Mini-Case Study Closing Projects at Global Green Books Pu.docx

Mini-Case Study: Closing Projects at Global Green Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is continuing to grow. The
customized eBooks line of work is
continuing to grow, and they now have a lot of experience from
the eBook projects that they
have completed for their first eBook customer, a local college,
and for their newer customers.
However, as new projects come in and start to run into
problems, some of the project managers
in the project management office and their manager, Samantha,
were discussing how it seems
like it is déjà vu all over again – some of the same problems
that they thought they had solved in
working with supervisors and their teams on past projects keep
on occurring.
The eBook projects are functioning well, and customers are
happy with the results. Repeat
orders are coming in and new customers are turning to Global
Green Books for their eBook

production needs.
But, there are just some problems that seem to keep popping up.
One of the project managers
even described dealing with these problems as being like
playing the popular arcade game of
“Whack-a-Mole” - as soon as you deal with one to make it
disappear, the same one or another
one just pops up. It seems like a never-ending struggle to try
and solve some of these
problems, especially when some seem like they were already
solved on another earlier project.
In the PM handbook that Samantha had implemented, when
projects completed the supervisors
finished tracking all of the actual effort and costs and turned
that information over to cost
accounting for billing purposes. As Samantha and colleagues
implemented the project
management office, they modified the PM manual to have a
copy of this information also shared
with the project management office. They have found this
information to be sometimes useful
as historical data to help develop estimates for new projects as
requests for new eBooks come

in from their customers.
The PMO team was discussing making changes to the PM
manual and holding a short training
for supervisors to implement some improvements to their
project completion processes. They
wanted to change their standard job template to incorporate
these additions:
the end of the project,
They felt that it was important that the PMO start capturing
lessons learned. These could be
collated by the supervisors at the end of the project, or they
could encourage supervisors to
plan, schedule and hold a project closing meeting with their
team members to thank the team
members and to collect lessons learned from all of the team.
They could also invite feedback or
participation from the relevant Customer Service
Representatives and account managers.
The PMO received management approval for these changes,
updated the PM manual, and held

a brief training for supervisors. Supervisors liked the ideas,
especially because the close-out
meeting or team celebration would give them a chance to
recognize and reward team members
and would serve to motivate the teams for future projects. As
time went on, the PMO started
collecting these lessons learned from many projects.
As they collected these lessons learned from these projects, the
PMO staff started to look at the
data from the lessons learned across the projects. They
examined frequency of the six kinds of
issues that were being encountered on the projects. The
histogram below shows their results.
Based on feedback from the leadership training that they had
done with the supervisors, they
had thought that the major cause of delays and extra costs on
projects were part-time student
employees calling off from work at the last minute, leaving
planned work not performed until

another resource could be assigned to it, which was often
difficult as there were few slack
resources. This made tasks late and sometimes delayed projects
from completing on time.
Their analysis showed that that wasn’t the case at all. In fact
only three of the problems on
projects were caused by unplanned absences. In their Pareto
analysis, the PMO staff identified
three key problems, which they highlighted in red. Delays in
obtaining necessary reprint
permissions from certain publishers were the largest cause of
problems, accounting for 34% of
the problems encountered by eBook projects. Production staff
calling in sick was the next most
frequent problem, accounting for 28% of the problems.
Customer changes, which often caused
rework and delays, were the root cause of another 20% of the
problems.
The PMO now knew what the most important issues were that
were causing eBook projects to
be delayed, and could make recommendations to mitigate each
of these problems.

Comment on the following aspects of the case study:
a) What are some of the reasons why it is important to close out
a project? What can
project managers accomplish in closing out a project?
b) Why should projects capture lessons learned? What are some
ways that the project
team members, project managers and the organization can use
lessons learned?
c) What benefits come from celebrating project
accomplishments? Do you believe that
rewards and recognition can serve as motivators for staff?
d) Explain what a Pareto chart is. Why would you use this
technique to identify and
prioritize problem areas? Are there some limitations on
interpreting the results of a
Pareto analysis?
e) If you were the PMO looking at this Pareto analysis, what
recommendations might you
make to address the three key problem areas in eBook projects
that this analysis
identified?

BBA 3331, Introduction to E-commerce 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
7. Analyze the impact of e-commerce on businesses.
7.1 Determine the scope of e-commerce crime and security
challenges.
8. Summarize the effect of regulations on e-commerce and
Internet business.
8.1 Identify the importance of policies, procedures, and laws in
creating security.
Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity
7.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 5, pp. 251–300
Unit V PowerPoint Presentation
8.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 5, pp. 251–300

Unit V PowerPoint Presentation
Reading Assignment
Chapter 5: E-commerce Security and Payment Systems, pp.
251–300
Unit Lesson
Customers’ personal data, including names, addresses, bank and
credit card information, social security
numbers, birthdates, and e-mail addresses, are all a part of
information captured, processed, and stored in e-
commerce sites’ infrastructures. Personal identifiable
information (PII) pervades every part of e-commerce
companies’ networks. E-commerce businesses must be vigilant
in their security. There is nothing more
important to a web-based enterprise than safeguarding its
customers’ information. It is said that it is not a
matter of if but when an e-commerce site will be compromised.
Internet Security
The Internet is the biggest marketplace there is, allowing users
to access not only goods and services but
also information worldwide (Laudon & Traver, 2018). Today’s
society is heavily dependent on the Internet.
Unfortunately, the Internet is inherently insecure with many
would-be criminals attempting to breach e-
commerce sites by leveraging these websites’ weaknesses
through cyberattacks. For these criminals, the
worldwide e-commerce ecosystem offers a lucrative way to steal
from more than 1.6 billion Internet users

