MGMT 620 Week 2 DB Forum 1 Example

Discussion Board Forum 1: Thread and Two Replies

MGMT 620 Project Evaluation & Assessment, Discussion Board Forum 1 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the library project and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; Thomas's text, the peer-reviewed studies and Scripture are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for MGMT 620.

Thread

Two years ago our county opened a new library branch on the growing north side. The project team finished two weeks early and $180,000 under its $7.4 million budget, and the building won a regional design award. By every measure in the project charter, it succeeded. Yet in its first year the branch drew 41 percent fewer visits than the needs study had forecast. It sits on a four-lane highway with no sidewalk, a quarter mile from the neighborhood it was meant to serve, because the county chose the site it already owned. Families who were expected to walk there drive to the old downtown branch instead. The teen room, designed for after-school use, sits empty most afternoons because the students it was planned for cannot safely cross the highway from the middle school. Staff schedules and the materials budget were built on the forecast, so the branch now carries the cost of a full-size library while serving a fraction of the people it was meant for.

Atkinson (1999) gave the old trio of budget, schedule and quality a memorable label, two best guesses and a phenomenon: estimates made early, when least is known, and a quality judgment that varies by observer. He urged adding criteria for the benefits a project delivers to the organization and its stakeholders. Our library is his case in miniature. The guesses were met, and the benefit was not.

Shenhar et al. (2001) went further, treating success as something with layers that come into view one after another as time passes: efficiency in the short term, impact on the customer next, and business success and preparation for the future later. By efficiency, our branch was excellent. By impact on its intended users, it fell short. Ika (2009), reviewing how project management journals treated success over several decades, traced a shift from a narrow focus on delivery toward broader success criteria and stakeholder perspectives. That shift is a useful warning for public agencies like ours, which still close projects on the day the ribbon is cut. Our project team was disbanded within a month of opening, the closeout report covered only budget and schedule, and the commissioners who approved the site never saw a document asking whether the branch reached the families in the needs study.

The distinction that matters here is between project management success, delivering what was specified, and project success, achieving what the project was for. Thomas (2015) argues that evaluation should be built into a project from the start and continue after closeout, so that the organization learns whether outcomes were met. Our county evaluated delivery thoroughly and outcomes not at all, until circulation reports made the problem visible.

When the master in Jesus's story of the talents returned to settle accounts, he praised the servants who put his money to work and produced a return, and rebuked the one who buried it safely and gave it back unchanged (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Matthew 25:20-27). Delivering a project on time and on budget can be the managerial equivalent of burying the talent: nothing was lost, and nothing was gained. Stewardship is measured by fruit. For the library, I would recommend an outcome evaluation one year after opening as a standard project phase, and a site decision tested against walking distance before design begins.

Classmates: on your projects, who decided whether the project succeeded, and when did they decide?

Reply to Hannah

Hannah, your thread on your hospital's patient portal launch was an interesting contrast to my library. Your project ran four months late and 12 percent over budget, and yet two years later more than 60 percent of patients use the portal and no-show rates have fallen. You concluded that the project failed but the product succeeded.

Zwikael and Smyrk (2012) offer a framework that might help your organization describe that result more precisely. They argue that project performance should be judged at three levels: the success of project management, the success of the project's ownership in realizing outcomes, and the success of the investment itself. Your project management fell short, while the ownership and investment levels appear strong. Separating them lets the hospital learn from the delivery problems without concluding that the portal was a mistake.

Thomas (2015) emphasizes that evaluation should continue after a project closes. Did your hospital set targets for portal adoption and no-show rates before the project began, or did it notice the improvements only later? If the targets existed, the portal is a good example of a project whose value appeared after handover, which is exactly when many organizations stop looking. If they did not exist, adding them to the next project charter would turn a lucky result into a measured one.

Reply to Andrew

Andrew, your account of your church's building campaign was encouraging: $3.2 million pledged in eighteen months, ten percent above goal. You described the campaign as a clear success because it met its financial target.

I wonder whether the congregation would measure it that way in five years. Shenhar et al. (2001) suggest that success has dimensions that unfold over time, with longer-term impact and preparation for the future mattering more as the years pass. For a church, the longer-term questions might be whether the new education wing is full on Sunday mornings and whether the debt it avoided freed money for missions. Thomas (2015) argues that evaluation should look at outcomes, not just outputs, and pledges are an output.

Paul reminded the Corinthians that one planted and another watered, but God gave the growth (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 1 Corinthians 3:7). A campaign can plant well; the growth is measured later. That does not diminish what your church accomplished; meeting a pledge goal in a hard economy takes real faithfulness. It simply suggests that the campaign's leaders hand off a second set of measures to the people who will run the new wing, so the congregation can later see whether the building did what the gifts were given for. Has your church set any measures for how the new wing will be used once it opens?

References

Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: Cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), 337-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(98)00069-6

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Ika, L. A. (2009). Project success as a topic in project management journals. Project Management Journal, 40(4), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20137

Shenhar, A. J., Dvir, D., Levy, O., & Maltz, A. C. (2001). Project success: A multidimensional strategic concept. Long Range Planning, 34(6), 699-725. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-6301(01)00097-8

Thomas, W. H. (2015). The basics of project evaluation and lessons learned (2nd ed.). CRC Press.

Zwikael, O., & Smyrk, J. (2012). A general framework for gauging the performance of initiatives to enhance organizational value. British Journal of Management, 23(S1), S6-S22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2012.00823.x