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total quality management

Questions and Answers of Total Quality Management

5. Describe each of the reviews that your proposal will have (Green Team, Red Team, Black Hat). What should be the outcome of each review, and how would you manage the introduction of that outcome to
4. Create a “risk register” for a sample program of your choice. In a real proposal, what steps or strategies would you use to identify and then evaluate these risks?
3. Your proposal team is being formed, but you have had a limited say in who is assigned. What considerations would you use in dividing up the work?
2. Suppose your potential customer has not identified selection criteria.What aspects of your proposal are likely to be most important to him or her? Is there some appropriate way that you can
Program Management in Defense and High Tech Environments
1. Describe some effective ways of gathering information to influence a bid–no bid decision. Give some examples of legal approaches to getting information related to the proposal and your
8. Hold a simulated “post-award” conference with this premise: The customer is concerned that the bidder is looking to find loopholes in the specifications, and the bidder is concerned that the
7. Assume you have submitted your proposal and have made the final cut—it is your company against two others. You have been asked to develop a BAFO. What thinking should go into this process?
6. You are about to present your proposal to senior management for sign-off. Your company has an expected template for this review, but your job is to communicate why the proposal is worthy to be
5. As the price is being developed, some functions seem to be too aggressive, and others appear to be too conservative. How would you challenge them and/or evaluate your own thinking relative to
4. Discuss the formation of the proposal’s vision and theme. (Remember, you may own the task to create the vision, but you want the team to own the vision!)
3. As the proposal manager, your marketing department has developed a PTW. Great! Now all you have to do is get your price to that level, right? Really, is it that simple?
2. Suppose it is your job to establish a win strategy. How would you start? How collaborative could/should it be?
1. Your potential customer has announced a bidders’ conference for a current, complex RFQ. As you prepare for the meeting, what should you consider as your goals and cautions?
2. You have identified a new potential customer who does not know your company’s capabilities. What actions can you take to win him or her over?
1. You have found an opportunity for long-term growth on a budding program that is aligned with your company’s capability but goes beyond current technology. Describe the considerations that should
3. Your long-term customer is about to issue an RFQ on a new program that would be attractive to your company. How much information can you seek on that opportunity from your customer-friend? Should
2. You have a personal friend at a competitor, and you discover that you are both bidding on the same opportunity for a Department of Defense customer. Can you exchange ideas and information in the
1. Assume you are the PM on a long-term production program. Your customer has mentioned an interest in increased functionality. Your management might like to keep things as they are on this lucrative
2. Have you seen how an effective PM can take an underfunded program and still make it successful? If you have, tell us about it—if you have not, tell us what a PM might do if he/she finds him or
1. Suppose your company traditionally concentrates on ground-based radar. Discuss the considerations of broadening the company’s horizons into an adjacent area (of sorts), for example, airborne
2. Suppose you are offered an opportunity to manage a program that you think has been underquoted. What are some of the factors you might consider regarding whether or not you can accept this
1. What are some reasons that your company might want to bid on a contract on which there is little chance of winning: for example, a production contract where the incumbent seems to be in favor with
3. Related to “For Discussion” question 3, tell us a story about a program that “had turned bad” and how the leadership of the program helped or hurt its recovery.
2. As a PM, you have a great idea for the program and tell the team. It does not engender the enthusiasm you expected. Why do you think this might have happened?
1. Relate an anecdote of a customer interface that you have participated in or witnessed. What were the dynamics of that interchange? Extra credit for discussing both a positive and a negative
3. Have you seen programs “go bad”? What is the effect on the people leading and working on the program when that happens? What kind of leadership actions or behaviors turn around a bad
2. How involved would you want your customer to be? Would your answer be affected by what type of program you are managing?
1. Procedures and policies can both help and hinder the PM in performing his or her duties. Talk about some examples of this dichotomy.
2. What kind of program would you like to manage (e.g., design, production, research)? Why does this type appeal to you?
1. Think of two leaders from your personal experience, one “effective”and one “ineffective.” Contrast their traits in terms of those discussed in this chapter and evaluate which traits
3. You have been assigned to manage a “cost-plus” contract. Do you think the fact that it is “cost plus” will affect how the functional managers would like to staff your program?