(Laudon & Traver, 2018).
The pervasiveness of the Internet and related technologies
allows criminals to leverage vulnerabilities present
at almost every single point of an e-commerce transaction
chain. Figure 1 outlines the different aspects of an
e-commerce transaction as well as the various points of
vulnerability along the path of an online purchase.
The type of cyberattack varies due to the nature of the e-
commerce environment and the type of transaction;
however, most of these attacks have something in common with
the threat of disruption to e-commerce
(Laudon & Traver, 2018). As such, e-commerce sites must apply
high levels of continuous security to deter
threats such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Trojan
horses, and Wi-Fi listening at all potential
vulnerability points in e-commerce (see Figure 1).
UNIT V STUDY GUIDE
E-commerce Security
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
DDoS

Attackers use a DDoS attack to prevent legitimate users from
reaching e-commerce sites. In a DDoS attack
scenario, multiple devices, typically compromised computers,
attack a target, either an e-commerce website
or network resource, and flood the communication Internet lines
to prevent regular users from reaching it. In
this manner, the e-commerce sites are overwhelmed with
thousands of fake requests and are not able to
respond to legitimate ones. Prince (2015) analyzed Cordero
networks where attackers distracted the
company’s security personnel by allowing sufficient bandwidth
for criminals to gain access to the
organization’s data and intellectual property. In a DDoS attack,
assailants are usually geographically
distributed, making it complex to identify and stop the
attacker(s). The consequences of a DDoS attack are
many; first is the loss of revenue from sales, second is the
negative reputation from the knowledge that an e-
commerce site has been potentially compromised, and third are
the resources invested in trying to recover
from the attack(s) in time and human equity. DDoS attacks can
take place at different points in an e-
commerce transaction, at the e-commerce site, at the merchant’s
bank or the customer’s bank, and at the
customer’s Internet provider (see Figure 1).
Trojan Horse
As Laudon and Traver (2018) noted, a Trojan horse is a
seemingly benign program that may let other
malicious code invade the computer and company networks.
Most Trojan horse incidents are disguised as
legitimate software. These types of attacks are commonly used
with social engineering methods for criminals
to gain access to systems and to eventually steal information.
Usually, Trojan horse programs will modify or

copy a company’s information and allow back-door access to
criminals. Back-door access allows malicious
criminals to gain control over the infected system and to
eventually gain access to the network within the e-
commerce organization. In our example in Figure 1, a cyber
criminal could be reading customer information
from an employee’s network computer without the knowledge of
the worker.
Wi-Fi Listeners
Criminals use discrete techniques to listen to Wi-Fi signals.
Attackers devise ways to read information off
wireless transmissions and can read encrypted information. As
new encryption algorithms are developed, so
is the technology to bypass these encryption methodologies.
Again, the goal of Wi-Fi listening is to acquire
private information from victims for malicious purposes. In our
e-commerce transaction depicted in Figure 1,
someone can hijack an e-commerce user by capturing data from
the wireless transmissions as the user
makes a purchase.
As cyberattacks increase and become more damaging and
sophisticated, e-commerce businesses must
ensure that the right security practices are in place and capable
of stopping and deterring these attacks. It is
quite surprising how many e-commerce businesses fail to
implement comprehensive security practices that
will protect not only their customers’ data but also their
businesses. E-commerce must be prepared and
capable of defending systems and infrastructures against
adversaries. As our society becomes more digital,
these threats become the norm rather than the exception.
Companies must have a comprehensive response
as a part of their business strategies.

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Figure 1. Vulnerabilities present in an e-commerce transaction
(Laudon & Traver, 2018)
Security Frameworks
There are several approaches to implementing cybersecurity. A
strong and sustainable security strategy uses
a security life cycle (SLC) model. A well-known model is
published by the National Institute of Standards and
Technologies (NIST, 2014). This publication outlines best
practices of a company’s information technology
(IT) cybersecurity to facilitate the implementation,
maintenance, and improvement of an overall cybersecurity
program.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) offers
another approach. This global organization
offers a family of standards specifically for information
security. The ISO 27000 family helps organizations to
secure their information, assets, and employees (ISO, n.d.).
Specifically, ISO 27001 is one of the most used
standards, providing a comprehensive information security

management system (ISMS).
Core concepts
(ISO, n.d.; NIST, 2014)
Regardless of which standard is used, an information security
program is comprised of an organizational-wide
set of controls with the sole objective of protecting information
systems. According to ISO (2013), the ISO
27001 standard provides guidance in the establishment,
implementation, maintenance, and continuous
improvement of an ISMS. The ISO 27001 standard outlines a
security framework based on seven specific
areas, described in more depth below:
CORE CONCEPTS
A security framework integrates industry security standards and
best practices
to assist organizations in managing security risks. Further,
security frameworks
are based on specific business drivers to guide security-related
activities as a
part of an organization’s risk management processes (ISO, n.d.;
NIST, 2014).

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
1. context of the organization,
2. leadership,
3. planning,
4. support,
5. operation,
6. performance evaluation, and
7. improvement (ISO, 2013).
Context of the Organization
A security framework must be implemented within the context
of an organization. Organizations need to
determine internal and external risks and their resources and
ability to implement organization controls to
manage those risks (ISO, 2013). Along with this approach,
organizations must decide the scope and
boundaries of an information security program.
Leadership
For an information security program to be successful,
management must demonstrate leadership and
commitment. Organizational management must support and
ensure that security policies are implemented
and provide guidance as to security roles and responsibilities.
Leadership is established by directing and
integrating information security into a company’s processes.

