Introduction:
The case study has pointed out different challenges that is faced by a project manager. The book written by Laufer discusses about different core principles of leadership that is related to this case study. It can be used to successfully manage a project at different environment to achieve the desired objectives. There are many government employees who are not interested on new culture but prefer to close the project. The case study symbolizes it more clearly. As time passes Judy shows them importance of new culture and make them work on it to have profit and an air of trust which can make bigger change which we can’t imagine. There are some perspectives should be followed on project management. This paper will focus on the case study as well as the reading in order to answer the questions.
Question 1:
Project managers are accountable for the completion and delivery of projects. They create an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration in which a defined goal can be achieved in a controlled and structured manner by a group of people. As a project manager, it is essential to maintain a project in a daily basis in order to put continuous focus on the changes in the project. It helps to make effective decision, execute it properly to achieve the success. (Grooves, 2006). Project managers are ultimately responsible for making projects happen. Carrying out this task requires a broad set of skills. In addition to exercising their knowledge of project management best practices, project managers also perform a variety of roles during a project’s life cycle. They serve as business liaisons, budget managers, communicators, customer relations managers, the project team’s cheerleaders, facilitators, negotiators, risk managers, change agents, motivators, presenters, planners, task trackers, problem solvers and implementers (Grooves, 2006).
The project required to have open communication with everybody. Open communication urge individuals to be candid with their suppositions and points of view. Further, you dispense with trepidation and modesty by urging everybody to talk their brains. It is vital that everybody in your gathering knows they can converse with you about any enormous impediments they are confronting, their suppositions or inquiries. Being congenial is an extremely essential approach to apply authority aptitudes (Glover, 1992). Concentrate on one straightforward idea or objective. While your organization, family or gathering may have more than only one objective, concentrating on one specific reason will place everybody in the same mentality. Naming a solitary objective likely will answer a considerable measure of inquiries concerning particular situations (Ford, 2005).
All team members, all of them, met for a short day off-site at a place. They did every month. They rented a ballroom, and the whole purpose of that meeting, every month, is constancy of purpose. It is to get everybody aligned or brainwashed, as some said. My message for them always is: ‘Let’s do what’s right, let’s make sure that we deliver on time, make sure that the design is right, and make sure that we meet every requirement. Our customer will help us in every way possible, and then by definition we’ll succeed and we’ll meet our financial targets’. During their open discussions, members of my team brought up examples of how the government wasn’t living up to their end of the deal. Project Manager always select the people who could make swift decisions if that’s what was required. And that’s what they always do, proving themselves time and time again (Laufer, 2012.p.13).
Question 2:
Judy Stokley’s level of success of developing a culture of trust was very successful. She understood the process of changing organization culture is a very difficult leadership challenge to accomplish. The organizations culture has a set of objectives, desired goals to achieves, roles of the people involved, communication method, values and many more elements. Changing of culture requires the change to be performed on all stages (Amat & Ha, 2013).
When Judy Strokley came as program director of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida. The Program was covered with problem as the government issued an order that the workforce has to drop dawn. The Workers was working from the last 20 years when the program started. Judy wants to tell them as the some of them will be drawing down. She called all the 200 worker on the base for a meeting she tells them to have a new job ready for them because government is going to drop some of them. The Reaction of them was not so good. They start Teasing Judy for this decision from the government. As she knows that the staff will be from 80 to 12.
The government was paying so much money on this project but the contractors were getting zero per-cent profit because government thinks that they are not working well they just want to make profit. If the contractors will not get the profit they will close the work. Judy make a plan to take over a new culture of trust between the contractors and the government to have a new air of hand shake program it was risk but she knew that she can do this. Judy understood that many people in the government, especially in the Department of Defence, have a problem with this idea that a contractor should make a profit. They think that they need to go to the negotiating table having gotten the contractor down so low on his cost that if he has one problem, he’s going to be in the red.
She always shocks them when she remarks, “I want him to make a profit, and I want to help him make it. To me, the worst thing in the world is to do business with a contractor in the red. That way, he can’t get out ahead of the problems and can’t invest in my products”. ( Laufer, 2012). Judy takes it upon herself to change the project culture. This was difficult to make relationship of trust, mutual support and team work between the contractors and government. Judy struggled to sell it both to government and industry. She says “Coming together in a partnership meant more than just saying Starting Monday, we’re a team. I told my counterparts on the contractor side. I’m going to help you pay for everything, I’m going to help you make a decent profit, and you are going to make sure that we have a good product out there”. I laid all this out at the meeting I held with the contractors. I’m sure that this will make a big change Cultural trust will get a big profit” ( Laufer 2012).
Example 1:
Stokley began to give out note cards at the monthly meetings so the staff could anonymously write down complaints and recommendations. This was important to her to allow people to have voices because communication is the key to a successful organization. Although the staff understood they were about to be go through a downsize she gave them the opportunity to justify their jobs and to communicate to her where the organization was going wrong prior to her arrival (Laufer, 2012).
