
eased their stress levels. In the end, I overran my budget by 9%,
but it was all worth it. We were only late by a week to complete
a yearlong project. I was apologetic to my team members that I
could not give them an extra week of vacation time. ey were
all appreciative that I leveled their stress levels by a day o during
the week.
As I gained experience in project management, I only made
promises that I could keep to my team members. I researched
thoroughly beforehand whether I could keep my promise. When
I gave a time frame for a promise, I always accomplished it within
that time frame.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Promises not fullled in a timely fashion to team mem-
bers will create disharmony and underperformance dur-
ing the execution of your project.
Do not make a promise to a team member that is beyond
your control.
Always discuss your idea for reward with the supervi-
sor of your team member and obtain his or her consent
before announcing it.
Case6.14: A Critical Team Member Getting
Married and Going on a Honeymoon
In the middle of an oshore oil platform equipment design and
construction project, one of my critical software design engineers
decided to get married and go on a honeymoon. He came to my
oce one day right in the middle of our projects very high activ-
ity period and surprised me by saying that he was going to get
married in a month in Mexico and then go on a honeymoon to
Australia for three weeks. He was going to be o the project close
to four weeks. ese surprising events were not planned in my
project scheduling at all. He was responsible for designing and
generating the software for the control system of the equipment.
He was right in the middle of his tasks. I told him that this was
quite a change of events in the middle of our project. His absence
period coincided with the initial testing of the equipment using
his control system. I had no one capable of taking over his tasks. I
had to think and nd ways to manage his tasks during his absence.
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I could not get mad at him or ask him to delay his plans. He was
one of my ace engineers. I congratulated him on his decision to
get married, but I also told him that he should have planned for
his marriage at least six months ago. I told him that I was going to
prepare a plan to take care of his responsibilities in his absence. I
told him to meet with me again the next day on the subject.
He had four more weeks of work before he left for Mexico.
His eciency was going to drop, as he got closer to his wedding
day because of intense activities for his wedding ceremony. e rst
thing I had to get him to do was to bring the control system soft-
ware to a preliminary and operable phase before he left. He had to
provide me with a preliminary version of the software. He had
to leave me with his computers password and software le loca-
tions. I was not going to ask him to release his control software
through document control in its preliminary version. He was
going to train me on the usage of his software during his last two
days in the oce. I did not want to get any other team members
distracted spending time on his software. en I was going to
ask him to give us a call every morning at 9a.m. Australian east-
ern daylight time (3p.m. Pacic daylight time) so that we could
discuss all problems and hiccups that we had encountered while
operating the equipment control system software. I did not want
to call him and disturb him on his honeymoon every time I had
an issue with his software.
I had an hour meeting with him the next day. I laid out my
proposed solutions for his absence. He agreed with me that he was
going to be able to complete a preliminary version of his software
before he left for Mexico. He was not going to be able to complete
user instructions for his software by the time he left. He agreed to
train me on the usage of his software for two days before he left.
He also agreed to call me on Skype Tuesday through Saturday
mornings ve times a week at the agreed time. He was very appre-
ciative of my understanding of his situation. He told me that one
of my projects team members was going to be a groomsman at
his wedding.
I checked his progress daily during the next four weeks. He
completed as promised a preliminary version of his software before
he left for his big day in Mexico. He trained me for two days on
all the inputs, outputs, and possible trouble areas of his software.
He called me from Australia on the agreed upon call schedule.
Some of the calls lasted ve minutes, but several of them lasted
over an hour. We tried several ways to solve software operating
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issues while he was live on Skype. With the daily calls, we got
along okay in his absence. He completed and released his con-
trol software and its user instructions two months after his return
from Australia. My team members and I contributed handsomely
to get a great present for our newlywed colleague.
Several unexpected events like this one occur during the course
of a project. Some project managers get upset and blow their tops
o, but this type of behavior does not solve anything. Negative
reactions make things worse. You have to be coolheaded, versa-
tile, and rm to nd other solutions fast in order to bring the dif-
cult situation under control.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Many surprising and unscheduled events can occur dur-
ing the execution of your project.
As project managers, we have to be coolheaded, versatile,
and able to orchestrate a viable solution to keep our proj-
ect moving ahead unharmed.