Planning
Organizations need to assess the needs of the company to
address the proper risks and opportunities when it
comes to security. Companies need to plan and implement
security activities and evaluate the effectiveness
of an information security program by performing a business
impact analysis (BIA) along with a security risk
treatment (ISO, 2013).
Support
Support is critical for the sustainability of an organization’s
information security program. An information
security program’s support system encompasses competence,
awareness, communication, and control (ISO,
2013). Implementation of a support system is contextual; the
organization needs to determine the needed
resources and approach for establishing, maintaining, and
improving a security program.
Operation
Once an information security program has been implemented,
organizations need to implement operational
control and processes needed for the specific security program
approach. Controls come in the form of
documentation and planned changes to address any
inconsistencies introduced as a part of security policies.
Operational activities also include a security risk assessment
and treatment plans (ISO, 2013).
Performance Evaluation
The ISO (2013) security framework recommends the
monitoring, measurement, analysis, and evaluation of

the implemented information security program. Organizations
must be able to quantify the effectiveness of the
security program. Evaluations include internal audits and
management reviews to take corrective actions if
needed.
Continuous Improvement
Findings from the information security program’s evaluation
indicate that there may be corrective action
needed. Changes to the information security program may be
needed along with the review of the
effectiveness of the corrective actions taken. The ISO (2013)
recommends that organizations undertaking
information security programs strive to continually review the
suitability and effectiveness of information
security initiatives.
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Conclusion
The constant evaluation of the Internet and, by extension, e-
commerce will continually present new security
challenges that cyber criminals are ready to exploit. E-
commerce enterprises need to start with security in

mind as a foundational principle of their businesses. The
benefits of a comprehensive information security
program cannot be understated. If security is designed by
default into e-commerce systems, consumers and
enterprises will avoid security incidents, which could prove to
be detrimental to businesses. Should we fail to
act responsibly, cyber threats will certainly overtake our ability
to protect our networks and information
contained therein.
References
International Organization for Standardization. (n.d.). ISO/IEC
27000 family - Information security
management systems. Retrieved from
https://www.iso.org/isoiec-27001-information-security.html
International Organization for Standardization. (2013). ISO/IEC
27001:2013(en) Information technology—
Security techniques—Information security management
systems—Requirements. Retrieved from
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:27001:ed-2:v1:en
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2018). E-Commerce 2017:
Business, technology, society (13th ed.). Boston,
MA: Pearson Education.
National Institute of Standards and Tehnology. (2014).
Framework for improving critical infrastructure

cybersecurity (Version 1.0). Retrieved from
https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cyberframew
ork/cybersecurity-framework-
021214.pdf
Prince, B. (2015). DDoS attackers distracting security teams
with shorter attacks: Corero networks. Retrieved
from http://www.securityweek.com/ddos-attackers-distracting-
security-teams-shorter-attacks-corero-
networks
Mini-Case Study: Cost Estimation at Global Green Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is continuing to produce
customized eBooks as a key new
product line for it as a successful printing and publishing
company. It has developed a template
to help plan job orders. The major customer for these
customized eBooks is a local college, who
expected these books to be delivered at a low cost, and the
company has not always been

doing that. The Accounting department in Global Green Books
was having difficult tracking the
costs for each of the books.
Each eBook had a separate job order prepared that listed all the
steps that needed to be
completed, so that tasks could be assigned to each worker and
costs estimated. With the
existing job orders, estimates of time required for each task
were sometimes not completed until
after the work was done, causing problems as workers were
supposed to move on to new tasks
but were still finishing their previous tasks. Some tasks required
specialized equipment or skills,
sometimes from other groups within Global Green Books.
Along with its template for job orders, Global Green Books
wanted to start developing a project
estimate for each new eBook project. This cost estimate should
capture direct costs and
indirect costs. The direct costs for an eBook project include
labor costs for those in the company
working on the project, materials costs (if any), subcontractor
or outside labor, and equipment
and facility costs. Material costs for these eBooks include any
permissions costs for content and

images used in the eBook. Indirect costs for these eBooks
computer support costs and sales
commissions for each eBook project.
For an incoming eBook order for an eBook for a European
History course, the following internal
labor costs are projected during the Plan Order Phase:
Phase Task Staff Category Rate
($)
Hours
Receive Order Receive Order Customer Service
Representative
CSR 12.00 .25 *
Receive Order Check Order Customer Service
Representative
CSR 12.00 .50 *
Receive Order Verify Order Customer Service
Representative
CSR-1 16.00 1.0 *
Plan Order Plan Work Supervisor Senior-1 28.00 1.0
Plan Order Assign Work Supervisor Senior-1 28.00 1.0
Plan Order Estimation Supervisor Senior-1 28.00 1.0

Plan Order Reserve Equipment Supervisor Senior-1 28.00 .50
Production Acquire Permissions Publishers Liaison PL 22.00 0
Production Desktop Publishing (DTP) DTP Specialist DTP-2
18.00 12.5
Production Content Conversion DTP Specialist DTP-1 12.50 4.0
Production Produce eBook (Proof and Final) DTP Specialist
DTP-2 18.00 5.0
Production Quality Checks Quality Technician
Customer Service
Representative
QC
CSR-1
16.00
16.00
3.0
1.0
Manage Production Track Production Supervisor Senior-1 28.00
3.0

