An extremely important aspect of being a valuable project manager within an organization is the ability to offer advice to decision makers about whether or not to pursue a project in the first place. As such, the first step in project management is determining if a project is viable and worth spending the time, energy, money, etc that will be needed to accomplish the goals of the project.

In this scenario, lets say you are a project manager in an advertising company. Executives within this advertising company are looking for the next big wave of advertising. Corporate decision makers are looking to establish the company as experts (from an advertising perspective) in self-driving cars. They hypothesize that if they develop an expertise in self-driving cars today this will position them to secure advertising accounts with major self-driving auto companies in the near future (2-5 years). Financial analysts forecast that this could be a billion-dollar market for the advertising industry. Your advertising company has $2M in the bank today and has determined that the training, research, hiring experts, etc necessary to become the foremost advertising expert in self-driving cars will cost about $1M.

The board of directors of your advertising company have asked you to conduct a research study to determine whether or not to invest half the corporate cash-on-hand to conduct the project of becoming the foremost advertising expert in the self-driving car industry. Your conclusions will definitely influence whether or not the investment is made and could significantly impact the future of the company (positive or negative) in the future.

Is the self-driving car market viable? How long do you think that it will be before self-driving cars will be sold (and thus, need advertising)? What obstacles could delay the introduction of self-driving cars? A key element to the success of self-driving cars is to get drivers comfortable enough to trust them and consequently buy them. Do you think consumers will buy self driving cars in the near term? Long term? Aside from todays major auto manufacturers (like Chevy, Ford, Toyota, etc) many high tech companies are investing in the development of self-driving cars. Is this a good thing (more potential advertising customers) or does it present a threat?

Your research and recommendations as whether or not to make this bet the farm investment is due to the board of directors on Monday 12/5/16 at 6:30 PM. All executives, employees, investors, and corporate partners are anxiously awaiting your recommendations as they could fundamentally change the company forever.

Below are some links to recent media coverage on self-driving cars:

http://www.popsci.com/humans-cant-drive-self-driving-cars-autopilot-tesla

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/intel-funds-selfdrivingcar-work--wsj-20161116-00061

http://www.businessinsider.com/fully-autonomous-ai-company-altmotive-expands-to-us-2016-11

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/11/15/federal-officials-are-mad-at-california-for-misuing-their-idea-on-self-driving-cars/

http://fortune.com/2016/11/16/autonomous-car-ethics/