Case6.15: A Project Manager Goes on a Sabbatical Leave
I was a senior scientist in a team of several engineers and designers
that were assigned to design and build prototypes of a new rotary
combustion engine in 18months. Our team leader was a dedi-
cated automotive engineer and an excellent team leader. Right at
the height of the project, he had to take a three- month sabbatical
leave to fulll his compulsory military service. He asked me if
I could lead the team during his absence. I accepted the chal-
lenge without any hesitation. I knew all the team players well.
All tasks were progressing smoothly. I did not see any problems
on the horizon. We agreed that he was going to call me twice a
week in the evenings to get a brieng about the project. He gave
me authorization to sign o on all time cards and all expenses for
the project. We had a team meeting and he explained his situation
to the team. He introduced me as the interim project manager
for the project for the next three months. e next day he left
to fulll his military service obligation.
I started to manage the team without any incidents. e rst
week passed without a glitch. e project was on track on all
cylinders. My management style was dierent from our project
manager. He liked to micromanage every team member to the
extreme. On the other hand, I gave a calculated space to team
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members working under me. I gave a task to a team member and
asked for results in a given time frame depending upon the team
members experience and dedication to his or her work.
During the second week, one of the design engineers started to
slack o. His behavior was reminiscent of a mouse playing because
the cat was gone. His work eciency dropped drastically. His outside
interests increased. He started to take long lunch hours. He called in
sick on Mondays. At rst I cautioned him verbally. Nothing in his
behavior changed. He thought he could get away with it since I was
the interim project manager. I discussed his behavior with the proj-
ect manager during our bi- weekly brieng. He asked me to write a
warning letter and review the letter with the design engineer in the
presence of a human resources representative. I reviewed the written
warning with the design engineer and led it with human resources.
I started to micromanage him and tried to help him get on track and
catch up with his tasks. I did not want to take drastic measures and
re him before our project manager returned from his sabbatical
leave. Everyone else on the team was performing well. I was patient
and limped along with the design engineer for three months.
Our project engineer came back and relieved me from my team
management responsibilities. He was also very upset with the proj-
ect engineer for not completing his tasks as scheduled. Our project
manager gave him a written warning too. He was ready to re the
project engineer. I asked the project manager to give me another
week to straighten out the project engineer. I told him that the
design engineer was very knowledgeable in material science and it
would not be easy to replace him in the middle of the project. He
agreed with me. I took the project engineer out to lunch to have
a heart- to- heart discussion about his work behavior and perfor-
mance. I told him that he had to pull himself together without
any delay and had to improve his work performance or else he had
to nd another job. I emphasized to him that management was
ready to re him if he did not improve his work behavior and per-
formance fast. He started to share his personal problems with me.
He had a new girlfriend who was apparently very demanding. He
was prioritizing his new girlfriend before his work responsibilities.
Our two- hour long lunch discussion did the trick. Finally, the
gravity of his deteriorating situation at work dawned on him. He
started to work harder. He put in many extra hours to catch up
with his commitments. Our project manager thanked me for sav-
ing the design engineer from being red. at disruption would
have put a dent in the progress of our project
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As project managers, we have to sometimes act as psycholo-
gists. We should not take drastic actions on a whim or in a burst
of anger. We have to consider all repercussions that an immediate
action might cause in our project. A colleague of mine used to
always remind me to measure twice or better three times before
you make a critical cut.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Diculties can arise between you and your team mem-
bers when you take over a project in the middle of its
execution.
As project managers, we have to consider all options
before we make a critical decision.
Case6.16: Technical Publishing during a Project
I always encouraged my project team members to publish their
leading-edge ndings in reputable journals as long as their publi-
cations did not disclose any intellectual property of our company
and of our customers. I also encouraged them to subscribe and to
read all technical journals in their elds so that they could stay up
to date in their elds of expertise. I asked every team member to
share his or her news about technological advances in our weekly
team meetings. As engineers we were always in a technology race.
As soon as we stopped learning and closed our eyes to the outside
world, we would fall behind in our eld and we would evaporate.
Our publications enhanced our resumes to a higher level and gave
us an insurmountable edge over our competition in promotions
and in job searches.
