Orien Shield Project

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The employing of Gary Allison for the Orion Shield Project as Project Manager was an immense error. Individuals have to question both the decision and morals of Henry Larson in appointing an unproven individual to pilot such a widespread venture. Gary made many incorrect judgments as he mistakenly regarded the horrible and dishonorable guidance of Henry Larson. Among the numerous bad choices and errors made by Gary was his lack of integrity and communication with the stakeholders occupied with the task. If Gary would have been more informative with all parties engaged many conflicts would have either been evaded or correctly resolved in a timely manner. A reprimand was warranted and should have been a must for the role that Henry Larson had due to the participation and involvement to the project over-run and negligence of finances. This would have been the situation if Gary would have maintained his honesty and basically communicated to the SEC about Henry’s participation from the start of the project.

However, amid the numerous other incorrect choices that Gary made, he chose to be secret about Henry’s association, which definitively led to Gary assuming the total accountability and liability of all the troubles and collapses that happened during the project. His poor decision making, unprofessional conduct, and negligence of finances not only harmfully affected the stakeholders of the project; it also negatively affected Gary’s career.

INTRODUCTION

Project management is a task that necessitates an immense depth of knowledge and proficiency in some very significant parts. Some of those abilities consist of organization, preparation, financial planning, and risk assessment. The Orion Shield Project was no omission to the necessary requirements stated, which is why the project was unsuccessfully handled from the beginning stages to the conclusion. Horrible time management, lack of appropriate documents, mishandling of finances, and miscommunication were among the countless issues detrimental to the project. According to Schwalbe, “Project managers must not only strive to meet specific scope, time, cost, and quality requirements of projects, they must also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of the people involved in or affected by project activities” (2010, p. 8). As the project continued, it grew to be obvious that Gary was not approaching the expectations set by stakeholders. Is Gary the right individual for the job? HenryLarson, the Director of Engineering, made a terrible choice in employing Gary Allison to be the Orion Shield Project Manager. Gary’s inexpertness to project management created an immense amount of issues for the Orion Shield Project.

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

The written contract for the Orion Shield Project valued over $2 million. Employing Gary to be the leader of this project proved to be damaging to the organization. It would have been more appropriate for him to gain knowledge and understanding by assisting a manager for the project, operating and learning from a skilled and experienced project manager for the project. Appointing Gary not only negatively affected the organization; it also negatively affected his career. Contrarily, it would have benefited Gary to turn down this job for lack of knowledge and ask for an assistant manager job before being held accountable for a complete project for which he was not skilled to handle. According to Hodgson, Paton, and Cicmil, in the International Journal of Project Management, “organizations operating in the fields of engineering and other technical domains are particularly likely to rely, explicitly or implicitly, on a cadre of professional project managers, largely drawn from among the ranks of technical specialists, often on the assumption that a level of technical expertise is essential for the effective oversight of the technical aspects of the work process” (2011,