2. How important is experience in being an effective PM? How important is technical knowledge of the program?
1. What aspects of program management do you find:a. Challenging?b. Exciting?c. Boring?d. Distasteful?
2. For the program of “For Discussion” question 1, what do you think the esprit de corps is for the folks on the program? Knowing that dispirited workers are way less productive than confident
1. On that program described in “For Discussion” question 1, you know the lead mechanical engineer from working with her on a previous program. You do not think she is a very good leader. Maybe
2. You inherit a program that seems to be going well, but you are not sure that the money remaining equals the work remaining. Explain how you would use earned value management and discussions with
1. You have just been assigned to take over a program that is in trouble.So much trouble, in fact, that the prior PM has been reassigned to counting paper clips in the supply room. Discuss some of
3. Can you delegate a coaching opportunity to another member of your team (for example, to the lead software engineer)? What considerations should you have if you think you might want to do so?
2. What role does your authority play in your coaching? What role does your influence play in your coaching?
1. Many situations are aided by the application of a little humor. What could go wrong in using humor in a coaching situation?
2. Describe a “trick,” intentional or not, that your customer may use if negotiating eight distinct tasks that he or she has estimated as well.What can you do about it?
e. Your administrative assistant thinks it is not his job to retype the unformatted system engineer’s report.
d. Your contracts administrator feels you are being too generous in your interpretation of the specifications in your customer’s favor.
Program Management in Defense and High Tech Environments
c. The electrical engineering functional manager wants to “borrow”one of your program’s engineers.234
1. Discuss how important existing and future relationships are with respect to the following situations:a. You are buying a car.b. Your customer and you disagree on scope on a long-term contract.
5. Needing your signature on a subcontract agreement is a clear indication of your power. Describe some situations where use of that power is positive and other situations where it has more negative
4. Discuss if “being nice” to folks who provide services to your program(such as IT) is a sign of your weakness or strength. Would you be better off, in some cases, by being “demanding?”
3. In “carving up the pie” (allocating budgets after negotiations to the functional departments), what environment will make the FMs likely to take on challenges? How do you create that
2. Depending on your customer, it may or may not be a good idea to negotiate “tit-for-tat” but rather to help each other out wherever you can. Explain.
1. In a contract negotiation, how can you capitalize on the hard work that you and your team have done in estimating the work?
3. What are the best and worst kinds of contracts for the application of EV methods? And why
2. How important is a good schedule, with realistic estimates of task content, to EVM? Did I hear you say “Very”—but now tell us why!
1. Write a brief description, in your own words, of how EVM works.
2. Some people (the naïve ones) may think that EVM techniques control costs. But you are smarter, so describe some actual controls that you may use based on EVM analysis.Written Assignments
1. Discuss the risks of using EVM as your primary method of measuring progress. How can these risks be mitigated?
2. Discuss what is good and what is bad in this definition of leadership:Leadership: Getting people to do what you want them to do.
1. Despite the fact that you ascribe to the theory of always treating your colleagues with respect, one day you really “lose it” and shout at a member of your team. What should you do? What if
6. If you cannot motivate people by reason, it is OK to motivate them by fear—or is it? Consider the application of this thinking in terms of success, apparent success, failure, or apparent
5. Someone forgot to order a critical part for a breadboard. It costs$100. You think someone should use his or her personal credit card to buy the part quickly—but they might not get reimbursed.
4. Name some famous leaders in history. Were they participative, ruthless, or charismatic? Is “fame” always consistent with success?Discuss whether some “famous” leaders were actually
3. Are good leaders “humble”? How this is possible if one needs his or her leadership to be “confident”?
2. Discuss participative leadership in various circumstances. When might it work and not work?
1. Do you think the people on your program are out to make the program successful or out to make themselves successful? Or a combination of both? Or maybe there are some other motivations?
6. Can a progress report help you avoid claims? You say yes, and you are right; but, remember it is not part of your contract, so, how can it help?
