The document describes a conflict in a project between maximizing quality and staying within budget. Specifically, the purchase manager wants to use high quality cement for the swimming pool bottom, but the project manager believes this will exceed the $10,000 budget. An evaporating cloud model is used to analyze the conflict. The model shows the two requirements of meeting budget and maximizing quality cause a conflict through their prerequisites. By checking the assumptions in the model, alternatives are identified such as obtaining high quality materials at a lower price or allocating less budget to other areas.

1. Student’s name: Yiheng, Deng
Student’s ID: 0435
Professor: Thomas Lechler
Course ID: MGT 610
Date: 1/26/2013
Analysis of an identified problem on the project level with an
Evaporating Cloud Model
Conflict description:
In the following conflict cloud model, I would like to show you a typical conflict
between two of the fundamental requirements in general project plans, budget
and the quality. Assume that the project goal is to build a swimming pool with
a budget of $10,000. Purchase department manager wants to maximize the
quality of the swimming pool’s button, so he wants to purchase high quality
cement when paving the button ground. However, the project manager
opposes this idea with the point that if they use that certain high quality
cement, they will exceed the total budget. In fact, both of them try to maximize
the project’s goal achievement at the same time, but they cannot avoid the
conflict.
Model description:
In the following model, we can see that, in order to maximize the goal
achievement (A), the project needs to meet two requirements, including B:
achievement the project goal within the total budget which means the cost of
the swimming pool cannot exceed $10,000, C: maximize the quality of the
project which means the swimming pool should be built in best quality. So, in
order to meet requirement B, we have prerequisite D that the purchase
manager should not purchase high quality cement to build the button ground;
otherwise it will raise the total cost of the swimming pool. In order to meet
requirement C, we have prerequisite that they should use the high quality

2. cement. In this way, the perquisites cause conflict. The assumptions between
each logic chain are shown on the arrows in the chart.
To solve the identified conflict show above, the first way is to find out whether
prerequisite D block the requirement C, or whether block B. we can see
that, if the project team don’t use high quality product they absolutely cannot
maximize the quality of the whole project, on the other hand, if they use high
quality product, they might exceed the total budget as the project manager
said. So we need to go to next step to dig a solution.
In this step, we will try to check the assumptions being made by both sides in
the conflict. If any of these assumptions is not valid, it means there is a break
point in the logic, and we can find a third alternative to solve the situation.
A
C
B
D

3. When checking the assumptions between requirement B and prerequisite D,
we find out that assumption 1” High quality products are expensive” is not
necessary true, because maybe there are some ways to obtain high quality
product with a low price. For example, the company can sign a long term
contact with the product supplier so that they can get a discount or compare
many suppliers before choosing one of them to get a satisfied price.
Meanwhile, assumption 3 is not necessary true neither, since the project
manager can allocate fewer budgets in other parts of the project which will not
affect the whole project quality significantly.
Now, we check the assumptions between C and , then we can find out that
assumption 2, 3, 4 are not necessary true, because high quality product
sometimes cannot lead to high quality project with poor producing procedures
while normal materials with high quality performance can also achieve high
quality project goal. What’s more, they should always concern about budget
when purchasing materials.
All in all, to solve this conflict, I suggest that the project manager can allocate
fewer budgets in other parts of the plan after weighting the importance of
them, or they try other way to obtain high quality materials with a low price, or
they can just use normal materials but with high performance procedures to
achieve the project goal.