Managing Change

Managing Change

Who are the stakeholders of this project? Who are the key stakeholders of the project?

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Each project has both internal and external shareholders. Those are people who are interested in the project. The entire list of stakeholders for the eBook project includes;

• The senior professor at the business school
• The students at the business school
• The project supervisor at Global Green Books
• The account manager for the college account at Global Green Books
• The customer representative at the business school
• The business manager at the business school

The key stakeholders are;

• The senior professor at the business school
• And the entire business school.

What impacts could these requested changes have on the budget?

The new changes requested by the senior professor at the business school could make major budget changes. For each new permission, an extra charge of USD 500 is applied. Other charges for each new permission include USD 44 as the publisher’s liaison effort cost, USD 28 as the supervisor’s cost for re-planning, and 20 per cent sales commission. Therefore, it would be important for the new permissions to be controlled so that the project’s budget is not hugely deviated. Each new permission is charged regardless of whether or not the earlier permission is still in use.

Could these requested changes also impact the schedule? If so, how?

The new changes could also impact the length of the project. This is because each new permission has to be re-planned. The project supervisor at Global Green Books does the re-planning, and it takes one hour to re-plan after new permission. A publisher’s liaison effort, which takes two hours, is also required for each new permission. Therefore, an additional three hours is required for each new permission. If three new permissions were made, and the publishing agency works eight hours a day, then the project completion date would be extended by a day.

What is Global Green Book’s process for dealing with changes from their customers?

According to the case study, Global Green Books uses the same process for each new permission regardless of the type of permission. For example, each permission is charged equally regardless of whether it replaces another one. Also, each new permission has to go through the cycle of re-planning and project liaison. All these steps include an additional cost and sales commission. So, the process steps are

1. receive a new permission,
2. have it handled by the publisher’s liaison,
3. get it re-planned by the project supervisor,
4. the new permission is implemented, and
5. the senior professor evaluates the eBook progress.

Do you see any possible issues with this process?

The possible issues with the process of implementing a new permission in the eBook project include not having an agreed number of new permissions that can be accepted and not communicating the cost that comes with a new permission. During project planning, a budget and expected project duration are determined. This should be communicated to all stakeholders to ensure that the project is a success (Al-Hajj & Zraunig, 2018). There seems to be inadequate communication in the eBook project because new permissions are continuously being made, and the budget is getting out of hand. This is noted when the business manager at the college and project supervisor at Global Green Books become concerned with the number of new permissions being made.

How would you recommend that Global Green Books handle these changes? Who should be involved?

Global Green Books should handle the change issues by planning a meeting with the project supervisor at Global Green Books, the senior professor, the college’s business manager, and the business school’s customer representative. Through this, the project’s budget and completion time will be discussed. Also, the impact of new permissions will be discussed. These would enable the stakeholders to understand and review their project requirements accordingly. Moving forward, each stakeholder will be aware of what is expected and the costs. Good planning of the project would result in a well-coordinated project, less cost, and project success (Naeem et al., 2018). A delay in having this discussion would lead to the failure of the project and unsatisfied customers. For example, the senior professor would not be content with the eBook’s final version, the college’s business manager would complain about the project’s budget, and Global Green Books would lose business.

What should Global Green Books do about the conflicting inputs from their customer – the bookstore manager who wants inexpensive eBooks and the professor who wants the best and most up-to-date collection of readings possible for her courses?

The conflicting input from the customer should be handled by having a meeting to discuss the way forward for the project. For example, the project budget could be revised. That is, it could be expanded to meet the senior professor’s changes, or the changes could be limited to meet the project’s budget. One suggestion would include the senior professor having the new permissions project on hold for a few days so that she can review all the changes before proceeding and ensure that there would be minimal new permissions while keeping up with the quality she desired. Global Green Books can also allow a small discount for new permissions or review the process each new permission has to go through. Whatever the outcome, the client and the service provider should agree and commit to a successful project, as that would be in their best interest (Al-Hajj & Zraunig, 2018).

References

Al-Hajj, A., & Zraunig, M. M. (2018). The Impact of Project Management Implementation on the Successful Completion of Projects in Construction. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 9(1), 21-27. Retrieved from http://www.ijimt.org/vol9/781-MP1005.pdf

Naeem, S., Khanzada, B., Mubashir, T., & Sohail, H. (2018). Impact of Project Planning on Project Success with Mediating Role of Risk Management and Moderating Role of Organizational Culture. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 9(1), 88-98. Retrieved from https://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_9_No_1_January_2018/10.pdf

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Mini-Case Study: Managing Change at Global Green Books Publishing

In this assignment, you will explore the business situation that the Global Green Books Publishing is facing and how it was resolved using effective project management.