Example 2:
She knew that money had to be giving to the contractors in order for them to do their job efficiently. Stokley began to show the organization that they had to trust the customer and they would trust you (Laufer, 2012).Jerry Worsham, Chief of Logistics for the U.S. Air Force, describes the waste involved in the process prior to implementing the new TSPR approach, the way it worked was that damaged missiles still under warranty were sent to the contractor’s facility in Tucson, while those with an expired warranty went to government depots for repair. When Judy came to us and said, here’s my budget our collective response was Yikes. We realized immediately that we couldn’t keep repairing missiles the way we always had the money wasn’t there. (Laufer, 2012).
Example 3:
Stokley began to notice that Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile was not honouring their contracts with companies. This was causing a strain on the organization because she understood that if you did not honour contracts you would eventually lose business. They were spending too much unnecessary money. The contractors were being burned by her organization prior to her arriving there. The Department of Defence had a problem with contractors making a profit or earn their contracted wages. Stokley knew that somehow the organization and the contractors had to work on the same page. She began to change the culture of contractors and the organization.
Question 3:
Behavioural modification strategies within an organizational context are concerned with implementing behaviours within large business to accomplish a main objective. The whole point of behaviour modification techniques is to change undesirable or harmful behaviours and replace them with healthier, more desirable ones (Morrison, 2008). Chuck Anderson, the head of the AMRAAM program at Hughes, had past experience with Judy. He Remember that one thing that Judy did to win his trust was to eliminate the bureaucracy on their side. Large staff on the customer’s side is disruptive to work. We had to be staffed in such a way as to take care of our customers, and so we had a lot of hand-holders. I used to have one person in my organization for every person that the government was going to assign to a project, plus the people to do the work. The bigger their bureaucracy, the more feeding it took. Suddenly, we didn’t have to put as much into care and feeding, and that freed us up to pay more attention to building missiles. That went a long way in proving that the commitment was for real. When it became obvious to Chuck that Judy was trying to seize the merger between Raytheon and Hughes as a catalyst for real reform, he knew that the outcome would be worth the risk. The biggest reform of all was getting government out of the way to allow the contractor to do the job of designing and building better missiles. We called it Total System Performance Responsibility. This was the power point that Judy always Do her best to make an air of Trust. (Derue & Ashford, 2010).
Example 1:
She knows that it turned out they were wrong, and that’s because AMRAAM became an altogether different program under Judy Stokley. Government reps would get big points for sniffing out problems in our organization before TSPR. Now reporting problems was no longer considered as good behaviour because it violated trust. Judy was getting success in her plan.
Example 2:
Another behaviour modification approach in the workplace is through supervision and leadership. Close monitoring, or policing of employee actions and behaviours to ensure the employee sticks to a particular behaviour range also works in certain situations, especially when the workforce consists of many employees with low levels of skills and education, such as in mass production lines. Autocratic leadership that dictates terms, giving employees little freedom to display their innate behaviour facilitates such an approach (Ford, 2005).
Example 3:
After giving the Judy low budget missile plane, the AMRAAM program received the DOD Life Cycle Cost Reduction Award. The average unit procurement cost for the program decreased from more than $750,000 to under $400,000, saving the Air Force and Navy $150 million over the course of four years ( Laufer, 2012)
Question 4:
Points Include Examples:
Judy took it upon herself to change the project culture. However, it would prove to be an arduous and complicated task to create a relationship of trust, teamwork, and mutual support between the government and the contractors. Not long after she announced the drawdown plan in the program office, she hosted a meeting with several of the key members of Hughes and Raytheon, the two contractors building the missile. She said that, I want to talk with them about our partnership what was wrong with it, and what we were going to do to improve it. To make my point, I brought a copy of the spec tree that governed the program at the time. The document was hundreds of pages thick and it illustrated all that was wrong with AMRAAM. Stokley wanted to change that mindset and get the contractors to develop and get the contractors to develop what she referred to as a “heart and soul” relationship with the products. Stokley was striving to create a win-win situation for both sides by taking an unwieldy spec tree and writing a good, simple set of performance specifications that the contractor could control, while paying a fair price for the product on the government side (Laufer, 2012).
Judy announced that she will keep 100 people on the program. I remember the look in my teams’ eyes. They knew that many of the people who had worked on the program for years lose their jobs and that the rest of them would have to figure out how to get the job done with one-quarter of the former workforce. They also knew that a handshake was our only assurance that our customer was going to live up to the agreement. Look, we have to trust the customer on this, I said to them. We have to trust that they understand what kind of risk we’re taking in signing up for this.
