Case Scenario

Over the past four years, the LSS organization, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, has become renowned nationally for its Camp Noah project. Following floods, tornadoes or other weather emergencies, children lose their daily routine, their schools and oftentimes their homes. Parents are often stressed and unavailable during emergencies, and children have few resources to help them understand their situation. In Camp Noah, volunteers with skills in child psychology and counseling meet in a two day support group environment with children in flood ravaged areas. They encourage the children to share their stories and develop important resiliency skills and learn how to cope emotionally with the disaster.

Due to the need for such services, LSS has developed a training system that lets them partner with resource organizations located near flood or tornado areas. They have partnered with many local organizations around the U.S. to train, equip and empower volunteers to staff local camps attended by children during their summer vacation. LSS also provides pre-packaged Camp Noah supplies that range from workbooks, crayons and puppets to a quilt for each child.

Recently, powerful rainstorms in southeastern France triggered flash flooding that displaced more than 1000 families, and left 200,000 people without electricity for more than two weeks. City officials in France called the LSS Director of Camp Noah Services, Chris Walker, and asked if she could provide training and equip 20 volunteers in southeastern France to deliver the Camp Noah curriculum to up to 500 children. The French officials have asked that a decision to proceed be made within 2 weeks, and that the training and they want the equipment be delivered 6 weeks after the decision is made. Chris Walker wants to help but isn’t sure how to start. Currently, Camp Noah supplies are all written in English, and the counselor training documents are only written in English as well. The floods occurred in an area of France that has few English speakers.

You are a contract employee who has been engaged to help LSS because you speak French fluently and because you are an expert, experienced project manager with great interpersonal skills. Your job is to assist the director, Chris Walker, during project initiation. If the project is approved, you may be asked to lead the remainder of the project as well. You and Chris have been in meetings together all day discussing the opportunity for a French Camp Noah. You’ve been listening very carefully and asking dozens of questions about the potential effort. Now, you’re ready to get started and put your considerable project management skills and knowledge to work.

Questions to be answered are based on the above scenario:

1. As an experienced project manager, you are aware that analyzing the environment in which a project operates is critically important. Select two (2) OPA and two (2) EEF that you believe are important to understand for this project. Apply these to the case scenario and justify why the four items you selected are important.

2. Once the decision is made to proceed with the project, Chris Walker, the director, will need to select a project manager. You know that LSS is a strong-matrix org. What does this mean in terms of how the project will be conducted and the role of the project manager?

3. You and Chris Walker, the director, will work on trying to define what project success will look like as you define the project objectives. What should you keep in mind about the process of writing objectives? Why are good statements of project objectives important to project success?

4. Chris Walker has discussed the potential project with many, many people here and in France, but does not know how to organize all the information about these people, their influence and their expectations. She is worried that she hasn’t discovered all the interested people yet and may be missing key potential partners, opponents, and supporters. What do you recommend?    What are the benefits of the approach you suggest?

5. LSS does not have any preferred templates for project charters. What should a project charter document include? Select three of the elements of a project charter document that you believe are the three most important and defend your choice.

6. You are aware that the length of your engagement as a consultant depends on whether or not the project is approved. If the French Camp Noah is approved, you’ll most likely be engaged for at least 3 months; if it’s rejected, your contract will be terminated at the end of the second week. You and your spouse have been unemployed for almost six months. Your spouse is urging you to do whatever you can to stay employed and extend the contract, including putting together the most optimistic business case possible. What should you do? Why?