In my project management career, I had to provide my team
members a fair balance between time spent on writing papers and
on doing actual project work. I had a Ph.D. physicist working for
me on an advanced magnetic head design project. His knowledge
of advanced magnetics was excellent. He spent almost 50% of his
working time writing papers for dierent journals. He was also
refereeing submitted papers on several journals during working
hours. He came to work exactly at 8a.m. and left exactly at 5p.m.,
not a minute later. He copublished most of his papers with other
contributors from my project team. If he did not copublish, he
acknowledged all the contributors in his papers. He was a well-
respected scientist in his eld. I valued his achievements but I had
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to get more out of him on my projects side and reduce his com-
mitments to publishing during working hours.
I went to his oce and had a heart- to- heart discussion about
his excess commitment to publication during working hours. I
told him that it was okay with me if he spent 10% to 15% of his
working hours on publication- related issues. I reminded him that
his project tasks in advanced magnetic head design were falling
behind. He told me that he was always in a race with other scien-
tists to publish a new idea. He wanted to be the rst one to publish
a new idea in the scientic world. He also had to get approval
from our patent lawyers before submitting his papers. He believed
that it was always desirable to have our companys name rst in
leading journals.
I agreed with all his comments and left his oce without a res-
olution regarding his time spent on writing and refereeing papers.
I had to think hard not to antagonize him and get a fair resolution
to our problem. I did not want to go to his boss and complain
about the situation at hand. I had to deal with him myself and
nd a fair solution. I thought about a middle-ground solution for
a couple of days. en I called him to my oce in order to propose
and negotiate my solution. I told him that he could spend all the
time he wanted on publishing and refereeing papers as long as
he put in an honest 32 hours of work on my project every week.
I gave him freedom in 20% of his weekly working hours to do
whatever he wanted to do in publishing. If he wanted to spend
more time in publishing, he had to do it after 5p.m. at work or
at home. He could not argue with my proposal. He told me that
I was trying to put brakes on his publishing eorts. I emphasized
that my projects tasks were more important than his publishing
eorts. I reminded him that our company could only survive, if
we were the leader in our products, not in publishing. Finally, he
came around and reluctantly accepted my proposal. I told him that
in dire situations such as a deadline, he could spend more work
time for publishing as long as he notied me. is ne loophole
gave him more condence in our relationship. Finally, he started
to spend 32 hours per week on my projects tasks.
Specialists and/ or scientists can be very moody and demand-
ing in a team environment. As a project manager, you need their
expertise. You have to treat them with respect. You have to cre-
ate a exible boundary with their needs and with your projects
requirements. If you become a hard- liner with such people, your
project will suer in the end.
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Project ManageMent case studIes
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Getting a team member to focus on your projects tasks
can be challenging when that team member has a lot of
other interests besides your project.
Your exibility in solving a dicult case regarding a
team member will benet your project in the long run.
Case6.17: Team Atmosphere after Vacations and Holidays
As global project managers we have to know every team members
vacation plans in advance. We have to know all national holi-
days of the countries we are dealing with. We have to know all
religious holidays that each one of our team members and coun-
tries are observing. Religious holiday observance days might get
very confusing, if you are dealing with multi- ethnic countries like
India and Malaysia. It is always a must to include all these events
into your project schedule at the initial stage of your planning.
You might come across many surprises that can aect your proj-
ects critical tasks and deliverables.
In one of my project teams, I had a novice engineer who could
not get into a work mood easily after he came back from holidays.
He was still dreaming about turkey dinners, apple pies and ice
cream, a Christmas gift he got, and New Years celebrations. He
was going around discussing his experiences during the holidays
in detail with child- like excitement with his colleagues. I had to
micromanage him daily after the holidays so that he could get
back to his work and start focusing on his tasks. After a couple
of holidays, he started to act more professionally and discussed
his holiday experiences with his teammates only during breaks.
