Project Mis-management in the Cynapse Corporation

Project Risk BACKGROUND

Cynapse Inc. is a biotechnology company that develops drugs based on proteins and peptides. Many of their teams work "virtually," yet projects are often not completed on time or within budget. The growing company currently has one product approved by the U.S. government agency FDA (which must approve all new pharmaceuticals manufactured or distributed in the US) and two additional drugs undergoing clinical trials. There are about 700 employees at the company. Due to the many scheduling risks, about half of the scientific and research staff are located near headquarters in San Diego, working as a computational and pharmaceutical research scientists. Since research is considered valuable IP (intellectual property), the Cynapse The corporation also has an extensive IT/information management department centralized in its headquarters. Headed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO), the IM department employs about 80 people and is charged with supporting all communication, databases, cyber-security, software upgrades, and computer systems used in company operations. In addition to the IM professionals, Cynapse employs several highly skilled "computational scientists" who conduct research using mathematical models on a computer. These scientists are not members of the IM department but use the IT systems extensively. They report to the Director of Computational Biology, who, in turn, reports to the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). Most of these computational scientists, and the Director herself, hold advanced degrees and are proficient in computer programming. Like IM professionals, many computational scientists have been with Synaptic for years. Many maintain close personal friendships with their colleagues. However, tensions are rising due to the many risks that management has at last identified, which stem from the unclear project scope, growing schedule risks, impacts on overall project budgets, and lack of trained PMs (project managers) able to communicate effectively with upper management and IM specialists.

SITUATION AND INTERACTIONS Because of the nature of their research, computational scientists frequently interact with IM personnel and there is some overlap in responsibilities. Traditionally, computational research projects are initiated in the Computational Biology group. Due to innovative research, many of these projects are quickly abandoned. However, no one seems to have a centralized "project database" relating to % of the project phases completed and impacts upon project budgets. But those projects that do go on eventually require support from IT and even the Information Management procedures. There is no overall "Policy Manual" at Cynapse relating to IP risks or cybersecurity enforcement. The IM (information Page 1 of 5 management) teams may be asked to perform custom development, allocation of space on servers and databases, program execution, and monitoring with periodic reports to the scientists and upper management. However, they are frustrated with a lack of budgets or time to complete data updates and uploads. Cybersecurity systems are slowly being installed. However, the cultures of the Computational Biology and IM groups are quite different. Scientists value innovation, originality, and speed. Many of them prefer to work in solitude, and this practice, despite all politically correct references to the importance of teamwork, is not frowned upon in the company. On the other hand, computer and IT professionals in the IM Department are concerned with stability, business continuity, documentation, and long-term planning, as well as understanding budget forecasts and working with upper management on such modeling and simulations. Also, IM strongly prefers to make decisions in meetings regarding IT "best practices" to mitigate significant risks and risk triggers. The cultural difference between the two departments may be traced back to the typical, diverse career tracks of biologists/pharmaceutical scientists and IT professionals. Tensions are rising. IM managers complain that scientific software development is ad-hoc and follows no standards. To quote one of the IM directors, "They throw something together, then come to us and demand that we support it. Yet there is no documentation for it. And worse, even in many cases, they do not consult us beforehand, only to discover later that it [the new project] is not compatible with the company's IT architecture. How would you like to be asked to switch to a new line of servers, on an extremely tight deadline, without planning or budget to buy any? How would you like to have your job depend on it? And then they turn on a dime and ask you to drop everything and do something else." On the other hand, computational biologists are equally unhappy with the IM's slow development pace and demands for documentation and governance that scientists perceive as bureaucratic and wasteful. "You can't get them to do anything. I need an upgrade to Oracle THIS WEEK to run my sequence database. The rest of the world has had it for years! Yet the IM tells me they are on version 9, the company standard, and won't upgrade. We call ourselves high-technology businesses, yet we are five years behind the technology curve. All they talk about is cybersecurity. We are ready to hire outside consultants to get something done faster in line with our research and competitors coming to market with new products each month."

