CASE QUESTION

1) Strategic objectives

University of Rummidge

 It wants to be famous in the market place, mainly for management of education.

 It also wishes to become an innovative organization in the market.

 It would like to expand the areas that would relieve the dependence on

government funding

 It wants to do operations beyond the physical limitations of the campus

 Give priority to information technology - want to adopt internet-based activities

for investment

 Build direct relationship with large companies in the area for stipulation of

integrated higher education services

 University’s management team favorably to open a new campus.

 Provide excellence and relevance in the learning environment

 Enrich the students and staffs experience

 Market their capabilities and successes effectively

Town council of Splot

 It have intent to maintain the high quality of life that the town enjoys and improve

the town to become a city - give status to the city

 Continue efforts toward fostering an ever-improving relationship between with

University of Rummidge as the University continues to add facilities and develop

 programs. It coordinated efforts with University of Rummidge, sponsoring

business/private sector development initiatives.

 It also has intention to setting up its own university in the country in combination

with local businesses.

 It also accessing a remote contributor through an effective campus.

 Intent to converted schools premises into a campus by shutting down the schools

in the middle of the town.

Conflict in these objectives

Both organizations are having a preference to provide a key command for a wide

range of higher education services that the presented institutions were incapable of

providing. But the problem is Town council of Splot is took the wrong step by shutting

down the schools in the town and changed into a campus. This influenced to declining

number of pupils. It will give bad impression to the community behalf of them.

Moreover, it also will affect the reputation of the University of Rummidge because their

joint ventures with town council of Splot.

Further, both have desire to provide job opportunity for unemployed people by

open a new campus but this unable to achieve because the country is facing low

unemployed problem, the countries local unemployment was almost zero. Most of the

firms in the country face problems in recruiting for all types of work. So, they must find

solution or ways to prevent that problems rather than concerning in providing job

opportunity for people.

Then, town council is aim to open its own university in the combination of local

business but it can’t achieve because it did not have the capability to do so because they
does not have any knowledge about management education. The town council also wants

to open a virtual and effective campus. There is a need to high-technology to build the

virtual and effective campus. But the council doesn’t have Internet access in their

organization and the unemployment rate was low in the country. There is no point of

build a new campus because nobody will work there. All the people already have work.

Both organizations want to do joint venture (JV) to open a new University of

Rummidge in Splot. Before they do their JV they never done their research and analysis

on both companies’ objectives to achieve success because both companies’ objectives are

not 100 per cent clear and communicated to everyone involved. If they did, it will help

them to make a right decision and choose correct party which is almost similar to them.

For example, the University of Rummidge has capability to access the internet-based

activities in the organization but the town council of Splot does not having it. This will

give opportunity the occurrence of conflict between them.

2) Projects that will be taking place in the process of opening the new campus

Both companies have to do marketing research before they open up their new

branch. Marketing research is the process that keeps the engine of the organization tuned.

Marketing research help to meaningful marketing and strategic planning relies on

management’s ability to develop and maintain a marketing information system and have

the skills to carry out. Marketing research, as a profession, has made many important

contributions to the marketing process. Marketing research has been used to hasten the

introduction of successful new products and services to the market place. New ideas and

concepts have been screened before businesses make huge investments in plant and
material on products which consumers would not support. Product formulations have

been improved by means of consumer input through various research techniques.

i) Joint Venture will take place in the process of opening the new campus. A joint is a

strategic alliance between two or more individuals or entities to engage in a specific

project or undertaking. Partnerships and joint ventures can be similar but in fact can

have significantly different implications for those involved. A partnership usually

involves a continuing, long-term business relationship, whereas a joint venture is based

on a single business project. Parties enter Joint Ventures to gain individual benefits,

usually a share of the project objective. This may be to develop a product or intellectual

property rather than joint or collective profits, as is the case with a general or limited

partnership. A joint venture, like a general partnership is not a separate legal entity.

