1 The Virtual Collaboration Room Project Case Scenario It has been almost one year since Jeanne launched the Virtual Collaboration Room Project. The formal launch of the Corporate Office Boardroom was to be completed by September 2021. It is now December 2021 and Jeanne contemplated on why her project is experiencing significant delays. If she doesnt fix all the gaps, issues, and delays immediately, this project could go on and on. The project sponsor had agreed to extend the project completion date to March 30, 2022. The 2022 project budget was approved for an additional $75,000 to complete the project. Project Details The scope of the project is to convert the companys boardroom at the Corporate Office in Trail, BC into a state-of-the-art virtual collaboration room where staff and board members can meet online with managers who worked at the office effectively and conveniently. It was imperative that the quality of the audio and visual in the boardroom be as clear and reliable as possible. This project was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 90% of the staff at the Trail, BC Corporate Office had transitioned to working from home. The remaining 10% continued to work at Corporate Office. The majority of the those who chose to work at the office are executive and senior management. Most of these individuals were not technologically savvy, therefore, the use of the audio and visual equipment in the boardroom needed to be easy to use. Below is Jeannes original Project Charter Summary and WBS at the deliverable and activity levels: 2 PROJECT CHARTER SUMMARY Project Title: Virtual Collaboration Room Project Project Start Date: January 7, 2021 Project Finish Date: September 9, 2021 Budget Information: Total Project Budget - $245,000. The majority of the costs will be allocated to technical (video, audio, software) equipment and consulting fees. Project Manager: Jeanne Kim Project Requirements: 1. Provide state-of-the-art virtual collaboration technology. The system of choice will be Cisco Webex. 2. Increase productivity (time) for managers by 60% in the first 6 months of launch. 3. Reduce employee travel costs by 50% in the first 6 months of launch. 4. The virtual collaboration solution must be easy to use. Any manager can walk in and launch a virtual meeting and adjust audio and video by using a touchpad located in the meeting room. Training will consist of Quick Reference Guides (QRGs) rather than formal demonstrations. 5. The virtual collaboration solution must resolve the audio issue of echo and reverberation that the room creates by 90 %. 3 Project Scope Statement: The Virtual Collaboration Room project will custom design and implement a virtual collaboration solution specifically for the Corporate Boardroom using Cisco Webex equipment and software. The project will provide easy instructions for end users to use the Virtual Collaboration video and audio room kit and provide approximately 30 x external computer cameras and approximately 50 x headsets for end users to join meetings remotely from home. The budget for this project is $245,000. The project will officially launch the room on September 9, 2021. PROJECT WBS LEVEL 1 AND 2 ONLY Virtual Collaboration Room Project Project Planning Gather business requirements Complete Project Charter Complete Project Budget Project Kick-off meeting Technical Solution Gather technical requirements Design technical solution Search for required vendors Pilot Complete instructions on how to launch/join a virtual meeting Test technical solution Test instructions with pilot testers Schedule live meetings for pilot Develop organizationwide communications Launch Develop organizationwide communications to announce launch Launch Virtual Collaboration Room Close Project Conduct lessons learned Close budget Hand-off room to operations 4 Project Issues The technical requirements to outfit a meeting room with large screens, cameras, and virtual collaboration software was very new to the project team. The project team made several configuration mistakes and had to re-do several hardware and software installations because it did not conform to the requirements and fitness for use. They did not understand the technical functionality of the software and had to depend on a consultant to help with the technical design and configuration in the room, which increased the budgeted expense to the project by 20%. The consultant was not clear on the business requirements provided by the project team and Jeanne had to reject their design proposal twice. Jeanne had to find another consultant who provided better quality recommendations that met the needs of the business. Another concern was the sound issue. The boardroom had a bank of windows across the entire length of the room, which created an echo and reverberation. Managers who joined meetings on audio conference calls complained that it was very hard to hear others speak. Jeanne had to find a sound engineer to provide a solution to reduce the echo to improve sound quality because no one on the project team had any expertise on sound quality. EXHIBIT A A SAMPLE PHOTO OF A BOARDROOM 5 Several changes to the project scope and quality requirements developed in the 11 months since the project started. Rather than launching a state-of-the-art virtual collaboration solution in the boardroom, the project sponsor recommended the project team should start with a smaller meeting room to test out the technical solution and work out all the bugs. All the smaller meeting rooms had glass walls, which meant there would be the same echo problem. The glass walls did not absorb sound so people outside of the room can hear what was being said in meetings. The project sponsor identified a new requirement. He wanted the room to create a positive experience for both the people in the room and for the people joining remotely. The quality of the experience had to be high. Jeanne agreed to all the changes. It seemed adding the additional quality requirements to the scope would provide a good end user experience with the new virtual collaboration technology. Her project team also agreed that these changes would be achievable and make the project a success. Jeanne agreed to all the scope and quality improvement changes with the same budget and completion date from the original project plan. But the project sponsor started gold plating and kept adding more and more small details to the solution. At almost every weekly project sponsor update meeting, the project sponsor would ask Jeanne to add additional functionalities and upgrade most of the equipment. Additionally, the project sponsor wanted to increase the sound quality in the meeting room and advised that the project team investigate and install a sound absorption solution. All of the project sponsors requests were taking up more and more of Jeanne and her project teams time. The project team had already too many tasks to handle additional work. The project schedule was starting to fall behind because these small additions from the project sponsor created a lot more work and took a lot of time to investigate. On top of that, adding extra details and functionality to the original solution was also eating up her budget. But the additions and changes would satisfy the needs of the managers. After all, the end users ultimately decide if the quality of the room is acceptable. 6 Project communication and team planning meetings were negatively affected due to the many changes on the project. It did not help that most of the project team worked from home. Prior to the pandemic, Jeanne would hold short, multiple, ad hoc face-to-face meetings with project team members as needed, which proved to be a successful method on complex projects that had a lot of change. Because Jeanne and her project team were so busy with planning and executing the additional scope, she decided to have one meeting a month and invite all team members and stakeholders. She believed many of the team members and stakeholders already attended too many online meetings. She didnt want to cause more online fatigue. A lot of the project team meetings went over the time allotted due to many questions from different attendees and stakeholders. Some of the information and questions did not pertain to some of the meeting participants. In addition, because everyone only met once a month, there were a lot of changes, issues, and information to convey. It caused untimely communications and confusion. Finally, due to the many changes in the project, the stakeholders changed. Some stakeholders were no longer applicable and there were several new stakeholders that needed to be part of the project communications and decision-making. There were some stakeholders that required more engagement than others, but Jeanne engaged all of them in the same way. Jeannes project is now behind schedule and over budget. She asked for a three-month extension and an additional $75,000 to complete the boardroom. Jeanne will have to take more effective control of this project and, most especially the project sponsor, if she is going to get this project done on time, on budget, and keep to the approved scope. Definitions Echo: An echo is a repetition or imitation of sound. When sound waves hit a hard surface they might reflect, making the sound bounce and repeat. Reverberation: Prolonged sound after the sound is made. 7 Virtual Collaboration: A method of collaboration between virtual team members who work together from different geographical locations where they interact and communicate through technology channels such as video and audio. The technology joins virtual team members as if they were meeting face-to-face.