Project Management Case Horizon Consulting Case Study Essay

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Project Management Case: Horizon Consulting

Case introduction

Horizon is a company that makes amazing applications for smartphones. Lately, they have been successful. However, things hot a little down when certain apps. At a meeting with all of those present that put together an app for the iPhone, people like Patti who was over the engineer software department, found out that the application was not successful. They just received notification from Apple IOS that their TAT app was rejected. TAT was a phone app that one of the members were the project lead over. This app was amazing because it allowed subscribers to reserve and see in real time what swimming lanes were accessible at a prestigious athletic club. Nobody was not happy at all about the news. It was obvious that before TAT app could go active it had to be proposed and approved by Apple. Usually this was not a problem, but lately Apple had been rejecting apps for a variety of reasons. However, one of the workers went on to circulate the list of changes that had to be made before Apple would approve the app. The group studied the list, and in some cases mocked the new requirements.

Do a brief summary explaining what happened on the project management case: Horizon Consulting.

At the meeting, the group found out that Apple IOS was not crazy about their TAT app. The group was not expecting the rejection. However, it is back to the drawing board for those that were responsible for creating the app. Now the bosses are asking those engineers that were working on the project, to go back and revise everything. They suggested that the engineers be the ones to finish what they had started so they are all going to have to be reassigned back to the TAT project. Those affected are going to have to get together after the meeting and figure how you are going to replace everything that Apple IOS does not like. The meeting then proceeded as planned with each account manager reporting the status of their projects, and sharing applicable subjects with the group.

Case issue analysis

In this case study, the issue that the case addressed was the fact that the TAT project was defective and that management failed at overlooking the project to make sure that the app was perfect and ready to go.

This case relates to what project management processes?

This case relates more to a group management type of process. A process is considered to be more like a series of actions that are directed in the direction of a particular result such as in the Horizon case. Their particular goal was making sure that the TAT project was completed. From the case study, it was obvious that project management process groups develop from introducing activities in order to plan activities, execute activities, plus observe and control actions, and closing activities (Archbold).

The planning processes involves developing and upholding a practical scheme to make sure that the project speakes to the organizations needs. There are numerous strategies for projects, for example schedule management plan, the scope management plan, cost management plan, purchasing management plan, and so on, defining each knowledge area as it relates to the project at that pointin time. (Archbold) For instance, such as in the Horizon Consulting case, a project team has to cultivate a plan in order to describe the work that needs to be completed for the project. They are also the ones that do the scheduling of activities that are related to that work. Furthermore, the process involves the estimation of costs for executing the work, and to choose what resources to get in order to accomplish the work, and so on.

In Horizon Consulting, the output of the planning process was important. In the case study, outputs of the planning process group included completing the project scope statement, which was the TAT project. The TAT project was a technology project. With that being said, planning was important for information type of technology projects such as the one in the case study. Research does show that everyone who has ever worked in these types of processes particularly on a large information technology project like TAT project that involves new technology recognizes the saying, a dollar spent up front in planning is worth one hundred dollars expended after the system is executed.

In the case study, planning to implement the TAT project was crucial. In these types of developments planning is crucial in information technology projects for the reason that once a project team executes a new system, it takes substantial quantity of effort in order to change the system.

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Research proposes that corporations working to instrument best practices should spend at any rate 20% of project time in introducing and doing some kind of planning (Archbold).

Point out what solution or project management process techniques it applied.

There were two key factors that donated to the accomplishment of the post-meeting. According to (Johnson) they are called the structure and culture. It can be noted that the structure of the project classification system verbalized the main resolves that had to be done. By using this system, the project managers were able to tell which projects were of great importance and which requisite definite resources more directly than others.

The customs of the organization nevertheless was the main persuading issue in this meeting's achievement. Every one of the project managers were clever to work with each other in addition to endorse and provide information as to which app engineers are able to work much better than others that were involved. This shows a culture of fellowship among the project supervisors. It look as if that they are committed not just to their own projects, on the other hand all of the projects of the corporation. This fact of business culture is additionally highlighted by the story of the previous project executive who was let go for gathering resources.

One of the project management process techniques it applied was the matrix organizational structure. Horizon Consulting uses a matrix organizational structure in the case study. A matrix organization structure is typically described as one where there are multiple reporting lines (Johnson). This is saying, individuals have in excess of one proper manager. This could consist of solid lines and dotted lines or it might mean multiple solid lines to beyond one superior.

It was clear from the case study, that Horizon is prearranged into three departments. These departments are made up of Sales, Graphics and Software Development. Accounts directors (from the Sales department) become twofold as project executives. These project managers in turn accomplish all of the resources that come from these three departments. In these three departments, they are each assigned to their jobs. Some of engineers would work on a project all day, even though others would be delegated to multiple projects at the same time (Johnson). Those that are head of the department would supervise engineers' projects and timetables with the account managers giving all of their reporting to the person that is the Manager of Sales.

As illustrated above, Horizon Consulting functions within the organizational limits of a matrix structure and has achievement in doing so. Obviously this structure likewise fits their organizational culture where teamwork, performance and attaining corporation goal mouth is much appreciated.

Suggestions as Further Improvement for this Case

When it comes to further improvement, one of the things to do is to make sure that the projects are properly managed. In the case of TAT project, it did not seem to be properly managed. Before the project even made it into the hands of Apple IOS. The project should have been ran across the manager first, where they could have spotted the same defects that post-meeting went very well. Those that were working on the app, in the future would need to make sure that there is better communication among the other engineer.

Another thing that has something to do with further improvement has a lot to do with the post meeting. In this meeting they were able to juggle their corporation's resources that are amongst their current projects with the end result of distributing replacement resources that are necessary to finish out the projects. The meeting was good because it helped them to see their shortcomings. In the meeting, the engineers were able to discover that they had the issue of having two app engineers needing to be called back to their previous project. The group was able to discover that their return to this previous development made sense as they would be the ones needed in order to complete it in the less amount of time. Also, the post-meeting was put together in order to come up with a replacement method for those engineers that were working on their current projects. The project managers were capable of solving this issue and keep their developments on the right track. This post meeting is something….....

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