Revenues, expenses and asset ownership usually flow through the joint venture to the

participants, since the joint venture itself has no legal status. Once the Joint venture has

met its goals the entity ceases to exist.

Embarking on a Joint Venture can represent a significant reconstruction to

both university and town council. However, it may be potential for growth; it needs to

fit with overall business strategy. So, both organizations must review their business

strategy before committing to a joint venture. This should help them define what they

can sensibly expect. In fact, they might decide there are better ways to achieve their

business aims. They also need to study what similar businesses are doing, particular

those that operate in similar markets to them. Seeing how they use joint ventures could

help them decide on the best approach for your business. At the same time, they could

try to identify the skills they use to partner successfully.

 Both companies’ must be realistic about their strengths and weaknesses - consider

performing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis (swot) to identify

whether the two businesses are compatible. They will almost certainly want to identify a

joint venture partner that complements their own skills and failings. They must remember

to consider the employees' perspective and bear in mind that people can feel threatened

by a joint venture. For example, Academic staffs at Rummidge are not satisfied by this

joint venture because negotiation has taken place without their contribution. It may be

difficult to foster effective working relationships if their partner has a different way of

doing business.

When embarking on a joint venture it’s imperative to have understanding in

writing. They should set out the terms and conditions agreed upon in a written contract,

this will help prevent misunderstandings and provide both parties with strong legal

recourse in the event the other party fails to fulfill its obligations while under contract.

A written Joint Venture Agreement should cover:

 The parties involved

 The objectives of the joint venture

 Financial contributions you will each make whether you will transfer any assets

or employees to the joint venture

 Intellectual property developed by the participants in the joint venture

 Day to day management of finances, responsibilities and processes to be

followed.

 Dispute resolution, how any disagreements between the parties will be resolved
  How if necessary the joint venture can be terminated.

 The use of confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements is also recommended to

protect the parties when disclosing sensitive commercial secrets or confidential

information.

ii) Distance between both university and town council is very far. Splot is around a one-

hour drive from Rummidge. That means staffs have to travel two-hour every day. They

may find difficulties to travel every day because two-hour travel is almost a long time

and it also will give place traffic problems. When the staffs involve in traffic problem,

they will be late to work and it will affect their job performance. They also can’t reach

their working place at the time. Moreover, it also will affect the students lecture. If staffs

unable reach at the time, they can’t cover full topic of a subject. It will manipulate

students’ academic level. So, the university can’t produce high quality of students in even

though they open a lot of new campuses in future.

In the other hand, location of the new campus also relatively in bad condition

district of the town and whether there will be sufficient buy-in from local people to make

it worthwhile. Location is most important thing to the business. Both organizations must

give priority to choose accurate location based on customer needs. If customer unable to

meet the location they can’t make their business smoothly and it will effect the growth of

the organization.

So, both companies’ must give priority to employees’ and local people and take

further action to prevent their problems. They may build their new campus in a nearer

place to the staff. It can help the staff to reach the working place at the time. In the other

hand, if they can’t change the location, in this situation they can build hostel to the staff
or they can rent houses in near by to the new campus to staff. The organization also can

provide transport to their staff. By doing this it will prevent the traffic problems and make

the employees reach the working place at the time. A most conducive working and

leisure environment are important for the progressive working population

On the hand, they can locate their new campus in commercial hub. It will help

them to meet the clients easily and frequently. The location they choose must help the

new campus to become a vibrant and dynamic nucleus for its business activities. The

location also must have superb accessibility via major expressway and extensible

networks linking. Moreover, it also must be a gateway to attaining new heights in

business supremacy. Both organizations must choose a location which is designed to

provide a perfect balance to suit every conceived need of their own self, their clients and

workforce. The location also must embraces technology as a setting for an ultra modern

and most advanced business operating environment. Speed, efficiency and reliability are

the prevailing elements of the technology prominent in the campus. If not they can’t run

their business for long time and it will be an obstacle to make profit.

iii) There also have an argument whether courses such as undergraduates and

postgraduates would be run at both sites and whether there would be resources available

to assist with the workloads of the department of academic and administrative caused by

the new courses. Both organizations have to discuss about the operation activity of their

university before they open up a new campus. The undergraduate programs can be

conduct in main campus and postgraduates programs can be carrying out in new campus.