is novice engineer took his two- week vacation after a year
of employment and went to Tahiti with his girlfriend. After he
got back he acted like a lost soul under lots of stress. He could not
switch easily from a relaxed atmosphere to the rhythm of orga-
nized work. His e- mails and his phone messages accumulated
quite a bit during his two weeks of absence. He did not know
which task to tackle rst. He came to my oce and asked for my
help. I told him to rst review all his e- mails and phone messages
and jot down important ones and ones that needed action and
response from him. en I asked him to come back to my oce
with his list the same day. He came back and we together reviewed
his action items list and prioritized every item on it. We also put
completion dates for each action item. is kind of personalized
help showed my novice engineer how to deal with numerous action
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items on his to- do list after a relaxing vacation. He appreciated my
guidance and thanked me a lot for easing his stress level. He went
on to become a very organized and productive engineer in two
years. After two years, I recommended him to be promoted to an
engineer 2 level. He received his promotion. He was very grateful
to me and he always wanted to work on my projects.
In an opposite case, an engineer from our Malaysian facil-
ity was working on my project in California. I brought him to
California for a six- month period to help me in several tasks in my
volume production ramp- up project and to be trained in certain
inspection methods. One day he came to my oce and asked if I
could send him back to Malaysia for a week to see his family dur-
ing a religious holiday that was coming up in 10days. His request
came to me by surprise at a very high activity phase of our project.
I told him that it would put a big dent in the progress of our project
if he were gone for a week. I could not outright reject his request. I
had to do all I could to nd a way to send him home for a week to
spend his important religious holiday with his family. I told him
that I would try to bring in another engineer to ll in for him for
a week. I also told him that I could not pay for his trip expenses
from my projects budget. I promised him a response in a day.
I discussed my Malaysian engineers holiday request and my
projects dire need for backup engineering manpower for a week
with our quality engineering manager and got one of his engineers
to help me. I immediately gave the good news to my Malaysian
engineer that he could leave our team for a week. Somehow he
found a cheap round trip ticket in a short time and went home for
his religious holiday. After he got back, he worked very hard and
long hours on my project team to pay me back his gratitude.
Unexpected vacation and holiday requests from team members
can occur during the course of a global project. Vacations and
holidays tend to bring instability to the progress and atmosphere
of a project. As project managers, we have to deal with them in a
timely fashion and try to smooth out their ripple eects.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
It takes awhile and your continual guidance to get some
of your team members into an eective working mood
after holidays and vacations.
Unexpected vacation or holiday requests can come from
your team members. You have to deal with these requests
in a positive manner.
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Case6.18: Project Team Members Maternity Leave
Maternity leave can hit your project team any time. You have to
restructure your team and get new personnel reinforcements in a
timely fashion in order not to aect the progress of your project.
In a new wafer factory setup project, I had a very talented female
engineer on my team. She was very experienced in experimental
design and in industrial statistics. She was designing all qualica-
tion experiments for new equipment along with equipment engi-
neers who were cognizant of wafer processes and then analyzing
resulting data with them. She came to my oce one day and told
me that she was four months pregnant. She had already talked
with our human resources group. She was very excited about her
rst child. She was planning to take o a week before her due
date, which was predicted by her doctor, and she was going to
take a total of 12weeks for maternity leave. She was going to have
her full salary and her full health benets during her maternity
leave. She was also going to have full job protection. She wanted
to come back and continue to work on my team after her mater-
nity leave was over. She also would not be able to y after her
sixth month of pregnancy, which was going to be in two months.
I congratulated her and wished her a healthy pregnancy. I asked
her to think about how to replace her temporarily for 12weeks. I
asked her to get together with me on the subject in a week.
I considered my options too during the week. I analyzed all her
upcoming tasks. Her maternity leave was occurring right in the
thick of things in my project. I had to nd a reliable replacement
for her fast so that the two of them could spend a month together
before she went on her leave. She came to my oce the following
week to discuss her temporary replacement. We could not agree
on an internal replacement. No one in our company had the broad
and in- depth experimental design skills that she possessed. We
decided to go outside to a consulting rm. is consulting rm
had given her lots of training in the past. We called the consult-
ing rm and set up a face- to- face meeting. We agreed on a senior
consultant to come and help us during her maternity leave. is
senior consultant was at one time her training instructor. He was
very expensive, but he was the right person for the job. He agreed
to start a month before her maternity leave for a phase- in period
for her tasks. I asked my purchasing department to put together
a contract with the consulting rm. We had to cover his travel,
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lodging, and meal expenses too. e senior consultants expenses
were going to put a huge dent into my projects cost performance.
