BUS 528 Week 3 Assignment A-2

Assignment A-2
Chapter 4 ideas- Making the Rules

The #1 Reason for Project Failure is "Communications Breakdown".


Therefore, creating the written documented Communication Plan is important to bring the stakeholders/ team together and in sync.

Following are the Communication Plan key elements:
1. A brief background for the communication plan
2. Stakeholder Analysis
3. Clearly stated objectives
4. The strategy for going about communicating
5. Potential issues and risks
6. The budget

The following are the steps to develop a great communication plan:
1. Conduct a research-communication audit.
2. Define project objectives.
3. Define project audiences/ team member/ stakeholders
4. Define goals.
5. Identify tools.
6. Establish a timetable
7. Evaluate the result.

BUS 528 Week 3 Assignment A-1

Assignment A-1
Chapter 3 ideas - Project Stakeholders.

Project consist of stakeholders - person involved in project. Most of the team, it's a group or team effort. Therefore it's important to pay attention on the Stakeholders relationship management to help:

1. Increase the success rate of the project.
2. Provide some cushion to weather the inevitable storms that occur on every project.
3. Provide an environment which is personally satisfying
4. Reducing project cycle time by keeping it from being bogged down in politics.
5. Streamlining the approval process.
6. Helping to ensure that project resources are available and remain focused.
7. Keeping information flowing.

4 steps involved in stakeholder managment :
1. Identify our project stakeholders
2. Collect and Analyze information about the stakeholders
3. Use that analysis to develop relationship strategies
4. Manage the ongoing relationships with the stakeholder

Responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) is a great tool to identify the key stakeholders by level of project involvement and responsibility. These stakeholders are defined as follows:
1. Responsible - person is responsible for completing a task.
2. Accountable - person will be called to account if the task is not completed and may manage the person who is responsible for completing the task.
3. Consulted - person that consulted about aspects of the task (advisor)
4. Informed - The holder of this passive role is kept informed only.

BUS 528 Week 2 Assignment A-2

Assignment A-2
Chapter 2 ideas- The Project Environment

Above is a typical product lifecycle and adoption curves.

I would like to use the volume, cost, sales, and profit as the stages difference that include:

1. Introduction - costs are high and sales volume is low.
2. Growth - sales volumes increase significantly and profitability begins.
3. Maturation - sales volumes reach their peak and profits flatten.
4. Decline - sales volumes decline and profitability diminishes

Depending on the conditions surrounding a product, its life cycle may last months or decades. Adoption rates vary depending on such things as:

1. recognized advantages,
2. price and operational costs,
3. substitutes,
4. promotional marketing efforts,
5. risk.

Now why is Product Development Life Cycle important?

1. helps to open new markets
2. expand sales of current product categories
3. reposition a company or organization.
4. improve profitability.

Product development efforts will bring fruitful return to expand their market presence and allow for more selling opportunities.

BUS 528 Week 2 Assignment A-1

Assignment A-1

Chapter 1 ideas- Project Management in A changing world.

'2E'- efficiency and effectiveness is by far the key discipline for project management. I was exposed to Robert Cooper - Stage Gate process that emphasizes the 2E. It's my first approach on the originator of this idea on New Product Development that i experienced for years. It caught my attention and i decided to do more reading on Stage Gate.

The Stage-Gate process is a detailed and careful designed business process to understand what discriminates product success and failure. It is the world’s most widely implemented and trusted product innovation process.

The process is a conceptual and operational roadmap for moving a new product project from idea to market launch.
It gives us the idea to divide the effort into stages separated by management decision gates. Cross-functional teams must successfully complete a prescribed set of related cross-functional tasks in each stage prior to obtaining management approval to proceed to the next stage of product development.