During the Plan Order Phase, the hours for the Receive Order
phase (marked with an *) are
actual times, as this work has already been performed.
In addition to these internal labors costs, the Production
Supervisor has estimated that the
European History eBook will incur these costs:
l costs of $1,000 for each permission needed
this project (a special
oversize map scanner)
use of the oversize map
scanner
In addition to direct and indirect costs, Global Green Books
targets a 25% profit margin on each
project, and budgets for a 10% contingency on labor and 20%
contingency on permissions.

a) What are the types of direct costs identified in this case?
Why are they viewed as direct
costs?
b) What are two forms of costs identified?
c) What are some problems that might arise that could impact
the budget?
d) Why would Global Green Books set aside contingencies?
How would needed rework, if
caught in the quality reviews, be accounted for in the budget?
e) What are the main cost drivers of this project?
f) What other information, if any, would you like to see
included in the budget for this
project? Why?
Create a budget for the European History eBook project.
a) What are the costs by major phases of work for making this
European History eBook?
b) What are the total costs for direct labor?
c) What is the total estimated cost of this European History
eBook?

Mini-Case Study: Managing Change at Global Green Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is producing customized eBooks
for a local college. It has just
received a large order for a new eBook on Strategic Human
Resource Management in a Global
Context from a senior professor in the business school. This
distinguished faculty member is
dissatisfied with the current textbooks, and wants a customized
eBook for use with her on-
campus courses, graduate seminars, and her executive education
courses. This is the most
complex eBook that Global Green Books has undertaken.
Because this project is so important
to the professor, and will be used in so many different settings
with different schedules, the
professor made sure that she had her complete eBook request in
early to allow sufficient time
for production. She had selected a broad set of the best papers
and had written an introduction
and background, along with discussion questions for each

section. This meant that this project
was going to have an extensive set of permissions to acquire
before production could happen,
as well as a large amount of desktop publishing for the new
materials written by the professor.
She was quite certain that she had given Global Green Books
more than enough time to have
her eBook ready before the first class needed it.
This large eBook went through the check and verify order step
with a bit of back and forth with
the professor to verify the information needed for the extensive
number of permissions, so that
started the project off with a bit of a delay. Because there were
so many permissions, the
Supervisor who planned this project, accelerated the work on
obtaining permissions to make
sure that all the permissions were received before they needed
to start assembling and collating
the eBook in production.
As the Publishers Liaison worked through the extensive list of
permissions, the Customer
Service Representative for the business school at the college
started receiving several inputs

from the college about this project. One set of inputs was a
continuing series of requests from
the professor. As new papers were released, she wanted to
make a number of additions to the
eBook. Also, as time went on and she had more time to review
her eBook plans, she started
identifying some changes that she wanted to make to her
planned eBook.
Another input came from the business manager at the college
bookstore, as he was quite
concerned about the projected cost of this eBook. Because this
eBook included so many
reprints of existing articles and chapters, the estimated cost of
the book was quite high. The
college expected their eBooks to be delivered at a low cost, as
its bookstore costs had to cover
the bookstore overhead (servers for sales and distribution of the
eBooks and marketing costs)
and the bookstore’s markup, as well as the costs of the eBook
from Global Green Books. The
Global Green Books costs had to incorporate all the permissions
costs, as well as all of the
desktop publishing and production costs.
The Customer Service Representative communicated these

issues to several people within
Global Green Books: the account manager for the college
account, the supervisor managing
production for this eBook, the Publishers Liaison obtaining
permissions for this book. The
account manager was concerned about upsetting this important
customer, the supervisor didn’t
know how these various requests could all be accommodated or
how it would impact his project,
and the Publishers Liaison was worried both about added costs
for new permissions and the
time it would take to get them and the costs they had already
expended for permissions no
longer needed.
And the professor’s requests just kept coming, at an increasing
rate as it got closer to her
deadline for needing this eBook.
The supervisor was starting to make some estimates of what
each change requested by the
professor would cost

the $500 already spent for
each permission already acquired that can no longer be used
permission needed at an
unburdened cost of $22 per hour (loaded cost is $55 with a 1.5
overhead rate)
unburdened cost of $28
per hour (loaded cost is $70 with a 1.5 overhead rate)
ssion of 20%
This continuing series of requests for changes from the
professor is quickly adding to the
upwardly spiraling cost of this project. The supervisor feels
that something must be done about
this scope creep – continually changing scope.
a) Who are the stakeholders of this project? Who are the key
stakeholders of the project?
b) What impacts could these requested changes have on the
budget?
c) Could these requested changes also impact the schedule? If

so, how?
d) What is Global Green Book’s process for dealing with
changes from their customers?
Do you see any possible issues with this process?
e) How would you recommend that Global Green Books handle
these changes? Who
should be involved?
f) What should Global Green Books do about the conflicting
inputs from their customer –
the bookstore manager who wants inexpensive eBooks and the
professor who wants the
best and most up-to-date collection of readings possible for her
courses?
Mini-Case Study: Defining Standard Projects at Global Green
Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is a successful printing and
publishing company in its third year.

It has survived the bringing on a large new customer and all the
challenges of new work that this
customer needed in a very short time.
Much of this work for the college is customized eBooks. As the
first term progressed with
Global Green Books making customized eBooks for this
college, there were a number of issues
that affected the quality of the eBooks produced and caused a
great deal of rework for the
company. The local university was unhappy as their eBook
products sometimes reached
campus late for use by professors and student. In some cases,
the books were a week or two
late.
The management of Global Green Books was also challenged by
these projects. The college
expected them delivered on-time and at a low cost, and the
company was not always doing that.
Accounting was having difficult tracking the costs for each of
the books, and the shift supervisor
were often having problems knowing what tasks needed to be
completed and assigning the
right employees to each task.

