Assignment 1

Read the following scenario and answer the corresponding questions upon your completion. Your response should be at least two pages in length in standard essay form following APA style guidelines.

CTO Scenario:

You are working on a project to install 200 new computers for your department. Your sponsor is the CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Although the CTO is your key stakeholder, you know that many other individuals will affect the success or failure of your project. This is the first time you have worked with this CTO, and you have heard that he often changes his mind about the requirements and due date. In fact, you heard that a PM who failed to meet the project deadline was fired by the CTO.

On your way to the weekly status meeting with the CTO, you run into a colleague who tells you that the best way to handle the CTO is to avoid confronting him. If the CTO tells you to do 10 push-ups, you do 10 push-ups. If he asks for coffee, do not forget the cream and sugar. In other words, the "Yes-Man" approach works best.

You may not like what you hear from the CTO, but at least you will keep your job. In fact, your colleague tells you that the CTO often promotes people who agree with him. Of course, you know what happens to those who fail to follow his recommendations.

Provide your response to the following questions:

- Who are your stakeholders?

- How do you plan to communicate with your stakeholders?

- You schedule a meeting with managers from the impacted departments, and only seven of the 13 you invited show up to discuss the project. What does this tell you about the potential success of the project?-Because of your failure to coordinate with a vendor, the equipment will arrive 42 days late. How will you notify the sponsor of your serious error?

- Your CTO informs you that the deliverable date is now two months earlier. You know what happened to the last PM. How do you handle that new requirement?

Assignment 2

Read the following scenario and answer the corresponding questions upon your completion. Your response should be at least one page in length in standard essay form following APA style guidelines.

Deerborn Electronics Scenario:

You work for Deerborn Electronics, a multinational firm providing parts for mobile devices. As the project manager for the tablet division, you have been kept extremely busy. In fact, you are putting in 60 hours per week, and it is taking a toll on you and your family. You have thought about quitting, but the $140K annual salary is far too good.

You have been here at Deerborn only 14 months, and you have determined an anti-project culture. You recently confided in a team member the following: "No one is accountable around here." In fact, you think most people here are flat lazy.

As the project manager, how do you change the culture? How do you ensure that your project is completed? What type of leadership style might work in this organizational setting? How will you measure success? Why?