5. You subcontract part of your program to a small firm. Things go badly for the company, and you hear a rumor that they are preparing to issue a claim against you. What do you do?
4. You have been working on a program for a year when you find that one of the requirements is physically impossible to achieve. Is this a potential claim situation? What if you signed an agreement
3. Your customer disapproves one of your drawings because she does not like the way you implemented the requirement. What discussion do you need to have with her? Do you think you might need to
2. If you feel that a scope issue may arise, what are some of the immediate steps you should take in case the issue gets bigger rather than smaller?
1. Discuss some strategies on how to reduce the probability of needing a claim on a program.
4. One of your lead engineers has a very good rapport with a customer’s technical lead. You are worried that his desire to please his “friend”might cost your program in schedule and money. What
3. One of the most challenging issues in customer relationships is where to “draw the line” for gray-scope areas. What thinking should go into your line-drawing thinking?
2. A scope issue arises on your program, but you want to keep making progress. Your customer says, “Go ahead, we’ll work it out later.”How dangerous is this situation, and what should you do?
1. Claims are a great way to increase the dollar content of your program—true?
14. A functional manager tells you that one of the engineers on your program seems to be putting in fewer hours than he is reporting on his time entry. What is your first step? And then what?
13. The team has just achieved an important goal. It is not clear exactly which members contributed and to what degree. What do you do to get the proper recognition for the right folks?
12. Discuss ways to help the team transition between phases—for example, from design to qualification testing—what principles would you employ as the skills needed for the next phase change?
11. In a program review, a functional manager asks you a question that appears to be designed to expose your lack of knowledge on a technical aspect of your program. What might you do in that
10. You are (fortunately) in the habit of reviewing charging on your program on a weekly basis. You see a new name and do not recognize the budget center. What do you do?
9. Do you use EVM to control costs? “Of course,” you say—“Of course not,” I say. Why? (Hint: “Control.”)
8. Your customer interprets a specification requirement differently from how you and your team interpret it. She had something entirely different in mind when she wrote it. If your interpretation is
7. Demonstrations of equipment operation can be both good and bad for progress. Describe a few examples of both the good and bad effects of developing demos for customers.
6. What are some of the positive and negative aspects of formal program reviews?
5. You do not have a requirement for a monthly progress report on your program. Why would you want to write one?
4. In one page, not using text from this chapter, describe the major concepts of earned value management (EVM). In another page, describe some of the benefits and pitfalls of EVM.
3. Here is a challenge: One of your engineers finds a better approach to an amplifier design and wants to make a change. But the budget for that task is essentially gone. What can or should you do?
2. Is optimism an important leadership trait? Why?
171
1. Do you have some good and bad leadership experiences? (This is a rhetorical question—we all have these experiences!) Tell us a good leadership story—we tend to remember these less!Running the
15. Your program is coming to an end. What thoughts might be in the minds of the people who are bringing it to conclusion?Written Assignments
14. Is it your job to “protect” the team from negative comments from customers or senior managers? What if the comment is about a particular engineer’s capability or dedication? What are the
13. Can you give an example of when you were offered consideration by one of your leaders and how it made you feel about them (and them as representatives of the company or program)? For example,
12. Do you have some examples of “scope creep” that has come from the folks on the project? What about examples of customer-inspired scope creep—any examples of that?
11. Describe some good and bad approaches to performance coaching.(Have you ever been “coached” and was the technique effective?)
10. Discuss detecting problems by quantitative and qualitative ways.Consider some stories from people who have seen successful and unsuccessful use of each approach, which may be very valuable here.
9. Your program is beginning to slip schedule. What considerations should you have as you decide when and what to tell your senior management?How do you involve the team in this “disclosure”
8. Can you use fear of the customer as a factor to encourage progress?
7. Describe the “art” of getting stuck engineers unstuck. What do you have to watch out for as you counsel them?
6. Discuss some of the issues regarding delayed or incorrect information that your customer is required to give you. Perhaps the class has some stories about this all-too-common issue.

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