Some of the problems stemmed from the new part time
employees. Since many of these
workers had flexible schedules, it wasn’t always clear which
tasks they were supposed to be
working on when they came in to work. Each book being
produced was indeed a book; but that
was all they had in common. Each book had different
production steps, different contents and
reprint approvals required, and different layouts and cover
designs. Some were just collections
of articles to reprint once approvals were received, and others
required extensive desktop
publishing. Each eBook was a complex process, but was going
to be made just once, as these
eBooks were all customized for each professor and course each
semester. Each eBook had to
be produced on time, and had to be made to match just exactly
what the professors requested.
Understanding what each eBook needed had to be clearly
documented and understood before
starting production. Global Green Books had been told by the
college how many different
printing jobs the college would need, but they weren’t all
arriving at once, and orders were quite

unpredictable in arriving from the professors at the college.
Some professors needed rush
orders for their classes. Some orders arrived as projected, but
some came later than
anticipated. When Global Green Books finally got all their
orders, some of these jobs were
much larger than they had thought they would be.
Each eBook needed to have a separate job order prepared that
listed all the steps that needed
to be completed, so that tasks could be assigned to each worker.
These job orders were also
becoming a problem. Not all the steps needed were getting
listed in each order. Often the
estimates of time for each task were not completed until after
the work was done, causing
problems as workers were supposed to move on to new tasks but
were still finishing their
previous tasks. Some tasks required specialized equipment or
skills, sometimes from other
groups within Global Green Books. Not all of the new student
hires were trained for all of the
printing and binding equipment used to print and assemble to
books.

Global Green Books wanted to start developing a template for
job orders. This template should
list all of the possible tasks that should be performed in
producing an eBook for the college.
These tasks could be broken down into the different phases of
the work.
In the Receive Order phase, the order should be received by
Global Green Books from the
professor or the college, it should be checked and verified, and
a job order started. In checking
and verifying each order, the customer representative should
make sure that they have the
requester’s name, email and phone number; the date needed, and
a full list of all of the
contents. They should also verify that they have received all of
the materials that were
supposed to be included with that order, and have fully
identified all of the items that they need
to request permissions for. Any problems found in checking
and verifying should be resolved by
contacting the professor.

In the Plan Order phase, all of the desktop publishing work is
planned, estimated and assigned
to production staff. Also all of the production effort to collate
and produce the eBook are
identified, estimated and scheduled, and assigned to production
staff. Specific equipment
resource needs are identified and equipment is reserved on the
schedule to support the planned
production effort.
In the Production Phase, permissions are acquired, desktop
publishing tasks (if needed) are
performed, content is converted, and the proof of the eBook is
produced. A quality assistant will
check the eBook against the job order and customer order to
make sure it is ready for
production, and once approved by quality, each of the requested
eBook formats are created. A
second quality check makes sure that each requested format is
ready to release to the college.
In a Manage Production Phase, happening in parallel with the
Production Phase, a supervisor
will track progress, work assignments, and costs for each
eBook. Any problems will be resolved
quickly in an attempt to not have any rework or delays in

releasing the eBooks to the college.
Each eBook will be planned using the standard job template as a
basis for developing a unique
plan for that eBook project.
a) Printing books in a print shop, especially large quantities of a
single book, is a process.
A process is an ongoing day-to-day repetitive set of activities
the print shop performs
when producing its products. How are these customized eBooks
different from a
standard printing process? What characteristics make these
customized eBooks a
project?
b) Who are the stakeholders in these eBook projects? How are
they involved in or affected
by an eBook project?
c) Why is it important to have a defined project scope? Why is
it important to make sure
there is agreement about the scope and what will be done in
producing each eBook?
d) What kinds of information would you want supervisors to
have available to them in the

Manage Production phase? Why?
e) Do you think developing a standard job template would be
useful for Global Green
Books? Why? What advantages could it give them in planning
work?
f) What other information, if any, would you like to see
included in the standard job
template? Why?
Create a Work Breakdown Structure for an eBook project.
a) What are the major phases of work for making an eBook?
b) What are the steps in each phase?
c) Can you identify any substeps for any of the steps? What are
they?
Mini-Case Study: Team Building at Global Green Books
Publishing

Global Green Books Publishing is continuing to grow. As their
eBook business continues to
drive that growth, they now are continuing to add staff to be
able to keep up with customer
demand. Most all of the new people and many of the eBook
staff have not worked together in
the original print-based business area of the company, and
indeed are new to the company and
its culture.
These new employees have a diverse set of skills, backgrounds,
and motivations. Their
supervisors know how to manage their projects, but do not
always have the expertise to step in
and do each of the unique tasks assigned to team members. Most
of the employees that have
been around since the beginning of the eBook business have
been trained in their project
management techniques, so they can get the work done well; but
not all of the newer
employees have had this training. There is just too much work
that needs to be done to take
time out for training.
Supervisors need provide leadership, to provide inspiration for
their team and to be good

motivators of their team members, as well as be a good
manager, worrying about the day-to-
day and minute-by-minute accomplishment of the project’s
goals. Being a good motivator also
means that the supervisors must be good listeners to understand
what issues are confronting
their team members and the needs of their team members.
Beyond this role as leaders, supervisors need to be a good
manager. They need to identify the
skills that they need for their projects. Supervisors at Global
Green Books normally do this as
they start from the standard job template for eBook projects and
build the Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS) for their eBook project. Next, they need to
identify team members that have
those skills, and work with their current project managers and
with human resources to make
sure that they will be available to support the new project.
Based on the lessons learned
analyses, a supervisor might also identify a person as a back-up
for a critical role on the project,
in case they run into difficulties or assigned staff are not
available as planned.