The entrance of each stage is called as Gates. To pass the gates, these are the criteria:

1. Quality Control
2. Readiness Check - ok or not?
3. Marker for action plan for next stage.

The Stages in the model process are:

1. Scoping
2. Build the Business Case
3. Development
4. Testing and validation
5. Launch

The benefits of Stage-Gate:

1. Well Organized innovation
2. provide competitive advantage
3. Accelerate product development with the product life cycle study.
4. Increase success chance of new products.
5. Helps to guid ethe project to the right path or objective.
6. Provides overview and outlook
7. Cross functional
8. Can be combine with others performance metrics - net present value.

BUS 520 Week 3 The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge.


Leader I admire: Oliver Kahn - A great goalie, a really spirited skipper (captain/ team leader) too

In conjunction of World Cup season (actual sports name is football, USA called it as soccer),
I would like talk about Oliver Kahn, the football goalkeeper leader that i admire much.

He is the greatest goalkeeper of all time. Nicknamed "King Kahn" or "The Titan" due to his formidable presence and influence, he is the only goalkeeper in the history of football to win the FIFA World Cup Golden Ball (in World Cup 2002).

It's not easy to establish one as the goalkeeper choice in a team. With is talent, determination and patience, Kahn established himself as a quality goalkeeper in three years joining his first professional football team in Karlsruher SC as a reserve. He was a key player in the fondly-remembered KSC team during that time.

He then joined Bayern Munich with a record fee for goalkeeper as he continue to establish himself as the first choice and also the skipper (captain) in the team. He won multiple honors, both at the domestic and international level.

He shown great sportsmanship by receiving the UEFA Fair Play Award for a match in Champion league final 2001 after he walked up to a devastated Santiago Cañizares after the penalties and attempted to comfort him.

He encounter up and down through out his career too, injuries and lack of motivation. However, his performances continue to improve and he has re-established himself as a reliable shot stopper in 2004.

In 2002 World Cup, Kahn’s shot-stopping prowess and leadership that carried the team to a surprise appearance in the finals, and allowed only three goals in the course of the competition, two of which were in the Final. He never fail to disappoint.

At the age of 39, he retired but before that he continue to cultivate the young rising star in his team to step up and take his position.

Now, referring to the key word bold above, these are all the important factors to success for myself to establish as a leader = "One"

• One need to be patience and hardworking.
• One also need to be able to master the skills set or cultivate the talent.
• One need to have quality that will influence others and make present felt.
• One need to prove and go beyond the limit to earn the first place/ leader position.
• One need to be humble with great behavior to gain respect from others.
• One can never stop but continue to improve.
• One need leadership skill to lead a team to success.
• One can never fail to disappoint.
• One need to learn from mistake.
• One need to have direction.

Alright - times up! Who will win this year World Cup 2010? Answer & Comment please!

BUS 528 Week 1 Assignment B & C

Assignment B

Project Description

CMC Project.
Caketail Music Café (CMC) is a start-up bakery and coffee retail plan to establish in Palo Alto, California. We will refer "CMC" as the project. CMC expects to catch the interest of regular loyal customer base with its broad variety of coffee and pastry products. The company plans to build a strong market position in the city, due to the partners' experience and mild competitive climate in the area

CMC aims to offer its products at a moderate price to meet the demand of the middle-to higher-income local market area residents and college/ university students.
CMC will also introduce the ‘Sports and Music’ elements as the connection between human. These two elements allow human to get together, express themselves and improve social interaction.

CMC is equally owned and managed by its two partners

Miss Cherri Chiang has extensive experience in bakery & beverage, sales and marketing. She has 5 years of experience in food industry (Restaurant/ Bakery & beverage) in Europe, US and Taiwan.

Mr. Edmond Low brings experience in the area of operation, management and administration with 8 years of experience in food industry (Bakery/ Banquet/ fast food chain) in US, Malaysia, Australia and Thailand.

CMC offers a broad range of coffee and espresso products, all from high quality Brazil grown imported coffee beans by providing each customer coffee and espresso products made to suit the customer, down to the smallest detail. CMC also offer others non-caffeine/ alchoholic beverage products.

