project management

 

MegaTech, Inc. is designed to highlight some of the reasons why an organization that had operated in a relatively stable and predictable environment would seek to move to an emphasis on project-based work. The trigger event, in this case is the advent of the NAFTA treaty, which opened up competition on a more price-competitive basis.

Questions

1.  What is it about project management that offers MegaTech a competitive advantage in its industry?
2. What elements of the marketplace in which MegaTech operates led the firm to believe that project management would improve its operations?

Activity I: You are a member of the senior management staff at XYZ Corporation.  You have historically been using a functional structure set up with five departments: finance, human resources, marketing, production, and engineering. 

1. Create a drawing of your simplified functional structure, identifying the five departments.
2. Assume you have decided to move to a project structure.  What might be some of the environmental pressures that would contribute to your belief that it is necessary to alter the structure?
3. With the project structure, you have four projects currently ongoing: stereo equipment, instrumentation and testing equipment, optical scanners, and defense communications.
4. Draw the new structure that creates these four projects as part of the organizational chart.