PROJECT 1: Suburban Homes Construction (SHC) Project. SHC Project Update. Suburban Homes, a medium-sized, fast-growing construction company, has an ambitious plan to expand its business to several southern states in the United States because of its significant growth and good reputation for building quality single-family homes and townhomes. As a project manager, Drew Smith worked for several years in the construction industry and supplemented his experience with project management education. From his initial realization that managing projects successfully requires implementation of various project management processes, tools, and techniques, Drew recognized the importance of building project teams composed of well-trained staff. From his experience managing a few projects in the Midwest and based on the lessons learned from these projects, it was evident to Drew that Suburban Homes did not place a strong emphasis on people-related factors and team development. Drew recognized the scope for improvement in managing and developing high- performance teams and decided to act on this knowledge immediately. Drew's primary task was to improve the performance of project management and increase the project success rate, so he wanted to address project team selection and the team development processes. Further, he realized that employee turnover and the expansion of the business in southern states led Suburban Homes to recruit more employees. Many of these new recruits have prior experience in the construction industry. ln addition, the workforce now represents different work cultures, attitudes, commitment, and work ethics. Suburban Homes realizes the importance of maintaining excellent relations with all its key stakeholders. Among the stakeholders are clients who purchase homes, local law enforcement agencies, potential buyers, county and state agencies for real estate development, environmental regulatory agencies, both local and federal, community leaders, contractors, subcontractors, local construction material suppliers, and the list goes on. PROJECT 2: Heritage Arboretum Development (HAD) Project. HAD Project Update. Our team is a sub-committee of our township's Tree Committee. We started with anyone who volunteered during a Tree Committee meeting and discovered some individuals were more willing to work hard and promptly. We also discovered that trying to get a large team to even meet during the pandemic when we were not allowed to meet in doors and the weather was cold and rainy was

difficult. So, as we regrouped and formalized our team, it became a small team. Ease of meeting and making decisions are advantages of this small team as is team member knowledge of our product. Each team member can speak knowledgably about many aspects of our project. We sought generalized specialists. Each member had experience with plants and an expertise such as being an arborist, landscape designer, self-taught native plant expert, or planner. Members also graduated from Tree Commission Academy, which is a two-year program taught by the state urban forester. This program includes not only general knowledge of plants and their care but also workings of local governments, budgets, planning, and related knowledge to help run a tree program. Team members were involved in planning all along. This started with walking the site and assessing current plants. It continued with providing input and review of the arboretum application. Once our arboretum status was granted, team members and other stakeholders engaged in rounds of input and discussion as we created our master plan that will provide general guidance for several years. As we looked at shorter time periods, team members met and recommended species to plant. The team utilized several Agile principles. Simplicity was employed in keeping the design as clean and easy to maintain as possible while still adding to the number of species. The team changed in response to feedback, although this was a work in progress as some feedback was negative about team members' favorite design elements. We continued to consider our vision of native plants, beauty, and education as we selected plants so that we could add as much value as possible, and we strived to plant quickly in the more visible places to create quick value. We found that despite our early efforts for feedback, some feedback did not come quickly and was disruptive when it did come. Therefore, we had our product owner work intensively with key stakeholders to secure early and detailed feedback that was actionable. Team member responsibilities include attending both our sub-committee meetings and those of our parent committee; collectively and actively participating in making decisions; performing between meeting tasks individually and in partnership with other team members and with other volunteers; and actively sharing ownership of the project. Stakeholder Analysis and Communication Planning While Creating an Arboretum During a Pandemic. We identified stakeholders by first reviewing our vision statement and then asking who might be interested in or have some influence over the arboretum. Our vision states that we want to showcase native plants, educate citizens, and increase value. With that in mind, we identified citizens, teachers, greenspace inspector, events coordinator, and maintenance supervisor as stakeholders. To understand their perspectives and offer value, we started by providing design ideas that became more refined with feedback. To build relationships, we continue to share the vision and seek to understand their concerns. We prioritize work that adds the most value from their perspectives and include interested stakeholders in our planning. We work closely with our product owner, maintain transparency, and educate stakeholders on their roles. As with any project, we need to tailor our approach to the organization, the project, and the participants. Meetings have been a challenge. We have had just one large meeting with multiple stakeholders in

attendance, outside at the arboretum with all participants wearing masks and viewing copies of a high- resolution map of the arboretum. More often the best we could do is to have some small meetings of two or three team members and then follow that up with electronic communication and phone calls with members who could not attend. Backlog refining meetings are first between the product owner and scrum master, and then the scrum master works with the rest of the team, meeting together when possible and in smaller groups or individually when needed. Some of those meetings (which could also be considered sprint planning as backlog refinement) have led directly into the choice of what to do in each sprint. Both backlog refinement and sprint planning are conducted on-site when possible. Our demonstration meetings are every two months at the end of sprints as we report progress to the Tree Committee who we report to. We are still challenged to have daily scrums (even weekly as all team members have other work and this is an outside service project). We also need to perform retrospectives as we meet a bit more often.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR PROJECT 1: Suburban Homes Construction (SHC) Project.

For questions 1 and question 2, assume that you are working on the John Thomas single home project described in case assignment 2.

Question 1. For this question, assume that you are working on the John Thomas single home project described in case assignment 2. Using the Conflict Management Matrix provided below, describe the guidelines you would establish for all team members on the single home building project to identify and manage conflicts on that project.

ID	Event	Action	Plan	Member Responsible	Resolve Date
CF1
CF2
CF3
CF4

Question 2. For this question, assume that you are working on the John Thomas single home project described in case assignment 2. Based on the SHC project background that you have received over the case assignments 1-3, complete the following communications matrix based on your understanding of the project so far. The Communication Matrix provided below identifies the regular reports and communications expected of the project, such as weekly status reports, regular reviews, and as-needed communication.

Type of Communication	Communication Schedule	Typical Communication Mechanism	Who Initiates	Recipient
Status Report	every Friday	team meeting	Project Manager	Project Team

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS PROJECT 2: Heritage Arboretum Development (HAD) Project.

Question 1: How can leaders use the following types of leadership effectively on this project?

#	Type of Leadership	Explain Why?
1	Transformational
2	Servant
3	Developmental

Question 2. Describe at least 4 types of decisions that will need to be made and suggest which ones should be made by the Product Owner, individual Team Member, Team collectively, or Scrum Master and explain why that person or group should make the decision.

#	Decision Type	PO, Individual, Team, Scrum Master	Explain Why?
1
2
3
4

Question 3. Based on the scenario to date for the HAD Project, who are stakeholders (list several groups) and what are the main concerns for each?

#	Stakeholder (Groups)	Describe Main Concerns?
1
2
3
4
5
6