When it became obvious that Judy was trying to seize the merger between Hughes and Raytheon as a catalyst for real change, she knew that the outcome would be worth the risk. The biggest reform of all was getting government out of the way to allow the contractor to do the job of designing and building better missiles. Authoritatively, this implied the contractor would acknowledge duty to do what was essential and adequate to create, convey, warrant, and bolster rockets that would be moderate, and promptly accessible. In layman's terms, it implied that the administration would believe the contractor to choose when the item effectively met execution prerequisites. This was an interesting methodology in government contracting History. Truth be told, it was precisely the opposite Government representatives do and Contractors were accustomed to doing. Stockley began to have monthly meetings to let her staff complain and give recommendations to ideas.
Judy’s team came up with original steps aimed at enhancing the understanding and acceptance of the new culture. Following the meeting where Chuck and Judy made their handshake agreement, a mirrorexercise was conducted, with a facilitator asking each side government and contractor to make one list of their most important issues and another list of what they thought were the other side’s most important issues. When the two sides shared their information, it became immediately apparent that there was very little trust between them (Laufer, 2012)
Question 5:
Judy Stokley’s goal to be promoted pass a program director will be a huge process. She must first set a goal of what she would like to achieve. Judy should make an exercise related to leadership and management which can be a group of expertise. They will make any decision related to any plan; she should take the entire workers in front of that expertise and discuss the matter. And make it clear that it’s by the government that she doesn’t have authority to do anything she is just a worker as them working for the government. If the Government is declaring the Contractor wrong that they only need profit they are not working well. She should make an Application that “The profit of the Contractor is Mediatory they are investing just to have profit. Every person has problems and anyone will invest just for profit. Government should send their Employee’s to see what’s happening in the project. Defence will never interfere in matters of the Government because these products give profit to government as well” (Kaplan, 2006).
Drop dawn of workers for some time is also a good decision just to show government that we are saving their money and spending it according to schedule. Then after when the matter is closed she can have the workers back. It’s Quality of leader that she/he lay dawn to wait for the right time and attack his/her Enemy. “Government Employees who are against the project show them profit and make them work in the project to have good relationships. If all the Techniques are not working then have Conference meetings between Contractors, Editor and Government. If the Government send his employees for the project, then show them daily the worth we are spending on the production of missiles. If the Defence or Government Officers are problem for the project, then make deal with them to give them profit a little for some while that both the AMRAAM culture get Promoted and get profit they need. Make Details of government audits which are based monthly or yearly. As the main goal of the government is to have profit from the product so the main goal of the product manager is to have good quality for the sale and profit as well. They can be monitored and tracked as a measure of progress, used as a way to drive accountability for development. “You’re new in a job, and want to get up to speed as fast as possible, You’re struggling in your job, and want to improve, you’d like to move to a new role, and want to prepare yourself for that new role, you are good at what you do, and have no immediate aspirations to move, but just want to get even better” (Kapla, 2006). She has to be realistic to her goals and work on them with a set date of accomplishment.
ORDERS:
Drop dawn some of the worker as order from the Government.
Find new Contractors to have back range to invest in the product.
Make a Team of Expertise to have decisions and will overview the project daily.
Co-operate Meeting with Government and Contractors after a week to have chain of Trust and Mutual support between them.
Conclusion
The case study focused on the leadership and management techniques. So, many of the people don’t like to read it, they feel like to get bored. But, many of the other who like the book was getting crazy about it. The book has so many stories discussed related to the Truth, mutual support and the leadership qualities. It contains an impact to know the facts to be figured out in ourselves. As the framework addresses the toughest challenges of new product development large traffics. (Morrisson, 2008).
A Successful Downsizing: Developing a culture of trust and responsibility is topic in which a detailed study about how to make a trust in between people. Judy Stokley is a project manager solves different problems by her leadership qualities which differs to make her unique from others in everything. She faces different people like government employees and project contractors, as they don’t have trust or mutual support in between them. Judy makes different orders and many of contracts between both to have an air of new culture. Culture of trust, mutual support and relationships. She faced defeat many times but never lay down. She has faith in team work that she can do anything with her team. At Last, she achieved her goal by imposing a new culture in a project named AMRAAM by Defence Air-Force.
References
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Scott Derue, D. & Ashford, S. (2010). Power to the People: Where Has Personal Agency Gone in Leadership Development?. Industrial And Organizational Psychology, 3(1), 24-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2009.01191.x
Bernard M. (1905), leadership and Performance beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press.
Kaplan. (2006), the deeper work of executive development outgrowing sensitive. Academy of Management Learning& Education, 5(4), 463-483.
Laufer, A. (2012). Mastering the Leadership role in Project Management. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions.
Morrison, C. (2008). How to Use Behavior Modification Techniques. Retrieved from EHow: http://www.ehow.com/how_2330949_use-behavior-modification-techniques.html. Retrieved on September 5, 2016.
