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Case Study on Research and Development (R&D) Projects (100 points)

The case study below offers an excellent perspective on how projects are often initiated under less than ideal circumstances—which often lays the ground work for project failure.

Companies that provide a service for another company usually respond to a bid document from a company that needs help.  This case study is a good example of this situation.  The bid document can be as simple as an email from the buyer to the seller or as complicated as a request for proposal (RFP) outlining the objectives of the project and asking a seller to develop a proposal that provides a solution.

Each company (seller and buyer) will have a business case for doing the project. The Peter’s Company is outsourcing for a reason.  The Corwin Corporation is taking on the project for a different set of reasons.  One of the reasons the Corwin Corporation is taking on the work is the looming, potentially very lucrative production contract if they are successful.  There are no guarantees in research and development project that there will be success.

A strategy for completing this assignment:

There is only the group assignment for this unit as it is demanding and will require good time management and proper sequencing of the tasks completed by each team member.

Each team member should spend time reading and thinking about the case, the cast of characters, information that you’d like to have but isn’t included in the case study, and so on.

Review what is required to complete each part of the assignment and estimate the sequence and time it will take to complete the work.  Assign tasks so that everyone has an equal share of the workload and try to capitalize on strengths of group members.

Determine information gaps (things you’d like to know) and post questions in the Ask the Professor forum.  Do this early so that the instructor has time to respond during the 24-hour period after you post the question.  Do not email the instructor questions about this assignment.

Communicate with each other and review each other’s work.  At least one person should be checking all content as a quality check to verify that the assigned person is meeting expected deliverables.

Read all responses to the questions posted in the Ask the Professor forum.

Correct and compile parts of the assignment into a cohesive document.   A key emphasis is to make sure the perspective (“our group believes” versus “I believe”) is correct when writing up the deliverables.  This is a group assignment.

Assume the Peter’s Company provided some initial statement of work documentation, by email or other means, that was sufficient for Dan West (the project manager) to move forward with the project for the Corwin Corporation.  A sample project charter is provided for you.

The project charter (provided) is a high-level document; read it carefully and use it to help prepare other documentation.

Be sure to list as many stakeholders and issues as you can by using your group’s collective project management experience.  The list of stakeholders is more than a relisting of the cast of characters in the case.   A stakeholder register is essential for collecting requirements and for managing communication needs.