The requirements for the assignments are:

• Read the Mini Case Study attached to the assignment.
• Answer the following questions based on the reading:
  1. Who are the stakeholders of this project? Who are the key stakeholders of the project?
  2. What impacts could these requested changes have on the budget?
  3. Could these requested changes also impact the schedule? If so, how?
  4. What is Global Green Book’s process for dealing with changes from their customers?
  5. Do you see any possible issues with this process?
  6. How would you recommend that Global Green Books handle these changes? Who should be involved?
  7. What should Global Green Books do about the conflicting inputs from their customer – the bookstore manager who wants inexpensive eBooks and the professor who wants the best and most up-to-date collection of readings possible for her courses?
• The paper must be APA-formatted as a Word document.
• SafAssign will be used to check this assignment for plagiarism. Remember to paraphrase in your own words and do not copy directly.
• The length must be a minimum of two pages, excluding the title and reference pages.
• Include at least one reference.

Mini-Case Study: Managing Change at Global Green Books Publishing

Global Green Books Publishing is producing customized eBooks for a local college. It has just received a large order for a new eBook on Strategic Human Resource Management in a Global Context from a senior professor in the business school. This distinguished faculty member is dissatisfied with the current textbooks, and wants a customized eBook for use with her on- campus courses, graduate seminars, and her executive education courses. This is the most complex eBook that Global Green Books has undertaken. Because this project is so important to the professor, and will be used in so many different settings with different schedules, the professor made sure that she had her complete eBook request in early to allow sufficient time for production. She had selected a broad set of the best papers and had written an introduction and background, along with discussion questions for each section. This meant that this project was going to have an extensive set of permissions to acquire before production could happen, as well as a large amount of desktop publishing for the new materials written by the professor.

She was quite certain that she had given Global Green Books more than enough time to have her eBook ready before the first class needed it.

This large eBook went through the check and verify order step with a bit of back and forth with the professor to verify the information needed for the extensive number of permissions, so that started the project off with a bit of a delay. Because there were so many permissions, the Supervisor who planned this project, accelerated the work on obtaining permissions to make sure that all the permissions were received before they needed to start assembling and collating the eBook in production.

As the Publishers Liaison worked through the extensive list of permissions, the Customer Service Representative for the business school at the college started receiving several inputs from the college about this project. One set of inputs was a continuing series of requests from the professor. As new papers were released, she wanted to make a number of additions to the eBook. Also, as time went on and she had more time to review her eBook plans, she started identifying some changes that she wanted to make to her planned eBook.

Another input came from the business manager at the college bookstore, as he was quite concerned about the projected cost of this eBook. Because this eBook included so many reprints of existing articles and chapters, the estimated cost of the book was quite high. The college expected their eBooks to be delivered at a low cost, as its bookstore costs had to cover the bookstore overhead (servers for sales and distribution of the eBooks and marketing costs) and the bookstore’s markup, as well as the costs of the eBook from Global Green Books. The Global Green Books costs had to incorporate all the permissions costs, as well as all of the desktop publishing and production costs.

The Customer Service Representative communicated these issues to several people within Global Green Books: the account manager for the college account, the supervisor managing production for this eBook, the Publishers Liaison obtaining permissions for this book. The account manager was concerned about upsetting this important customer, the supervisor didn’t know how these various requests could all be accommodated or how it would impact his project, and the Publishers Liaison was worried both about added costs for new permissions and the time it would take to get them and the costs they had already expended for permissions no longer needed.

And the professor’s requests just kept coming, at an increasing rate as it got closer to her deadline for needing this eBook.

The supervisor was starting to make some estimates of what each change requested by the professor would cost

• An extra $500 for each new permission needed, in addition to the $500 already spent for each permission already acquired that can no longer be used
• Two hours of Publishers Liaison effort for each new permission needed at an unburdened cost of $22 per hour (loaded cost is $55 with a 1.5 overhead rate)
• One hour of supervisor time for replanning each change at an unburdened cost of $28 per hour (loaded cost is $70 with a 1.5 overhead rate)
• Sales commission of 20%

This continuing series of requests for changes from the professor is quickly adding to the upwardly spiraling cost of this project. The supervisor feels that something must be done about this scope creep – continually changing scope.