PREVIOUS "SOLUTION" AND Risks IM management attempted to reconcile this conflict in the past by creating a formal business process to "transition projects from research into production." This effort was ultimately abandoned since scientists refused to follow the standard procedure, preferring informal communication. This triggered many IP (intellectual Page 2 of 5property) risks with data already developed on pharmaceuticals not yet ready for manufacture. Of course, schedules were also severely impacted, and virtual teams often did not respond until several days after projects ended abruptly. As a result of these frustrations, some of the computational scientists lost faith in the IM and started to create their information technology systems. In the most prominent example, one scientist, Steve Levitt, Ph.D.., hosted his programs on a high-end PC in his office. He has his own Oracle database on that PC (he downloads the latest version of Oracle whenever it is available but then submits an invoice). Everything he has ever worked on is on that computer. The information stored on his PC includes, among other items, software and data for one of the critical computational biology business processes. His work is known to very few of his colleagues in the company, but not in sufficient detail to reliably operate his "modified" software. When Steve goes on vacation, he leaves his cell number behind to call in case of "issues." Realizing how vital Dr. Levitt's work is for the company, the corporate e IM manager repeatedly asked Steve to document his computational process and to submit it for the "transition into production" process. Steve frequently took no action on these requests, and attempts to avoid risks his manager pointed out at last backfired. Other scientists have followed the same IT practices in their daily work "since Steve does it." The owners of Fast, Inc., a small consulting company that Cynapse retained to keep up with completing several "abandoned" projects were available for an interview. "We are former Ph.D. research scientists, so we know very well what scientists need. We operate lightning fast, and on most projects, we turn around so quickly that they don't even know what hit them. Sorry, we don't have documentation ready: the Cynapse management never asked for that, and we will have to charge them next quarter. Our bill may be very high, but we can't forecast costs until the work is done." The consulting company Fast Inc's three owners acknowledged that speed of development comes at a risk of "cutting corners" regarding documentation. "But we maintain our computational infrastructure in our office, keep the data and software that pertain to our work with Cynapse right here, and we know it all intimately. And eventually, these ad-hoc projects develop into products, and when they do, they could be sold! We are excited about these horizons. Moreover, because of our favorable agreement with Cynapse, we retain all rights to the software. It's amazing to be in biotechnology since several other clients and government agencies are interested." Over the years, the relationship between the many diverse scientists and Fast Inc. became quite close. Fast's owners attend some research meetings on the latest intellectual property being developed for the FDA's rigid approval standards. They have persuaded Cynapse's management to buy stock shares in Fast. The consultants Page 3 of 5 mentioned their plan to sell off Fast, Inc. eventually and to move on to other business interests.

BLACK SWAN CRISIS triggers RISKS The first harbinger of possible future problems hit on Christmas Eve of 2018. A large number of errors were found in Cynapse's central database and upon a two-month-long the investigation, the errors were traced to Steve Levitt's calculations. It appeared that some parameters in Steve's process were changed as part of an experiment in the early days of Cynapse, but then both he and his supervisor forgot about it and failed to switch them back. The process operated with a wrong parameter set for nearly a year, invalidating much of the data accumulated for the past 13 months! Cynapse's IM Director was asked to correct the problem, but without an understanding of The task proved extremely difficult for Steve's research and direct access to his software. Ultimately, the CSO demanded that the Research IM Director be relieved of his duties: heads began to "roll," and this caused great concern throughout the IT divisions and Information Management project managers. While the Chief Scientific Officer assumed his responsibilities on the stressful day that the IM Manager quit, teams are unclear about what will happen to enforce Information Management policies and procedures in the interim. Steve and his supervisor were not reprimanded and are now risking schedules set months prior. The Chief Scientific Officer was available for a brief interview. When asked about his assessment of the database problem, he started by stating, "Ultimately, we all are to blame for these risks. If only we could have more carefully forecasted these risks to our budget!" To address the snowballing problems, the IM senior management decided to create an additional position. The new job would serve as a middleman "liaison" between the IM and the scientific group. It would require a degree in the biological sciences (to earn respect from the Computational Biology workers), multiple years of IT experience, and even security clearance.

After their efforts to locate an individual with suitable qualifications failed, the Cynapse the upper management team has contacted Peter, a consultant in independent practice, to develop a Risk Management Plan and make recommendations on standards to follow.

PETER, THE CONSULTANT: Project Management Risk Identification & Recommendations.

QUESTIONS

Peter has just visited Cynapse offices where he has met and interviewed the individuals described above. He has been offered a contract this month as a consultant to Cynapse. He has been told that his ultimate job is to identify risks and make recommendations to management.

Peter is asked : 1) What is a Risk Register and identify significant project management risks. 2) What could be managerial recommendations for both teams at Cynapse

From the practical standpoint, it is not likely that Peter would have the authority to hire and fire top managers, or to perform mergers and acquisitions, so proposals involving any of these are not expected to be accepted by the client organization. No organization charts are required. He must first address the risks facing the Information Management/IM process. He also should address the growing IP risks!