Rachel's project management challenges in an information systems case study

Project Management

Major Facts from the Case Study

This case study demonstrates how a project manager spends a busy day in her office by overseeing the routine activities and discussing the ongoing project with her fellow managers and lower-end staff. Rachel is the project manager of a large information systems project. She is responsible to supervise the job responsibilities and the progress of project activities and report them to her boss on daily basis.

Sometimes, she has to come earlier in the office in order to handle the excessive burden of work. She experiences an encouraging and supportive organizational culture in her office where all organizational members -- from top level managers to the lower level staff work collectively and whole heartedly for the achievement of organizational goals. The whole project is being supervised by a number of project managers; including Rachel, Neil, Victoria, etc. Other project team members include Mary (senior marketing manager), Chandra (analyst), John (corresponding person/counterpart to Rachel), Eddie (finance officer), etc.

Rachel's Day in the Office

After analyzing the case study, it can be said that Rachel has spent a quite busy day in the office. She made a number of quick decisions while keeping a lot of things unattended. She went to the office earlier in order to catch up some important project activities; but failed to do so because she engaged in socializing and personal discussion with fellow project manager, Neil. Afterwards, she went for checking and responding to the voice messages and emails which she could not check since the previous day. Leaving some messages and emails unchecked, she started reviewing her schedule for the day.

While she was reviewing project reports and preparing for the weekly status meeting, she was interrupted by her boss. In this way, she failed to review reports and prepare for the weekly status meeting effectively. She was also alarmed by the boss regarding one of her team members who was using stimulants on the job. The meeting also started late because of some team members who went to cafeteria to have coffee and donuts. After the meeting, Rachel met Victoria (IS project manager) to discuss the current project activities. After meeting her, Rachel realized that Victoria's project is behind schedule which can create problems in the future.

Having all these issues in hand, Rachel decided to coordinate with her fellow managers and lower level staff about the progress of the project. Here, she also came to know that the project promises that were made in the marketing campaigns are not being met in real. After overseeing the routine activities of her co-workers all the day, Rachel made schedule for the next day. On the whole, she made every effort to perform her responsibilities in an effective and efficient way, but failed due to interruption by fellow managers and lack of coordination among organizational members.

Being a Project Manager

A project manager is the one who makes all types of decisions and ensures that the project activities are being carried out according to the set schedules and within available financial resources (Flannes & Levin, 2005). Being the project manager, Rachel was responsible to supervise the job duties of her subordinates while keeping an effective coordination with her fellow managers. Being a manager, she was supposed to perform her tasks in an effective and efficient way so that she can set an example for her colleagues and lower-end staff (Gido & Clements, 2009). In addition to performing all the activities on their set schedules and within given deadlines, she was also responsible to meet higher officials to communicate the progress of the project over time.

Based on the facts presented in the case, it can be concluded that being a project manager is like taking a lot of responsibilities while subordinating personal interests to the interests of the organization. Therefore, a project manager must realize what is expected from him by the Top Management and make every effort to achieve the organizational goals in an effective, efficient, and well-organized way (Flannes & Levin, 2005).