Mini-Case Study: Project Management at Global Green BooksPublishing
Global Green Books Publishing was started two years ago by twofriends, Jim King and Brad Mount, who met in college while studyingin Philadelphia, USA. In the new business, Jim focused on editing,sales, and marketing while Brad Mount did the electronic assemblyand publishing of books for Global Green Books. Their business wassuccessful and profitable in the first two years, largely due tocontracts from two big businesses.
In their third year, they got very busy thanks to their third majorcustomer, a local college that needed customized eBooks. They hiredseveral part-time employees to help them with their publishingbusiness.
But by the end of the third year of operation, Global Green Booksstarted experiencing critical problems. They were: ? unable toleverage all the new employees effectively ? unable to delivereBooks to their customers on schedule ? unable to provide qualitytexts—time and money were being spent fixing defects in theirproducts ? unable to control costs—their business was notprofitable in the third year.
Global Green Books saw a significant rise in issues, a lot ofunpleasant “surprises” were cropping up; business was down as newresources were hired, also some of the projects were poorlyestimated. The local university was unhappy as their eBook productsreached campus late for use by professors and students. In somecases, the books were a week or two late. Since the courses muststart on schedule and students need their books at the beginning oftheir courses, the new lucrative college customer wasunhappy.
One of the new part-time employees hired by Jim and Brad, Samantha,had taken a project management course at college. Samantha wasexcited about the discipline of project management and hadintentionally selected a job with Global Green Books Publishing asshe saw an opportunity to polish her project management skills.
One fine day, Jim invited Samantha, for a lunch meeting. He wasaware that Samantha was familiar with project management, andwanted to hear what she had to say about the problems he and Bradwere facing. Over lunch, he questioned why their small businesswhich had operated and implemented projects so successfully overthe first two years was being challenged significantly now. Hespecifically listed the problems they were facing and asked forinput to solve them.
Samantha asked for more time to research all the issues but notedthat Global Green Books while being innovative, completed projectswithout a roadmap or a project plan and lacked a disciplinedapproach to project management. She noted that Jim and Brad did notuse any project software for scheduling and they did not use toolsor techniques to estimate, budget, or to communicate withstakeholders. Finally, they had no processes in place to manageproject risks and quality.
Impressed with this and other conversations, Jim King askedSamantha if she would consider joining them as a project associateor project manager on a full-time basis to help them introduceproject management practices and help them tide over their currentcrisis.
Samantha accepted the offer! She has several key skills—she is anexcellent communicator with very good interpersonal skills anddetail-oriented. Within the first three months in her new role asPM, she introduced formal project management processes, created aPM manual, and trained the employees to get the work done well.
Within nine months Samantha had fully turned things around. Due toproactive risk analysis and risk response planning, surprises, andissues reduced. Communication with stakeholders was enhanced.
Brad and Jim noted that the company was delivering projects onschedule, the quality processes worked—and customers were happywith the products!
Comment on the following aspects of the case study:
a) Why did Global Green Books Publishing struggle? b) What were thespecific PM solutions that were introduced by Samantha that worked?c) What kind of suggestions would you give to Brad and Jim if youwere the PM? d) Are you aware of other similar start-up businessesthat struggle in a similar manner? How did they overcome thechallenges? e) Global Green Books Publishing is atechnology-intensive business, but Samantha is not technicallyknowledgeable, will she continue to be a successful projectmanager?