The bakery will provides freshly prepared bakery and pastry products at all times. CMC will be introducing the main and new product of “Caketail” that expect to be the all time favorite for it consumer

Vision
CMC will be the hub of entertainment for 58,598 Palo Alto populations. It will soon attract customers around Bay area (with approximately 7.4 million people).

Mission
CMC aims to offer high quality coffee, espresso, and pastry products at a competitive price.

CMC will create an atmosphere conducive to creative expression and promote the creative process.

CMC is the inspiration of the current social life around the world especially those that live in the urban metropolitan life. People will get together with their friends and families to watch a game or to listen to music. CMC will also be the focal point for businessman to meet up and create business opportunity for Palo Alto city.

Goals
Our primary goals of this CMC project over the 1st year are:
1. Secure financing for start-up of at least $100,000 for space and equipment.
2. Locate the strategic space in Palo Alto.
3. Acquire equipment necessary for business, i.e. coffee pots, cappuccino machines, blenders, etc.
4. Make agreement with Brazil coffee distributors, and bakery vendors.
5. Create a cozy, artist friendly environment that suits CMC concept(i.e. choice of colors, choice of music, decor)
6. Open for business and aims to be listed among the top 10 hub of entertainment in Palo Alto by first half year of operation (within 6 months)
7. Break even by the fourth month of its operation as it steadily increases and a chieve sales of $ 1.04 Million in Year 1.

Assignment B

CMC SMART goals analysis
With the Vision, Mission and goals statement above, it is crystal clear that CMC defined the specific plan to success with the aim to be the hub of entertainment and high quality products offered as we understand the business needs and nature well with all the market segmentation and analysis done.

We have also clearly stated the primary goal is to secure the start up cost for space and equipment purchasing.

Also, CMC target sales of ~$1 million by end of Year 1 of operation with expected break even by 4th month of operation is measurable.

CMC partnership of Cherri Chiang and Edmond Low co-operate and agree to set the following humble yet realistic goals with their background of MBA knowledge and experience in food industry globally.

With the network established, we will be able to secure high quality raw material and supplies to support the business needs.

A year of prep and timeframe is reasonable for CMC to establish themselves as one of the most frequent café and entertainment spot in Palo Alto.

BUS 528 Week 1 Assignment A

Assignment A


Who am i? Why Project Management and expectation?


In reference to my Introduction (click for more information), I involves alot in engineering management field. My job requires me to deal with alot of different departments internally and in matrix form. We also need to frequently contact global counterparts that involves in certain project for enhancement and improvement to the organization.

Therefore, i have full interest in this class or BUS 528 Project Management offered by CALMAT MBA course that will sharpen my "saw" as my tools to success in my career pathing.

What do i expect to learn or obtained from this course? I hope to further understand and dig into project introduction and understanding as my baseline. Alot of time, people do not really understand the need of a project or why project is important or whether or not they are required or part of the project? And of course, this related to effectiveness of the communication of the project defination and what's the impact/ benefit of the project to the business/ organization.

Of course, the timeline or the process of the project structure is important - CPM/ Gantt chart related tools play a major role in project planning and also are able to guide the project and solve problem and issue related.

Project budget is another element that i want to gain form this course as i need to polish up this skill.

I would also likes to reference Murphy's law and also 7 habits of highly effective ppl studies into project management that will surely bring benefits to me.

Lastly, i hope this course can also touch on globalization subject.

CALMAT MBA Semester 2

Fuhhhh....i survived the first semester of the MBA X-files (refer to my previous link http://lowedmond.blogspot.com/2010/03/bus-600-week-1-assignment-2.html )


Well...this is not the end yet, is just the beginning of the next season of MBA X Files II (semester 2).

And guess what...it will be rough and tough one...it started off with my PC problem caused by the network card/ viruses (common issue) and forced me to reformat the whole thing that takes me almost 3 days to fix it (all because of the outdated utility driver CD)....bummer!


Good thing is everything is ok now (i did back up my data), re-downloaded all the important tools/ software including MS Office and back in action now.


Gotto catch up with uLearn and start posting assignments once done.