Once the team is assembled, challenges can arise. Some of the
challenges teams face have to
do with knowing the status of the work, as part-time employees
come in and hand a piece of a
project off to another worker. Some deal managing conflicts as
they arise – both technical
issues as permissions are delayed and content cannot yet be
incorporated, leading to
scheduling changes, and inter-personal issues among staff.
Some of these conflicts occur
between a mostly young, part-time contingent of student
workers and the full-time employees.
Supervisors are often drawn into mediating or resolving these
conflicts. They really need to
meld together their staff to create highly capable, productive
project teams for these fast-paced
eBook projects. The staff needs to trust each other and their
leadership to be fair and to balance
work priorities with the times that they are available.
Supervisors are finding it is very important to make sure every
team member understands the
goals of the project, the roles of each team member and how
they inter-relate, and the sense of
urgency about completing the project. This urgency comes from

understanding the intense
schedules for completing eBooks and from understanding why it
is important that all of the work
come together to create a finished eBook – any part not
completed keeps the final eBook from
going into quality check and release. Because of the issues
around employee absence and the
use of part-time employees, they are also trying to make sure
that employees are able to do
their role, but can also help out in related roles as needed.
To help build a common understanding of the project work and
minimize some of the conflicts,
Samantha is working with some the supervisors to hold a project
kick-off meeting where the
team reviews the goals and plan for the project, and develops
and agrees to a project team
charter. Letting the team develop their charter gives the
supervisor an opportunity to observe
how the team works together, and gives the team the ability to
set ground rules for how they will
work together. The team charter starts with the project goals.

The team may set their goals in
order to accomplish these project goals. Other topics that the
team might address in their team
charter include agreed-upon guidelines for how they want to
participate in the project, conduct
(or behavior), communications among project members,
communicating status and problems,
problem solving, and holding meetings. This charter and its
guidelines that they team have
agreed to can then serve as a basis for team building and team
behaviors during the project.
a) What are some of the challenges facing project teams? Have
you encountered any of
these problems in teams that you have been part of? What other
team problems have
you experienced?
b) Are there skills that team members need to be effective team
members in a project? If
so, what are these skills?
c) Why is it important that team members understand the goals
and scope of the project?

d) Think about creating a team charter. What categories of
guidelines would you you’re
your team to agree on before beginning work? Why would you
include these
categories?
e) Brainstorm and identify some guidelines that you would
suggest teams follow for each of
these categories?
communicating status and
problems)
f) What are the advantages of a kick-off meeting? What are the
advantages of developing
a team charter?

Mini-Case Study: Quality Management at Global Green Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is growing its eBook business,
satisfying demand for
customized eBooks for the college market and for a growing
number of commercial customers.
These customers expect a high-quality product that works in
each of the environments that
there users use – various operating systems, eBook readers, and
hardware (desktop
computers, tablets/phablets, and smartphones).
As part of the standard development process, each eBook goes
through several quality checks.
When the order is received, a customer service representative
checks the order and a more
senior customer service representative verifies the order. During
the Production Phase, a quality
assistant will check the eBook against the job order and
customer order to make sure it is ready
for production, and once approved by quality, each of the
requested eBook formats are created.
A second quality check is performed by the customer service
representative who is assigned to

the customer to make sure that each requested format is ready to
release to the customer.
Some customers (and their eBook users) are complaining about
quality problems in the eBooks
they have received from Global Green Books. Sometimes the
eBooks do not work correctly in
the intended environment. Sometimes, content is not clear or
fuzzy. Sometimes, a quality check
will find that not all parts of the requested order have been
included in the eBook. This causes
rework before the eBook can come back for a second quality
check before being released to the
customer service representative for the final quality check. In
each of these cases, the "cost of
quality" is the cost of NOT creating a quality product. Every
time the project has to rework an
eBook to correct a quality defect, the cost of quality increases.
Samantha and her project managers met with a key group of
supervisors who are managing a
critical number of the eBook projects. They reviewed the
lessons learned data and brainstormed
from their experiences with producing eBooks to identify some
of the quality problems that they
were seeing in the eBook projects. They identified a number of

issues:
within the project team. They
are dealt with by the customer service representatives at the
beginning and end of the
eBook production process. This means that team members do
not know what the
customer expects and just do the tasks assigned without
knowing what is “good”. They
may have a very different or no understanding of what the
customer’s quality needs are,
unlike the customer service representatives.
plan into their project any
reviews or checkpoints at which quality can be verified. The
only quality checks come
after the eBook is finished. This does quality checks of the
whole eBook, but doesn’t
allow for checks on each component –content formats, correct
conversions or desk top
publishing checks.
m members
that quality is just simply

some testing by some other groups (quality and customer
service), rather than a way of
working and reviewing or checking work as they proceed.
Further, many team members
don’t even see quality as their responsibility, because it’s
something done by someone
else.
representatives is that they do test
each eBook, but they cannot always check each eBook in an
environment that is the
same as that used by the end users of the eBook. Sometimes
users have different
equipment than the customer service representatives have to use
for their testing. There
are times when this causes surprises after the eBook is released.
This leads to external
failure costs for dealing with processing customer complaints,
dealing with rework to fix
the eBooks, and releasing a revised eBook. Luckily the
customers handle distribution to

their users, so Global Green Books is not bearing the cost of
customer returns and
warranty claims that they might have if they were selling a
consumer product directly to
consumers.
The group agrees that they would like to make some changes to
bring their total quality costs
below the costs of quality that they are currently incurring.
This means that they want to reduce
the costs of failing to meet customer requirements or
expectations, and reinvest those savings
into preventing problems as they go that do not meet the
customer’s requirements, and
checking to make sure that the eBook and all of its components
conform to the customer’s
requirements. Catching some of the quality problems sooner,
before the entire eBook is
produced will also reduce the internal failure costs that they are
experiencing. These internal
failure costs are rework and re-checking following the quality
checks by Quality and the
customer service representative.