It will help to reduce the burden of the academic and administrative departments. They

can easily divide their works according to the courses. It will help them to concentrate in
their work. They also can easy to maintain record. The exams also can be conducted in a

same time. They also can work effectively and efficiently to the growth of the

universities and it will increase the profits.

Then, if the courses divided to main campus and new campus they can increase

the number of students. Every university has certain limitation of students. Governments

also put rules to every intake of the students. The universities can’t take beyond the

limitation. When the courses divided to main campus and new campus, there have a lot

places for new students. The main campus must transfer the entire postgraduate student to

new campus and replace their places by take new undergraduates’ students and vice

versa. Moreover, the lectures work also will be easy and their burden will increase. They

no need conduct a lot classes in one day for both undergraduate and postgraduate

students. The organization must divide lectures for postgraduates and undergraduates

students and assign them according to campus. It will create a good and comfortable

working environment for them. It will help them to more concentrate on particular course

students. The lecturers also will get chance to spend more time with students apart from

lecturing.

3) Use of project Office

Project office is a central office to manage projects across an organization, or part of an

organization, is becoming a more common occurrence. Their role is to make projects

more efficient. Project Office help to gain agreement at the start of the process, as to the

responsibilities. A useful and speedy technique is to workshop the possible activities

with the key players, and gain consensus as to what the office is intended to do. The

starting point is to create a list of possible activities, then hold a workshop to evaluate the
responsibility of the office, for each activity. It is likely in some cases there will be no

activity, and in other cases, the activities will need to be split down further. It is also

useful if the office is not to have responsibility, to identify who does have the

responsibility

In this case the project office helps to

 Setting and monitoring the project schedule and budget

 Enabling project leaders to successfully deliver their promised value to their

customers.

 Emphasizes awareness through appropriate training opportunities and effective

communication and provides support to systems administrators throughout the

University.

 Enable a project management culture so that projects are delivered on time, within

budget, and with expected results.

 Address a set of business needs; and the development of excellence in project

management, as in any evolving discipline, may be a progression through

organizational styles that add layers of capability as a result of time and

experience.

 Acts as a trainer, a consultant, or mentor and a source of information on project

processes. This project office often helps in project setup and post-project review.

 Collects and disseminates best practices

  Performs project close-out (i.e., collecting such metrics as project cost, size,

quality, and end-user satisfaction)

Five Governing Roles of the Project Office

Above figure suggests a broader set of roles, based on organization feedback that

includes resource evaluation, project planning, management, review, and analysis using a

standard, shared methodology. These five roles are linked in that the documentation and

management of projects leads to better evaluation techniques and a firmer basis for

assessing the capability of the organization to execute against expectations. Five key

roles has identified for project office, although implementations vary based on business

structure, the degree of dysfunction, and the sense of urgency across business divisions

that a need exists for a shared solution.

• Standard methodology. It is a key to implementation and a consistent set of tools and

processes for projects. It provides a basis for measuring performance and can act as a

communication and training vehicle for developing project skills.

• Resource evaluation. The initial assessment of resources (i.e., people, money and time)

is critical on several fronts. Based on experience and evidence from previous projects, the

project office acts to validate business assumptions about project and life cycle costs. It

also serves senior management by feeding back information that may alter project

priorities, based on resource availability or cross-functional project conflicts.

• Project planning. The project plan is a cooperative effort coordinated by the project

office, which as a best practice and serves as a competency center and as a library for

previous project plans.