I went to my upper management and negotiated to charge to my
project only the amount equal to my engineers salary. e rest of
the consultants expenses were to be absorbed into the company
overhead. at was the just way of splitting the consultants cost
to my project.
e consultant started to work on my team along with her a
month before her maternity leave. e phase- in and phase- out
process was smooth. She gave birth to a healthy boy on the day
predicted by her doctor. My team and I sent her hospital con-
gratulatory owers. I talked with her on the phone and discussed
her and the babys health. Everyone was doing great.
Two months passed after her birth, I got a phone call from
our human resources group informing me that she wanted to take
o another six weeks after her maternity leave was over for baby
bonding. She was going to have 50% of her salary, her full health
benets, and her full job protection during this baby bonding
period. is was quite a shock to me. She did not even call me
to discuss her decision to extend her maternity leave. My human
resources director told me that she had the right for this baby
bonding leave under California law.
I discussed the six- week baby bonding extension with the senior
consultant. He said he could not extend his contract because he
already had other commitments. He had three more weeks left on
his contract with us. During these six weeks, all her tasks were
on the critical path of my project. I had to scramble again to nd
a replacement for her for another six weeks. I decided to groom a
willing engineer internally for my team. Internal grooming was
also benecial for my company in the long run. I discussed the
issue with all engineering departments heads. Two names came
up as possible candidates. I interviewed both engineers. I decided
to give a novice and ambitious mechanical engineer a try. He
spent three weeks next to the senior consultant. I called my female
engineer at home to discuss the bind I was in. She oered to help
my new engineer on the phone from home. We limped through
six weeks of her baby bonding period. Finally, my female engineer
returned to her tasks after 18weeks. During this chaotic period
in my project, my company gained another bright engineer who
went on to become an expert in experimental design and in indus-
trial statistics.
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
When a maternity leave request comes to you, always
bring your human resources department into the picture
to learn all federal, state, and company rules, regulations,
and options.
You have to be ready for surprises during a maternity
leave so that your project does not suer.
Case6.19: Shelf Life of Photoresists in Wafer Fabrication
In wafer fabrication of magnetic heads the photoresist played a
very important role. As the photoresist aged, its sensitivity to light
exposure and its light absorption characteristics changed. is
variability in turn aected our products steep wall proles. Our
product lost wall edge acuity. erefore, all of a sudden lots of
wafer scraps started to occur. is phenomenon occurred inter-
mittently in our wafer fabrication when I was heading the engi-
neering group. I had several meetings with my photolithography
engineers. We could not determine the cause of the degrading
edge acuity phenomenon. We did lots of design of experiments,
but we could not pin the yield drop to the age of the photoresist
used in the factory.
One of my quality engineers in wafer fabrication suggested
my team perform an experiment with the age of photoresist
versus steep wall edge acuity. Everyone on the team agreed to
these experiments. I assigned the quality engineer who suggested
the experiment along with a photolithography engineer to per-
form the required tests in two weeks. ey ran experiments with
one-, two-, three-, four-, ve-, and six- month- old photoresists.
ey found out that steep wall edge acuity in our products started
to degrade when the photoresist was older than three months.
ey also ran conrmation experiments to verify these results.
I immediately issued a memorandum to all shifts in wafer
fabrication not to use any photoresists that were older than three
months. We had another problem with the photoresist contain-
ers. e manufacturing date of the photoresist was indicated on
a sticker by the manufacturer, but this sticker very often fell o
the container. So we sometimes had no idea when the photo resist
was manufactured. I called the photoresist manufacturer with
our receiving inspection and purchasing managers. We asked
them to put permanent laser markings on every photoresist con-
tainer identifying the lot number and the manufacturing date.
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e photoresist manufacturer agreed to our container markings
request. Two weeks after our telephone discussion, we started
receiving photoresist containers that were permanently marked
with the lot number and the manufacturing date.
e photoresist usage expiration date had to be on every con-
tainer. I discussed this issue with our stockroom manager. We
decided to laser scribe usage expiration dates on the body of the
container in large fonts. We kept the photoresist in special stor-
age rooms with temperature, 5C to 10C, and relative humidity,
30% to 50%, control. Upon my request, all stockroom personnel
were instructed by their manager not to issue to production any
photoresist containers that were over the usage expiration date.
ey were also instructed to dispose of any containers that were
over the usage expiration date.