a) Consider the problems that Samantha and the group
identified. What do you think are
the causes of these problems?
b) What would you suggest they do differently to eliminate
these problems?
c) Who should be responsible for quality? What would you
recommend be the specific
responsibilities of each identified role?
d) What prevention activities would you suggest to prevent poor
quality in the eBook
products? Examples could be planning for quality activities or
team building activities
focused on improving quality
e) What appraisal activities would you suggest to evaluate the
eBook product to ensure
that it meets quality standards and customer requirements?
Should they add in-process
checks of eBook components in addition to their current final
inspection/tests? If so,
who should do these?
f) What would you suggest they do to involve team members
more in pursuit of high quality

eBooks for their customers?
Mini-Case Study: Developing Project Managers at Global Green
Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is continuing to grow. They
now have three large customers-
two in traditional print-based work and the third is a local
college. They produce customized
eBooks for this local college. This newest line of work is
growing, as other customers hear of
their work, and the account managers are speaking with several
other colleges and professional
associations about taking on additional projects in electronic
publishing.
As they have grown, they have had to start implementing some
project management concepts
to plan and manage their work. The founders hired Samantha as
a project associate or project

manager on a full-time basis to help them introduce project
management practices and help
them tide over the crisis they were experiencing with rapid
growth. Within the first three months
in her new role as PM, she introduced formal project
management processes, created a PM
manual and trained the employees to get the work done well.
Within a year, the company was
delivering projects on schedule, the quality processes worked—
and customers were happy with
the products! This success was leading to possible new work
and greater opportunities to bring
on new customers.
As the growth continued, Samantha was now feeling the
pressure. She was only one person.
And there was so much more to still do.
Using her project management skills, she had implemented more
formal project management
processes, created a PM manual and trained the employees to
get the work done well. One
area where she especially felt stretched thin was in supporting
the supervisors.
As the eBook business grew, there were more and more

demands on the supervisors. Many
were great print technicians who had caught the eye of the
founders for their attitudes and
customer service ethic. But today, they were being called on to
do more complex tasks than
merely running a highly automated print copier. Supervisors
are interacting with customers, as
well as with internal account managers and customer service
representatives. They are
managing employees with a diverse set of skills, backgrounds,
and motivations. It is
increasingly hard for them to ask employees to take on hard
challenges when they themselves
do not have those skills and have not done the eBook publishing
that the business is
increasingly moving to.
Many of the supervisors have had a bit of project management
mentoring from Samantha, but
still know that they have to be both leaders and managers. As
project teams come together to
work on eBooks, there are challenges. Some of the challenges
have to do with knowing the
status of the work, as part-time employees come in and hand a
piece of a project off to another

worker. Some deal managing conflicts as they arise – both
technical issues as permissions are
delayed and content cannot yet be incorporated, leading to
scheduling changes, and inter-
personal issues among staff. Some of these conflicts occur
between a mostly young, part-time
contingent of student workers and the full-time employees.
Supervisors are often drawn into
mediating or resolving these conflicts. They really need to meld
together their staff to create
highly capable, productive project teams for these fast-paced
eBook projects. The staff needs to
trust each other and their leadership to be fair and to balance
work priorities with the times that
they are available.
Supervisors need to provide leadership, to provide inspiration
for their team, and to be good
motivators of their team members, as well as be a good
manager, worrying about the day-to-
day and minute-by-minute accomplishment of the project’s
goals. Being a good motivator also

means that the supervisors must be good listeners to understand
what issues are confronting
their team members and the needs of their team members.
The supervisors were realizing that as a group they needed two
things. One was a greater
grasp of people skills, or so-called “soft” skills, to help make
them more effective. The other
was more support in project management as they needed to
better track the details of the work,
and the task level scheduling and rescheduling that was
happening as team members come
and go for their work shifts and as permissions sometimes take
longer to obtain than planned.
Samantha is starting to discuss with her management and with
the human resources and
training group how they can meet some of these needs. Perhaps
some leadership development
training for supervisors could be arranged. And she is talking
with her management about
setting up a project management office (PMO) to have project
management staff available to
help the supervisors with some of their work tracking and
scheduling challenges. She hopes

that addressing these two issues will make their eBook delivery
much smoother.
a) What are some of the challenges facing supervisors?
b) What skills do you think the supervisors need to be effective
project managers? Why do
they need these skills?
c) Are there skills that team members need to be effective team
members in a project? If
so, what are these skills?
d) Which characteristic or skill do you think is the most
significant characteristic of an
effective project manager?
e) What steps could project managers take to help make their
teams more effective?
f) What advice would you give Samantha about setting up a
project management office?
What roles could these staff perform, and how could they
interact with the existing
projects?
g) Can you describe other ways that this PMO function could be
organized?

