DocViewer Page of 4 Zoom Pages Case Study: Technology Projects -- Resource Allocation & Management

The ability to allocate resources to achieve a goal is the hallmark of project management. This case study is designed to help you practice the allocation of resources in project management and identify the effects of resource allocation on achieving specific goals. Read through and complete this case study, and examine the final outcome to understand the potential problems and pitfalls that can occur in projects. Through these typ es of exercises and personal experience you will build an experience base of skills that will help you better manage your own research laboratory.

Statement of Work:

Background. You are an Assistant Professor at Enormous State University (ESU) and perfor m research on Computer Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems applications. Recently you have found a very interesting algorithmic design that when used in certain biomedical applications can conduct finite decision making in record breaking s peed. You have been wondering if this approach could be useful for certain surgical applications where every second matters and cannot be done quickly enough by human intervention alone. You have also learnt that in this highly developing field, there is a lot of completion and rapid development of prototypes by many computer scientists.

You have an opportunity to apply and receive a $1M grant. A major organization has just released an RFA for advancing Automated Surgery protocols. Proposals are due in 1 3 weeks. This grant could fully fund your lab efforts for the next five years. Your goal is to prepare yourself for a successful RFA proposal.

Case study: You need to define the scope of the work you would like to achieve to reach your goal. Yet you are c onstrained by the available research funds and can only choose two of the following for your scope of work.

Scope of work

1) Propose an algorithm, and surgical piece of equipment and the performing of a specific surgical procedure.

2) Create variations of the algorithm to compare and contrast execution performance of the software. One will be selected.

3) Develop and test the selected algorithm for the specific surgical application.

4) Identify other potential applications of the algorithm to extend its usefulness.

5) Define future possibilities with other algorithms which can be developed for more expanded applications.

Choices: Scope of Work _________________________________________________________ _____________ _ Allocation of resources: Assignment of Personnel:

You have sufficient personnel in your laboratory to attempt the scope of work. Allocate your personnel according to the following rules:

Choose only two scope projects.

You must do the ongoing lab work.

Each person can only do on e scope project/ongoing lab work.

You need at least one person per scope project.

You can have up to two people per project.

You must have people covering the ongoing lab work (one for each column).

Different personnel have different research strengths an d can or cannot function in different projects. Their abilities are listed in the following table. You can consider a degree of redundancy in the work assignments that you may want in case of personnel loss or turnover.

Things Happen!

In the course of all events it is certain that things will go wrong. While you are working on your projects the following things have happened in the computer laboratory. These will affect your work, and the ability to complete your goal.

Tritawa quits the computer lab to join a private company. If you want to continue Scope 1 you need to place another person on the project (if you do not already have another person covering the project).

Clairs Computing Company, the group funding your computer science research, decides to perform a review of your program. To keep funding you need to show significant progress. You need your best people doing the ongoing computer lab work. Modify your available resources to best accomplish you goals. You may al so change your scope projects, just realize it is a bit late in the game to be changing scope projects.

More Things Happen!

Ongoing events affect your final productivity.

Janice is sick and cannot complete her assigned tasks her productivity goes from Best to Adequate, or from Adequate to Poor depending on the task she has been assigned.

DO NOT make any additional changes to the table. Copy your previous results onto the new table and calculate your point score.

Final Productivity

Examine the table above. Using the columns, copy the check boxes of the scope projects and personnel you used from the previous table. Record the points you received for each project at the bottom. If you chose a project and at least one of the personnel y ou placed on the project had a Best score it as 3 points. If the personnel had Adequate score it as 2 points. Add up your points and place the sum in the TOTAL POINTS Box. If the personnel had Poor score it as 1 point. If you switched any projects between table one and table 2 (i.e. after the misfortune) subtract 2 points from your total.

The goal of this case study is not to win, but to see how ongoing events can affect your laboratory, and how project management can help you control your resou rces for your benefit.

Summarize this case study considering these things as you analyze your projects.

1. After the initial things went wrong, how did you reallocate your resources?

2. How much risk were you willing to take? If you lost a scope project, did you refocus on protectin g the current lab funding? Were you willing to risk your current lab funding to get more funding?

3. What would you do differently next time?

4. What are the lessons learned? Annotations

NamePerson Scope Scope 2Scope 3 Scope Scope 5 Ongoing Ongoing Lab Work1 Work 2 Poor Lab Tritawa Resident Best Poor AdequateBest Poor Poor Computer- scientist Best Poor Adequate PoorBe Adequate Best Ming- Graduate Poor Bao Cathy Post-docPoor AdequatePoorPoor student Best Poor Adequate Adequate Best JanicePost-doc Best Best Adequate Best Adequate Pradip Post-doc Adequate Best Adequate Poor Best Best Adequate NamePerson Scope Scope 2Scope 3 Scope Scope 5 Ongoing Ongoing Lab Work1 Work 2 Poor Lab Tritawa Resident Best Poor AdequateBest Poor Poor Computer- scientist Best Poor Adequate PoorBe Adequate Best Ming- Graduate Poor Bao Cathy Post-docPoor AdequatePoorPoor student Best Poor Adequate Adequate Best JanicePost-doc Best Best Adequate Best Adequate Pradip Post-doc Adequate Best Adequate Poor Best Best Adequate