This executive briefing provides an analysis of the playing field, two major competitors, and the organization. It describes the industry and recommended market segment. Competitor 1 is the largest with strong brand recognition as its strength, but high costs as its weakness. Competitor 2 has a smaller presence with innovative new products as its strength and lack of scale as its weakness. The organization is mid-sized with knowledgeable employees as its strength and limited resources as its weakness. In conclusion, success will depend on effective use of capabilities to meet customer needs in the growing market segment.

1. Playing Field, Competition, and Our Organization
(Student will update all sections color-coded in RED)
Introduction
Provide an opening paragraph which explains the intended
purpose of this Executive Briefing.
Playing Field
Company Name
Example “Motel Six”
Organization within the company
Example “Motel Division”. (note: If your company is diverse
like Apple, it is advised to analyze a specific segment/business
unit/product because competitors in the iPhone segment
(Samsung/Google) are very different than competitors in their
Music division (Spotify, Pandora)
Industry
Example “Hospitality Industry”
Market Size
Provide a market size estimate for the Industry or the Playing
Field
Recommended Playing Field
Example: “Two-star motels in the US and Canada serving road
travelers.” (note: this is the specific description of the segment
of the industry in which you will compete. These often have
geographic boundaries and descriptors of the key product
attributes.)
Rationale for Recommended Playing Field
Brief explanation of why you selected this segment. (Note: we
usually determine target segments based on factors like revenue
potential, growth rates, financial attractiveness, conformance

2. with our key capabilities and competencies, our ability to meet
this segment’s customer needs, etc.)
Competitor 1
Size
Provide information on the relative size of this competitor in
the Playing Field. if specific data is not available, a qualitative
description is acceptable like "Company X is believed to be the
market leader" or "Company Y is relatively small and focused
only in the US and doesn't have a presence in Canada."
Most Significant Strength
Highlight their biggest strength, and briefly explain how it
helps them compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight their biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders their ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether they are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data
Major Developments?
Has the competitor introduced any game-changing new
products, technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary
and not evolutionary). Have they developed (or lost) a key
competitive advantage?

3. Competitor 2
Size
Provide information on the relative size of this competitor in
the Playing Field – qualitative perspective is acceptable if data
is not available
Most Significant Strength
Highlight their biggest strength, and briefly explain how it
helps them compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight their biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders their ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether they are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data.
Major Developments?
Has the competitor introduced any game-changing new
products, technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary
and not evolutionary). Have they developed (or lost) a key
competitive advantage?
Our Organization
Size
Provide information on our relative size in the Playing Field –
qualitative perspective is acceptable if data is not available

4. Most Significant Strength
Highlight our biggest strength, and briefly explain how it helps
us compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight our biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders our ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether we are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data.
Major Developments?
Have we introduced any game-changing new products,
technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary and not
evolutionary). Have we developed (or lost) a key competitive
advantage?
Key Conclusions
End with a succinct final paragraph or two which highlights
your most insightful “a-ha” conclusions on the target segment
and the relative competitive advantage of the three companies
you analyzed.
Q1:
You are a PMP just hired to serve as the head of a project
management office for a large, international corporation. The
company is organized as a matrix organization and is in the
planning phase of a large program consisting of multiple
interrelated projects. The teams which are assigned to these
projects are dispersed in offices in a dozen different offices in
Asia, Europe, North and South America.

5. The program manager invites you to a breakfast meeting along
with two of the senior business managers who are major
stakeholders in the project.
“We would like to pick your brain,” says the program manager
as you settle in at a vacant seat at the conference room table
with a mug of coffee and a bagel. “The last time I led a program
like this, I was extremely frustrated by the lack of effective
communication within and across the project teams.”
“For that project, the company provided us with access to a full-
featured intranet, access to Microsoft Project Enterprise Edition
with licenses for everyone on the project, teleconference lines
and WebEx accounts. The project managers worked up and
implemented a complete communication plan using all of this
technology and a detailed status reporting schedule. We held
frequent meetings throughout the entire initiative”
The program manager ruefully shook his head. “Despite all of
that, I found myself continually being surprised by bad news
almost as soon as the project began.” He nods at the business
managers sitting around the table. “We’ve decided we don’t
want to go through that kind of experience again. We’ve
brought in different project managers this time, and they have
put together another, similar, project communications plan. We
would also like to hear your own thoughts about how best to
promote effective communication for a program like this. What
should we be looking out for, and what other things should we
be thinking about?
How would you respond?
Q2:

6. You have just been hired as a project manager for a medium-
sized company.
On your first day at the company, Rodrigo, a senior vice
president, brings you into his office after introducing you to
some of his other direct reports. After some friendly chatting
about how your onboarding process is going, he asks you for
advice about what he considers to be his biggest headache.
“Our company has grown dramatically over the past five years.
We’re proud of our success, and it’s due in large part to the
commitment of our people to delivering good work,” he begins,
then pauses for a moment. “The problem is that as we’ve grown,
we have to take on more and more projects to support that
growth.”
He continues, “It was simple when we were a dozen people
working together on everything, even though we all had to work
extremely hard. In the beginning, we had to focus intensely on
getting major initiatives completed in order to survive as a firm.
We aren’t facing life-or-death situations anymore, but it seems
every time I turn around, someone wants to get started on
another project. Right now, anyone who has an idea for a
project pitches it to me verbally, and I tell them whether they
should get started on it or not.”
“Some of my decisions have paid off, but too many haven’t. Our
company president told me we need to do a better job of
deciding what we should and shouldn’t do. What would you
suggest we do before approving a project, and how would it
help us?
What would you recommend to Rodrigo?
Q3
You are working in a project management office for a Fortune
500 company. Your job is to provide advice to project teams
which undertake a variety of large and small projects. One day,
you are contacted by Neil, a novice project manager who is part
of a team working on an extremely large and complex software
project. The project is of such a great scale that the team

7. expects to contract a lot of the work out to third party vendors.
“I could use some advice,” Neil sighs. “The lead project
manager for the project has assigned me to handle procurement
management planning for the project. As she suggested, I put
together a team of people to work on developing our
procurement approaches.”
“The team has been debating the kinds of contracts we should
be putting together for the project. We are going to need to hire
at least one vendor to handle some complex software
development for some key subsystems. Joe, the representative
from the finance department, is adamant that all of the
procurement contracts we create will be what he called ‘firm
fixed price’ contracts. He said the company has been burned too
many times by cost overruns on vendor contracts, and the CFO
has had enough.”
“Neither the lead project manager nor I have had much
experience with procurement. We thought it would be best to
talk with you before we discuss this with Joe again. How do you
think we should respond?”
What advice would you give Neil?
Q4
You are a project manager in an information technology
delivery unit of an organization which adopted highly detailed
predictive project management processes several years ago.
They are required for all projects, and while they are expected
to be tailored for each project, their use is closely audited by
members of the organization’s project management office
(PMO). A strategic technology investment committee oversees
all technology projects and approves the project management
approaches used on them.
One afternoon, you are called into a conference room for a
meeting with Ali, the head of the PMO and Gabriela, the new
director of software development. You notice that many of the
other project managers employed in the unit are also in
attendance.

8. Ali calls the meeting to order and begins to talk. “Thanks to all
of you for coming. As you may know, Gabriela joined our group
recently and she is getting ready to kick off a new project which
is intended to develop a next generation knowledge management
portal for us. I’ve explained how we prefer to use our waterfall
SDLC on all of our software projects. She’s told me she would
like to use Scrum for this project. I’ll let her tell you more
about it.”
Gabriela smiles and says, “That’s right, Ali! I earned my
Certified Scrum Master credential three years ago, and led a
number of Scrum teams at my old company. The knowledge
management portal project is expected to involve a lot of
innovation, so I think an agile approach would be best.”
Ali looks around the room at all of the project managers. “I’ve
told Gabriela I’m willing to consider the use of Scrum,” he
says, “but this is a large, highly visible project. I’ve expressed
my concerns to her, but thought I should discuss this with all of
you. Should we try Scrum on this project? What considerations
should we take into account in making a recommendation to the
strategic technology committee?”
What answer would you give to Ali and Gabriela?
Q5
You are a project manager who works on the Technology
Project Oversight Committee (TPOC) for OmniCorp, a Fortune
500 company. TPOC includes a team of senior managers
empowered to oversee the organization’s project portfolio
management (PPM) processes for the company’s information
technology projects. These processes have been in place for
over a decade. Due to a retirement within the past two months, a
new manager named Lillian has come aboard the committee.
She had been given access to a knowledge portal containing
historical project portfolio management historical data. Lillian
has significant expertise in one of the company’s major service
areas, but little prior experience with technology projects.
Lillian approaches you a couple of days before the first monthly

