You have been asked by your boss (Harpreet Singh, Manager of the IT PMO) to manage a new project.

You work in the IT Project Management Office at XYZ Corporation. It is a fast-growing, medium

sized company located in Ottawa. Your boss is Harpreet Singh. He is the manager of the IT PMO. He has

worked for the organization for over 20 years, is well known and respected throughout the organization.

He has many connections throughout the organization and relationships are very important to him. He

has spent many years getting to know people and is very interested in their backgrounds and often plays

sports with many company people outside of work. You really like your boss.

Harpreet reports to the Chief Information Officer, Cindy Beatty. Cindy is a driven, results-oriented

person who has little time for small talk. She is all business. Although she can be a challenge to work for

(she is very demanding), she is very smart and is well respected because of her knowledge and ability to

deliver results. Cindy has been with the organization for the past 3 years.

Harpreet has asked you to manage a new project. The project is very important to the organization.

It will also be the largest and most complex project your department will have led. This is a big

opportunity for you, and your department. You are very excited about this new project and are eager to

get started.

The project involves rolling out a new employee scheduling system for your organization. The

system will use biometric finger scanning. Employees will need to scan their fingers each time they enter

and leave work. This will be a big change for your organization as it was a very casual place to work,

previously. However, since COVID-19, the organization has needed to save money and will need to track

and monitor employees more closely going forward. The introduction of an automated employee

scheduling and tracking system will be met with a lot of resistance from many people.

You will need to complete business requirements; procure the new system; complete the design,

configuration and testing of the new system; roll it out to employees in the HR, Finance and IT

departments; and ensure the system is utilized. Change management will be a big challenge on this

project.

Being a good PM, you start by talking with Harpreet in order to get a sense of some of the

stakeholders in your project. You learn the system will involve the following two departments:

Finance

Human Resources

The finance department is run by Melanie Milosevic. She is the VP, Finance. She is the person

sponsoring this project. She has worked at the organization for almost 2 years. Being in finance, she likes

numbers, data, and is very detail oriented. She also gets annoyed by people who spend too much time

talking and often feels that people in the organization do not work hard enough. She often talks about

the many failed projects and initiatives in the organization and how the organization spends a lot of

money on failed projects. She is very interested in this project and has high expectations of the project

since a successful implementation of this system will save the organization a lot of money and will help

her department provide faster and more detailed reporting. The success of this project will make her

look good and help achieve some of her career goals.

The HR department is run by Kevin McKay. He has been with the organization for 10 years. He has a

history of championing many employee wellness initiatives. However, many of his projects fail and

people who deal with him often feel he is hard to understand (he tends to be vague and unclear when

he describes various ideas he has). He likes to talk about cutting edge systems and technology but is

often vague and is not very good at focusing on urgent details. He is extremely opposed to this project.

He feels the approach is wrong. Implementation of the new system will mean that some of his

employees will lose their jobs and he will need to layoff some members of his team.' He is close to his

team!

Your project will also need to coordinate with another project the IT PMO is managing. The other

project is an SAP Upgrade Project (SAP is the finance and HR system your project will need to integrate

with). This project is being managed by Brenda Olson. She is a Senior PM in the IT PMO. She is very

ambitious and hard working. Her projects are almost always completed on time, within budget and she

is known for delivering results that exceed expectations. Her project will likely need to slow down as a

result of your project, and she is not too happy about this. She is also difficult to work with. She feels

that she is superior to the other project managers and often talks about how poorly the other projects

are managed. She is very educated, having recently completed her MBA (she is always telling people

that she has an MBA!). She has plans to take over Harpreet's job in a year or two (as he is planning on

retiring soon) and is very ambitious. She is disappointed that she was not asked to manage this project

and has told many people so.

You are very excited, but also a little nervous about managing this project. It is a big opportunity for

you and your department. Being a good PM, one of your first tasks is to identify the various stakeholders

and get a better sense of who they are.

The finance department is run by Melanie Milosevic. She is the VP, Finance. She is the person

sponsoring this project. She has worked at the organization for almost 2 years. Being in finance, she likes

numbers, data, and is very detail oriented. She also gets annoyed by people who spend too much time

talking and often feels that people in the organization do not work hard enough. She often talks about

the many failed projects and initiatives in the organization and how the organization spends a lot of

money on failed projects. She is very interested in this project and has high expectations of the project

since a successful implementation of this system will save the organization a lot of money and will help

her department provide faster and more detailed reporting. The success of this project will make her

look good and help achieve some of her career goals.

The HR department is run by Kevin McKay. He has been with the organization for 10 years. He has a

history of championing many employee wellness initiatives. However, many of his projects fail and

people who deal with him often feel he is hard to understand (he tends to be vague and unclear when

he describes various ideas he has). He likes to talk about cutting edge systems and technology but is

often vague and is not very good at focusing on urgent details. He is extremely opposed to this project.

He feels the approach is wrong. Implementation of the new system will mean that some of his

employees will lose their jobs and he will need to layoff some members of his team.' He is close to his

team!

Your project will also need to coordinate with another project the IT PMO is managing. The other

project is an SAP Upgrade Project (SAP is the finance and HR system your project will need to integrate

with). This project is being managed by Brenda Olson. She is a Senior PM in the IT PMO. She is very

ambitious and hard working. Her projects are almost always completed on time, within budget and she

is known for delivering results that exceed expectations. Her project will likely need to slow down as a

result of your project, and she is not too happy about this. She is also difficult to work with. She feels

that she is superior to the other project managers and often talks about how poorly the other projects

are managed. She is very educated, having recently completed her MBA (she is always telling people

that she has an MBA!). She has plans to take over Harpreet's job in a year or two (as he is planning on

retiring soon) and is very ambitious. She is disappointed that she was not asked to manage this project

and has told many people so.

You are very excited, but also a little nervous about managing this project. It is a big opportunity for

you and your department. Being a good PM, one of your first tasks is to identify the various stakeholders

and get a better sense of who they are.