Meghan has been a project manager for more than 10 years for Effective Market Research. The president of the company, Allison, is very pleased with Meghan’s careful attention to detail on every project. The portfolio of projects for Effective Market Research has more than tripled since Meghan was hired as the project manager.

Meghan’s project team is composed of eight members, each with a specialty for market research. In addition to doing excellent market research, the team’s customer comments on the project evaluations usually have included a statement specifically related to how well informed they were during the course of the project. Meghan is very careful about the communication plan for each project. She gathers information from the client and makes sure the client is satisfied with the project at each project update meeting.

Christine, a director for the Upper Region Workforce Development Group, was at a meeting and saw a copy of one of the reports for market research completed by Meghan’s team. Funding was available for Christine to contract with a group to do market research in her region. Several proposals that Christine wanted to write to get funding for workforce development required the same type of information that was in the market research report.

Christine contacted the sales department for Effective Market Research to inquire about purchasing a market research report for her region. The sales department confirmed a face-to-face meeting time for Allison and Meghan to meet with Christine to discuss the project requirements.

At the meeting, Christine described her information needs. Meghan listened carefully and crafted a list of project deliverables. At the conclusion of the meeting, Allison and Meghan developed a project proposal and sent the document to Christine for her review and authorization. The Effective Market Research finance team worked with the Upper Region Workforce Development Group finance group to secure a fixed-price contract for the work.

Meghan and her team attended the first meeting with Christine and Christine’s new project manager, Sarah. At the meeting, Christine stated, “My duties at Upper Region have increased, and I am putting Sarah in charge of the market research project. Sarah is the contact person for you and should receive all the communications. I just don’t have time to deal with this project now.” Meghan updated the communication plan to have all communications with Sarah for the remaining scheduled project time.

Three weeks before the final report was due, Meghan sent a copy of the draft report to Sarah to review. Three days later, Meghan received a note that said, “Meghan, the report looks great! Christine and I talked about having a few more of the pictures from the region that you took included in the report and having a short two-page summary document that we could share with the region commissioners and local supervisors. I think that is all that they will review.”

Meghan updated the project schedule and set a meeting with Sam, the graphic specialist on the team, for the next day. “Sam, I received feedback from Upper Region to include more of the images into the report. What do you think is best?” The two-page summary was already being completed as one of the project deliverables. It was not part of the three-week prior review documents.

“In the file, there are seven graphics that we haven’t used in the report. We can include them as a collage on the cover and put each one on the page that shows the data for the type of work being performed in the image. The report is being distributed electronically according to the project communication plan, so the additional graphics will not raise the production costs,” suggested Sam. Meghan and Sam agreed on the technique.

Meghan sent Sarah the two-page summary and the new report for the final approval. Sarah confirmed that all was good to go. The final report was sent to Sarah for distribution within the Upper Region Workforce Development Group more than a week before the due date. The finance team for Effective Market Research sent the final invoice for the last 25 percent of the project costs. Meghan sent the project evaluation form to Sarah and met with her project team members.

Two days later, Meghan received the following e-mail, “Meghan, I did not approve this report, and it cannot be distributed. I see all kinds of problems in the report that must be corrected before the report is OK.” The e-mail was from Christine.

Meghan was very careful to follow the directions of Christine and had approval from Sarah for the final report. Meghan sent a note, “Christine, Please let me know the problems that are in the report so that we can make corrections.” Meghan was a bit concerned that Christine had responded in such a manner when the communication from Sarah had suggested that Christine had approved the report. Sarah was supposed to be Meghan’s contact.

Case Questions

1. Did Meghan’s team satisfy the customer? Why or why not?

2. How should Meghan respond to the comments from Christine after Sarah had given feedback and approval for the final report?

3. The project team had gone through the steps of closing this project. They have one week of slack in the schedule before they would be causing another project to be delayed. What should Meghan do with her team?

4. What should Meghan have done differently in the project?