Questions:
Answer the questions of Case Study:
CASE STUDY: A Not-for-Profit Organization
At a local college, the officers of the student community service organization - which collects and buys food and distributes it to people in need - are having their February meeting. Sitting in the meeting room are Beth Smith, the organization’s president, and two officers: Rosemary Olsen, vice president, and Steve Andrews, volunteer coordinator. Beth announces, “Our funds are almost exhausted.
The demands on the food bank have been increasing. We need to figure out how to get more funds.”
“We need to have a fundraising project,” responds Rosemary.
Steve suggests, “Can’t we ask the city government if they can increase their allocation of funds to us?”
“They’re strained. They may even cut our allocation next year,” replies Beth.
“How much do we need to get us through this year?” asks Rosemary.
“About $10,000,” answers Beth, “and we are going to start needing that money in about two months.”
“We need a lot of things besides money. We need more volunteers, more space for storage, and more food donations,” says Steve.
“Well, I guess we can make that all part of the fund-raising project. This is going to be fun!” says Rosemary excitedly.
“This project is growing. We’ll never get it done in time,” Beth says. Rosemary responds, “We’ll figure it out and get it done. We always do.”
“Is a project what we need? What are we going to do next year - another project?” asks Steve. “Besides, we’re having a hard time getting volunteers anyway.
Maybe we need to think about how we can operate with less money. For example, how can we get more food donations on a regular basis so we won’t have to buy as much food?”
Rosemary jumps in. “Great idea! You can work on that while we also try to raise funds. We can’t leave any stone unturned.”
“Time out,” says Beth. “These are all very good ideas, but we have limited funds and volunteers and a growing demand. We need to do something now to make sure we don’t have to close our doors in two months. I think we all agree we need to undertake some type of initiative. But I’m not sure we all agree on the objective.”
CASE QUESTIONS:
1. What are the needs that have been identified?
2. What is the project objective?
3. What assumptions, if any, should be made regarding the project to be undertaken?
4. What are the risks involved in the project?
Do the “Internet Exercises 1&2” of Ch2
INTERNET EXERCISES:
1. Based on the results of your search, find an RFP that has been posted on the Web. What company developed the RFP, and what is the company looking to accomplish?
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of this RFP based on information you have studied in this chapter. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the RFP. Are there any items missing from the RFP that should have been included?
Ch3: – Do the “Internet Exercises 1&2” of Ch3
INTERNET EXERCISES:
1. Based on the results of your search, find a sample proposal that has been posted on the Web. What company or organization developed the proposal, and what objective was it trying to accomplish?
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of this proposal based on information you have studied in this chapter. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal.
Are there any items missing from the proposal that should have been included?
Ch4: – Answer the questions of Case Study 1 (use MS Project to develop WBS and Project Network)
A Not-for-Profit Medical Research Center
You are Alexis, the director of external affairs for a national not-for-profit medical research center that does research on diseases related to aging. The center’s work depends on funding from multiple sources, including the general public, individual estates, and grants from corporations, foundations, and the federal government.
Your department prepares an annual report of the center’s accomplishments and financial status for the board of directors. It is mostly text with a few charts and tables, all black and white, with a simple cover. It is voluminous and pretty dry reading. It is inexpensive to produce other than the effort to pull together the content, which requires time to request and expedite information from the center’s other departments.
At the last board meeting, the board members suggested the annual report be “upscaled” into a document that could be used for marketing and promotional purposes. They want you to mail the next annual report to the center’s various stakeholders, past donors, and targeted high-potential future donors. The board feels that such a document is needed to get the center “in the same league” with other large not-for-profit organizations with which it feels it competes for donations and funds. The board feels that the annual report could be used to inform these stakeholders about the advances the center is making in its research efforts and its strong fiscal management for effectively using the funding and donations it receives.
You will need to produce a shorter, simpler, easy-to-read annual report that shows the benefits of the center’s research and the impact on people’s lives. You will include pictures from various hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities that are using the results of the center’s research. You also will include testimonials from patients and families who have benefited from the center’s research.
The report must be “eye-catching.” It needs to be multicolor, contain a lot of pictures and easy-to-understand graphics, and be written in a style that can be understood by the average adult potential donor.
This is a significant undertaking for your department, which includes three other staff members. You will have to contract out some of the activities and may have to travel to several medical facilities around the country to take photos and get testimonials. You will also need to put the design, printing, and distribution out to bid to various contractors to submit proposals and prices to you. You estimate that approximately five million copies need to be printed and mailed.
It is now April 1. The board asks you to come to its next meeting on May 15 to present a detailed plan, schedule, and budget for how you will complete the project. The board wants the annual report “in the mail” by November 15, so potential donors will receive it around the holiday season when they may be in a “giving mood.” The center’s fiscal year ends September 30, and its financial statements should be available by October 15. However, the nonfinancial information for the report can start to be pulled together right after the May 15 board meeting.
Fortunately, you are taking a project management course in the evenings at the local university and see this as an opportunity to apply what you have been learning. You know that this is a big project and that the board has high expectations. You want to be sure you meet their expectations, and get them to approve the budget that you will need for this project. However, they will only do that if they are confident that you have a detailed plan for how you will get it all done. You and your staff have six weeks to prepare a plan to present to the board on May 15. If approved, you will have six months, from May 15 to November 15, to implement the plan and complete the project.
Your staff consists of Grace, a marketing specialist; Levi, a writer/editor; and Lakysha, a staff assistant whose hobby is photography (she is going to college part-time in the evenings to earn a degree in photojournalism, and has won several local photography contests).
CASE QUESTIONS:
You and your team need to prepare a plan to present to the board. You must:
1. Establish the project objective, and make a list of your assumptions about the project
2. Develop a work breakdown structure
3. Prepare a list of the specific activities that need to be performed to accomplish the project objective
4. For each activity, assign the person who will be responsible
5. Create a network diagram that shows the sequence and dependent relationships of all the activities.
Note: This case study will continue in cases for Chapters 5 through 8, so save the results of your work.
Ch5: – Answer Question 15 – Use MS Project software to do the following:
– Develop project network – Show the critical path on the network – Develop Gantt chart for baseline – Graphically show the revised schedule
Calculate the ES, EF, LS, and LF times and the slack for each activity in the figure below, and identify the critical path for the project. Can the project be completed in 30 weeks? Assume that activity A actually finished at 5 weeks and activity B actually finished at 5 weeks. Recalculate the expected project completion time. Which activities would you focus on in order to get the project back on schedule