• Project management. Consistent practices, frequent review, and a governing

responsibility are the baseline roles for management within the project office. In most

initial implementations, project managers are not staffed directly from the project office.

However, in some organizations, the project office is also the source for project

managers, who are deployed as consultants in effect for the life of the project.

• Project review and analysis. Enterprises need to know if project goals are achieved on

time, on budget, and as designed. The review and analysis phase is a loop back to the

resource evaluation role.

4) Success measures

The key success measure for this demonstration project is the extent to which

increase information literacy among community organizations and collaboration in

project planning such as Gantt chart, AoA, AoN, etc. Success will be measured through

improved program delivery, development and implementation; and through increased in

number of students. The key for success measure also depend on an accurate marketing

research. A good marketing research will produce successful project. Understanding

among both town council and university need for booming the project. Lack of

understanding among both parties will affect the progress of the project. Negotiation

between employees also an important criterion for measure the success in this case.

Project manager have to ask his subordinate before took finale decision about a project.

They must try to get his employees agreement to run the project smoothly. In future, the

success measures also based on number of degrees awarded to students, the graduation

and retention rates, and information on targeted degree programs in areas of statewide

demand.

Key measures for a successful project

Most projects are typified by success measures based on time, budget and scope,

with the focus on the system going live. But these often fail to address the basic issues

that measure the true success of a project: the benefits delivered, strategic gains realized,

and the performance improvement achieved. Organizations and their shareholders are

demanding a return on investment (ROI). This is true of all forms of discretionary

spending, whether on a major IT project, an acquisition or a product launch. But, all too
often, things can go wrong in the process. There are many reasons why an organization

should be interested in measuring business benefits: the need to increase revenue, reduce

costs, maximize ROI, and obtain a competitive advantage or to demonstrate effective

business management to key stakeholders. Whatever the reason, it is essential that the

project outcomes are defined in business terms. This means a change in emphasis, from

project outputs to business outcomes. Attention needs to shift away from just the project

deliverables, where switching on the system constitutes the end, to a greater insistence on

a clear statement of business benefits when the project is scoped. A disciplined approach

is needed that focuses on the delivery of such benefits during and beyond the project.

Without a set of relevant value-focused measures, an organization will find it almost

impossible to correlate progress in attaining the results tied to its business strategies. It is

important to identify the business benefits at the start of the project, ensuring that

baseline measures are identified, agreed and formally articulated. Another key element

of the benefits process that is often overlooked is ensuring that accountability is also

agreed, understood and appropriate. The people who have been set the targets must have

the necessary power to influence and control. The measures that an organization focuses

on should include results and processes, costs, progress against timescales, plus internal

and external issues supporting the business environment. It has been said that a project

typically involves 20 per cent technology and 80 per cent people and process, so realizing

benefits and ensuring project success is primarily a change management issue. A

company implementing new technology without adequate attention to change

management may end up with an increasingly complex, ‘old’ organization. People will

feel that things are being done to them, not with them, and there will be confusion and
misunderstanding about project scope and impact. Other signs of poor change

management include evidence of a project being ‘submarine’ by resistant individuals or

groups, people reverting to old ways of working, and the project being viewed simply as

an add-on rather than a real change to the business processes and ways of working.

But a number of practical steps can improve the success of a project. These include:

* Effectively communicating what the outcome will be in terms of technology, people

and process

* Being honest about the impact on people

* Ensuring that all three aspects are adequately addressed in meetings and planning

* Ensuring effective integration of work streams and providing training for project teams

* Maintaining open, effective two-way communication with a clear, comprehensive and

honest stakeholder plan

* Sponsors leading from the front.

A project manager needs a wide range of skills to understand the business drivers and

dynamics deal with the people and change management issues and handle the technical

project management responsibilities. A key question is whether there is a robust business

case identifying critical success factors and with appropriate time frames for measuring

progress. And a sound change management plan is vital. A successful project that adds

more value to the business is then much more likely.