9. TPOC meeting she will attend. “I have to confess I’m a bit
surprised by the project success data I’ve seen in the reports for
the past view years. It looks like the failure rate for our
technology projects is running around 30%,” she remarks.
“Look at the report on this project to create a new product last
year. The project was cancelled only two months after it started,
with over 80% of its budget left unspent. I would have thought
we would demand a 100% success rate. For anything less than
that, I’d expect us to either make drastic changes to the way we
run projects or even start replacing personnel. How are we
getting away with this?”
What would you say to Lillian?
Playing Field, Competition, and Our Organization
(Student will update all sections color-coded in RED)
Introduction
Provide an opening paragraph which explains the intended
purpose of this Executive Briefing.
Playing Field
Company Name
Example “Motel Six”
Organization within the company
Example “Motel Division”. (note: If your company is diverse
like Apple, it is advised to analyze a specific segment/business
unit/product because competitors in the iPhone segment

10. (Samsung/Google) are very different than competitors in their
Music division (Spotify, Pandora)
Industry
Example “Hospitality Industry”
Market Size
Provide a market size estimate for the Industry or the Playing
Field
Recommended Playing Field
Example: “Two-star motels in the US and Canada serving road
travelers.” (note: this is the specific description of the segment
of the industry in which you will compete. These often have
geographic boundaries and descriptors of the key product
attributes.)
Rationale for Recommended Playing Field
Brief explanation of why you selected this segment. (Note: we
usually determine target segments based on factors like revenue
potential, growth rates, financial attractiveness, conformance
with our key capabilities and competencies, our ability to meet
this segment’s customer needs, etc.)
Competitor 1
Size
Provide information on the relative size of this competitor in
the Playing Field. if specific data is not available, a qualitative
description is acceptable like "Company X is believed to be the
market leader" or "Company Y is relatively small and focused
only in the US and doesn't have a presence in Canada."
Most Significant Strength

11. Highlight their biggest strength, and briefly explain how it
helps them compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight their biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders their ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether they are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data
Major Developments?
Has the competitor introduced any game-changing new
products, technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary
and not evolutionary). Have they developed (or lost) a key
competitive advantage?
Competitor 2
Size
Provide information on the relative size of this competitor in
the Playing Field – qualitative perspective is acceptable if data
is not available
Most Significant Strength
Highlight their biggest strength, and briefly explain how it
helps them compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight their biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders their ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether they are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data.
Major Developments?
Has the competitor introduced any game-changing new
products, technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary

12. and not evolutionary). Have they developed (or lost) a key
competitive advantage?
Our Organization
Size
Provide information on our relative size in the Playing Field –
qualitative perspective is acceptable if data is not available
Most Significant Strength
Highlight our biggest strength, and briefly explain how it helps
us compete effectively.
Most Significant Weakness
Highlight our biggest weakness, and briefly explain how it
hinders our ability to compete effectively.
Recent Performance
Explain whether we are generally winning or losing in this
Playing Field. Note, you would be well-served to support your
conclusions with data.
Major Developments?
Have we introduced any game-changing new products,
technologies, capabilities, etc. (focus on revolutionary and not
evolutionary). Have we developed (or lost) a key competitive
advantage?
Key Conclusions

13. End with a succinct final paragraph or two which highlights
your most insightful “a-ha” conclusions on the target segment
and the relative competitive advantage of the three companies
you analyzed.