With all the steps taken to control the useful life of the photo-
resist, our products steep wall edge acuity became very stable.
We did not have any intermittent out- of- specication wall pro-
les. Our wafer scraps due to out- of- specication wall proles
decreased tremendously.
We spent months to nd the cause for our steep wall pro-
le defects. We performed numerous full factorial design- of-
experiments with two or three factors and each factor having two
or three levels. None of these complicated, time- consuming, and
expensive experiments provided us with any reliable solution.
e photoresist useful life eects on steep wall prole were
not even suggested by one of my photolithography engineers. e
suggestion came from one of my quality engineers. She was not at
all involved with our photolithography processes. She was a qual-
ity engineer in our plate and etch group. During our weekly engi-
neering team meeting, I praised her for suggesting the solution to
one of our mind- boggling problems. I also gave her a handsome
bonus during our annual review. I patiently learned to listen and
evaluate all suggestions that were proposed during our engineer-
ing team meetings. Being a good listener provided my team mem-
bers with upbeat empowerment and helped us nd solutions to
dicult issues in our wafer fabrication.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
A good solution to a nagging engineering issue can come
from unexpected sources.
As project managers, listening and evaluating everyones
input to a problem increases our chances of success.
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Case6.20: Excessive Meetings
I was leading a project with a U.S. and overseas team in Malaysia
to set up a manufacturing plant there. My U.S. team consisted of
12 engineers split equally into design, manufacturing, test, and
quality subteams. I had 12 Malaysian engineers based in Penang
as counterparts of my U.S. team. We had weekly teleconferences
to bring everyone on the team up to date regarding the tasks that
everyone was working on. It took us two hours every Monday
afternoon (Tuesday morning in Malaysia) to go over all the tasks.
It gave every engineer about ve minutes on average to present the
status of his or her task responsibilities.
We were spending 48 man- hours a week on this teleconfer-
ence meeting. Everyone was waiting for his or her turn. Some
engineers were twiddling their thumbs during the presentations
that they had no interest in. Some engineers were busy with their
laptops. Some Malaysian engineers were not at the meeting when
their turn came up. ere was a lot of wasted time during these
teleconference meetings. It was an inecient way to manage a
meeting. I decided to take some action to correct the situation.
I talked with my dierent subteams in the United States and in
Malaysia about improving the weekly teleconference meeting. We
brainstormed several ideas to improve the eciency of our weekly
status meeting. e best idea came from an engineer in Malaysia.
She proposed that we break up the meeting into four half- hour
segments, namely design, manufacturing, test, and quality seg-
ments. During the design segment, only the design engineers
would attend the meeting. During the manufacturing segment,
only the manufacturing engineers would attend the meeting.
During the test segment, only the test engineers would attend the
meeting. During the quality segment, only the quality engineers
would attend the meeting. If there were any issues crossing the
subteam groups, I would record them as action items in the meet-
ing minutes and a particular issue would be handled by e- mail
or by telephone by its action item owner. If any one of the team
members were interested in a certain task in a dierent subteam,
he or she could review the released meeting minutes from docu-
ment control.
I issued the new weekly teleconference meeting process. From
4 p.m. to 4:30p.m. (U.S. Pacic time zone), it was the design task
groups turn, from 4:30 p.m. to 5p.m., it was the manufacturing
task groups turn, from 5 p.m. to 5:30p.m., it was the test groups
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
turn, and from 5:30 p.m. to 6p.m. it was the quality groups turn.
I also rotated the groups turns every two months so that one task
group did not get stuck with the late afternoon meeting time in
the United States or the early morning meeting time in Malaysia.
I also had a monthly half- hour general project status teleconfer-
ence meeting for all team members, domestic and international.
is new communication setup worked very well all through-
out the project for two years and we saved about 75% man- hours
that were being wasted during the weekly status meetings. On top
of that, engineers were not bored during the meeting. ey came
into the meeting room, gave their presentation, and left the meet-
ing room in half an hour. Sometimes there were shifts in presen-
tation timing. If a subteams presentation ran over half an hour,
I informed the other subteams about the delay and they showed
up at the new modied presentation time in the conference room.
