Project Management Plan: Harrison-Keyes Inc

Project Management Plan: Harrison-Keyes Inc.

The implementing of change in any organization can be an overwhelming task for even the most seasoned professional. While the leadership of the changing organization is focused on improving efficiency, quality, profit and ensuring the future of the organization; the employees are often hesitant and frightened of what the new initiatives mean for them, the organization, and all other stakeholders involved. Continued progress improvement requires successful change management programs that take careful planning, preparation, performance management, and evaluation. Those professionals that “minimize the importance of control are passing up a great opportunity to be effective managers and, perhaps, allow the organization to gain a competitive edge.” (Gray & Larson, 2006, p. 408). The focal point of this paper is to identify a project risk management plan for Harrison- Keyes. Furthermore, we will explore the current issues and the opportunities that exist because of them by creating a plan to reduce project to reduce project duration and design a project closure approach. In order for HK to reach its goals the successful execution of executive leadership and alignment, clear and measurable goals, actionable business case and performance measures, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and lastly, a well designed execution and continuous improvement plan must be in place.

Describe the Situation

Issue and Opportunity Identification

The current situation at HK is that the long lived publishing company has stepped into the arena of e-publishing and not doing as well as anticipated in its 6 month life cycle. A new CEO has been hired to revitalize the company by improving their already launched e-Publishing initiative. This idea could possibly prove to be a great opportunity if the CEO and board members buy in through the implementation of performance management, checks and control strategies, compilation of more research to acquire the proper market segment, acquiring an alternate outsourcing agency to replace the long gone Asia Digital, and incorporating the enthusiasm and contributions of their employees. However, HK is faced with a few challenges in meeting these objectives.

Harrison–Keyes experienced the loss of their foreign vendor as a result of them being under the attack of a natural disaster leaving the vendor unable to operate and under 5 feet of water. Obviously, this is bad for Asia Digital (AD), but bad for Harrison–Keyes because a contingency plan was overlooked without provisions for a disaster plan. This event was unavoidable; however, Harrison–Keyes is now faced with the decision to seek an alternate vendor or do the formatting in house. Although disastrous, Harrison–Keyes can seek opportunity and venture the possibility of either conducting business with another outsourcing agency or formatting in house for now. If Harrison-Keyes opted not to outsource this may alleviate some of the uneasiness of the employee’s negative feelings of job security.

Because Harrison-Keyes has outsourced the formatting tasks, they are now confronted with low morale and buy in of their employees. Harrison-Keyes could use this opportunity to include the employees in the project and gain buy in. If the employees were more involved in the project they would take ownership in the project and possibly offer more by way of time, commitment and suggestions in the effort. This would save time in not having to research alternative outsourcing agencies and money by formatting in house. In addition, the offering of incentives is always a positive move to get people on board with a new idea or project.

It goes without saying that Harrison–Keyes leadership has been conducting below standard planning and preparation for this project from the start. They have been given 30 days to show progress and prove that this is worth venturing into or the project will be terminated. This goes along the same line as adding resources by getting the current employees more involved in the e-book project. If Harrison-Keyes were to cease the initiative of outsourcing all together and do their own formatting this may re-initiate the e-book agenda. This would involve scaling back a bit on the proposed output of books, periodicals, manuals and etc. that was planned to get published; however, it would be a start. It may be smarter for Harrison-Keyes to start on a smaller scale and build upon the growth of e-book publishing gradually.

William Guardo stated in the Harrison–Keyes scenario “you’ve been at this for six months and have already fixed the plan several times” (University of Phoenix, 2008, Harrison– Keyes Scenario 2). This leads me to believe that the project