Mini-Case Study: The Back to School Crunch at Global Green
Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing is a successful printing and
publishing company. Just two years
old, it has taken on a great new customer, a local college that
needs customized eBooks.
To deal with this new customer, they have hired several new
part time employees to help them
with their publishing business, some of them students at the
college with flexible hours.
As the new school year drew closer, the orders started coming
in. They had been told how
many different printing jobs the college would need, but they
weren’t all arriving at once, and
orders were quite unpredictable in arriving from the professors
at the college. Some professors
needed rush orders for their classes. When Global Green Books

finally got the orders, some of
these jobs were much larger than they had thought they would
be.
Printing these orders turned out to be very challenging. Not all
of the new student hires were
trained for all of the printing and binding equipment used to
print and assemble to books. Some
of them often made mistakes, some workers called off from
work due to other demands, and
there were often not enough people available to get all the work
done before deadlines.
Quality was a serious issue, as they had to provide quality
texts—if there were quality problems
with the printed product, they would have to spend time and
money to fixing defects in their
products.
Deliveries started slipping past their requested dates and times.
Global Green Books was
unable to deliver eBooks to their customers on schedule.
The local university was unhappy as their eBook products
reached campus late for use by
professors and student. In some cases, the books were a week or
two late.

Samantha had been hired as a project management assistant. In
her new role as a project
manager, one of the processes she was trying to institute was
risk management. She started
looking at what was happening in the business, talking about it
with the owners and employees,
and heard about the college’s unhappiness. As she did this, she
started identifying risks and
potential risks. As she went along, she started doing more
proactive risk analysis and risk
response planning, and as she did surprises and issues were
reduced. By talking with
stakeholders and addressing their concerns, communication with
stakeholders was also
enhanced.
a) What risks can you identify? Why are they a risk to Global
Green Books Publishing?
b) What kind of impacts does each of your identified risks
have? Can you categorize these
as low impact, medium impact, or high impact?
c) How probable are each of your identified risks? You can
think about something simple

like categorizing these as not very likely, likely, and highly
likely to occur.
d) What would you advise Global Green Books are their three
most critical risks?
e) What would you suggest that they do about these three risks?
Are there specific actions
to deal with these risks? Have you identified a contingency plan
to carry out if the risk
occurs?
Mini-Case Study: Project Management at Global Green Books
Publishing
Global Green Books Publishing was started two years ago by
two friends, Jim King and Brad
Mount, who met in college while studying in Philadelphia,
USA. In the new business Jim
focused on editing, sales and marketing while Brad Mount did
the electronic assembly and

publishing of books for Global Green Books. Their business was
successful and profitable in the
first two years, largely due to contracts from two big
businesses.
In their third year they got very busy thanks to their third major
customer, a local college that
needed customized eBooks. They hired several part time
employees to help them with their
publishing business.
But by the end of third year of operation, Global Green Books
started experiencing critical
problems. They were:
—time and money was being
spent fixing defects in their
products
ontrol costs—their business was not profitable in
the third year.
Global Green Books saw a significant rise in issues, a lot of
unpleasant “surprises” were
cropping up; business was down as new resources were hired,
also some of the projects were

poorly estimated. The local university was unhappy as their
eBook products reached campus
late for use by professors and student. In some cases, the books
were a week or two late. Since
the courses must start on schedule and students need their books
at the beginning of their
courses, the new lucrative college customer was unhappy.
One of the new part-time employees hired by Jim and Brad,
Samantha, had taken a project
management course at college. Samantha was excited about the
discipline of project
management and had intentionally selected a job with Global
Green Books Publishing as she
saw an opportunity to polish her project management skills.
One fine day, Jim invited Samantha, for a lunch meeting. He
was aware that Samantha was
familiar with project management, and wanted to hear what she
had to say about the problems
he and Brad were facing. Over lunch he questioned why their
small business which had
operated and implemented projects so successfully over the first
two years was being
challenged significantly now. He specifically listed the

problems they were facing and asked for
input to solve them.
Samantha asked for more time to research all the issues but
noted that Global Green Books,
while being innovative, completed projects without a roadmap
or a project plan and lacked a
disciplined approach to project management. She noted that Jim
and Brad did not use any
project software for scheduling and they did not use tools or
techniques to estimate, budget or
to communicate with stakeholders. Finally, they had no
processes in place to manage project
risks and quality.
Impressed with this and other conversations, Jim King asked
Samantha if she would consider
joining them as a project associate or project manager on a full-
time basis to help them
introduce project management practices and help them tide over
their current crisis.
Samantha accepted the offer! She has several key skills—she is
an excellent communicator

with very good interpersonal skills and detail-oriented. Within
the first three months in her new
role as PM, she introduced formal project management
processes, created a PM manual and
trained the employees to get the work done well.
Within nine months Samantha had fully turned things around.
Due to proactive risk analysis and
risk response planning, surprises and issues reduced.
Communication with stakeholders was
enhanced.
Brad and Jim noted that the company was delivering projects on
schedule, the quality
processes worked—and customers were happy with the
products!
a) Why did Global Green Books Publishing struggle?
b) What were the specific PM solutions that were introduced by
Samantha that worked?
c) What kind of suggestions would you give to Brad and Jim if
you were the PM?
d) Are you aware of other similar start-up businesses that
struggle in a similar manner?

How did they overcome the challenges?
e) Global Green Books Publishing is a technology intensive
business, but Samantha is not
technically knowledgeable, will she continue to be a successful
project manager?

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