My counterpart in Malaysia did the same thing.
Meetings are the backbone of a project. ey have to be stan-
dardized and managed properly so that a precious team members
time is not wasted; the team member is not bored, and he or she
contributes constructively during his or her presence in the meet-
ing. Especially in large team groups, as it was in this case, break-
ing up a meeting into smaller subgroups can be very eective.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
Project meetings can accumulate lots of wasted team
members time.
Plan ecient project meetings and make sure that your
team members around the world are not twiddling their
thumbs and they do not look bored during a meeting.
Case6.21: First Article Mishap
I was heading the project of designing, manufacturing, and test-
ing a new generation of battery- powered electric buses. Forty- foot
long electric buses provided four and a half hours of stop- and- go
level terrain travel on a single charge fully loaded with 80 pas-
sengers. e electric buses were for a mall shuttle operation. My
team was getting ready for the rst article acceptance meeting
that was scheduled to start on a Monday and was supposed to
last for three days. On Friday morning before the start of the rst
article acceptance meeting, my manufacturing manager brought
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the rst article bus to the charge station in our plant to charge
its batteries. e charging operation took about eight hours. We
were running around like our heads were cut o to complete last
minute nishing touches and tasks for the Monday meeting. We
were all tired and were looking forward to a restful weekend
before the big Monday presentation. All my team members and
I had been working 70-hour weeks for the last month to prepare
the rst article for this crucial acceptance meeting.
At 4p.m. on Friday, I unplugged the battery charger eagerly
and started to drive the bus to its presentation spot. ere was a
short steel post in front of the charge station hidden behind the
bus. While backing the bus out of the charge station, I ran the rear
side of the bus into the steel post. One of the side rear windows
broke and there was minor bodily damage too. It was my mistake
to rush to drive the bus to its presentation spot. I knew where the
steel post was and I thought I was clearing it during my maneuver.
I was so mad at myself for rushing and causing this damage to the
bus right before the rst article acceptance meeting.
I immediately called a meeting with our manufacturing
manager and our body shop personnel. e meeting was held
at the damaged rear of the rst article bus. I told my team that
I was devastated by my mistake and I asked them if the dam-
age was xable by Monday. We all assessed the damage and
agreed that the damage was xable before Mondays meeting.
We decided that three body shop technicians would be needed
to x the damage during the weekend. I asked my team who
would volunteer for the weekend overtime repair task. ree out
of six technicians volunteered immediately. I told them that I
would be at the plant too along with them during the week-
end and bring breakfast and lunch for them. My gesture was
received very favorably. We were able to replace the broken win-
dow easily with another one. e body damage took most of the
repair time. e body damage was repaired by straightening the
surface sheet metal and then painting over it during Saturday
and Sunday.
e rst article electric bus was ready for the acceptance meet-
ing at 9a.m. Monday morning. e fresh paint at the rear of the
bus was not even dry. I was afraid to drive the bus to the presen-
tation site. I let my manufacturing manager do the honors. For
three days, the rst article acceptance meeting went well. Our
new generation of battery electric bus got excellent grades from
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case studIes In teaM ManageMent
our customers representatives. ey accepted our battery electric
bus with minor modications.
I told our customers representatives of what happened on
Friday. ey were amazed that we were able to work all weekend
to get the bus xed and ready in top shape. Our customer was very
appreciative of our performance. After the last meeting, they took
my whole team of 20 people out to dinner.
ese kinds of mishaps happen more often than not while pre-
paring for critical meetings or deadlines in a project. Overworked
and overtired team members become prone to mistakes and acci-
dents. As a project manager, I had to watch myself and my team
members for fatigue and for burnout conditions. We had to slow
down and take a break from running a 100miles an hour. One
solution would have been to delay Mondays rst article meeting
for a couple of days.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS PROJECT EVENT
You have to control your pace and fatigue level and your
team members pace and fatigue level when you are pre-
paring for a crucial event for your project.
It might be wiser to postpone a crucial project event than
to burn out yourself and your team members preparing
for it.
