Week 2 – Troubles with the Travel Expense Report Project Case Michelle sat at th
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Week 2 – Troubles with the Travel Expense Report Project Case
Michelle sat at the bar, in shock, reviewing the events of the last three weeks. What had she done wrong? How could she have avoided this mess? What could she do now? Should she start looking for another job?
Just three weeks ago she had been called into her boss’s office. She was a little nervous because she had only been out of college for six months and was still learning how the accounting department worked. Frank, her boss, had immediately made her feel at ease. She liked and respected him.
Sitting in Frank’s office that day three weeks ago, Michelle had felt a sense of excitement when he had asked her to look into ways in which travel expenses for the sales force could be computerized. This was the first project that she had ever been given, and she had assumed that she must have been doing a good job to get such a great assignment.
She remembered going back to her office, and realizing that she needed to develop a good plan for completing this project. She wanted to shine and this project would have high visibility. Not only Frank, but also all of the other vice-presidents, would be aware of her efforts. As the corporation had grown, the president, Judy Smith, had become increasingly vocal about the need to computerize more and more business systems. This was a chance to lead the way. She remembered thinking to herself that she would need to cancel her weekend plans and put in lots of extra hours to get the project off to a good start.
As she sat in the bar, she pulled out her original plan. Had she forgotten something? Was it a good plan? It looked logical and complete to her. (See the next page for a copy of her plan.)
Things had gone well at first. The five software vendors that she had contacted each seemed very willing to explain the features and provide information about their systems. She sensed that she would have enough good technical information to put together a top-notch report comparing these packages.
Although she didn’t really get the initial cooperation that she had expected from Fred in the data processing department, she figured that he was just having a bad day. She knew that they were very busy and she didn’t really expect that the internal development option that she had asked him to develop would come out on top anyway. In fact, the only reason that she had decided to include it in the presentation was because she knew that the data processing department would complain if she didn’t; “office politics, as usual.” She was disappointed when Fred refused to commit to any kind of feedback by August 4, her deadline for making the selection.
Travel Expense Reporting Project
Implementation Plan - August 1
Objectives
To implement a computerized system to record travel expenses for the sales force, in order to more efficiently track, report, and control sales force expenses, and
2) To complete implementation by September 1.
Action Items Completion Date
Review and price computerized packages 8/3
Consult with computer department to determine cost of internal development 8/3
Select appropriate alternative 8/4
Report to Frank on selection 8/4
Organize implementation team 8/7
Implement and test package 8/21
Train systems users 8/25
Integrate with corporate accounting 8/27
Activate system 8/28
Complete consultation and support 9/1
In retrospect, Michelle felt that she should have spotted trouble when she met with Frank on August 6th to talk about organizing the project team. Frank had been pleasant enough and had even inquired as to how the project was coming along. Unfortunately, he had also seemed very preoccupied with pulling together a quarterly report for the president. When she had attempted to get commitment for getting people involved the project, Frank had made some vague statement about using whoever was needed. Thinking back on what happened Michelle really wished Frank had backed her up on her staffing plan. Now she wasn’t even sure if he had read her report to him of August 4.
Here is what happened. After meeting with Frank, Michelle had decided that she needed a team consisting of herself as team leader, a secretary for administrative support, two computer programmers to help test out the package and deal with any technical issues, a salesperson to assist with the training, and another accountant to help integrate the travel expense package with the corporate accounting system. She contacted various people that she knew from within the company who might be able to help with this project. Everyone that she talked to except the salespeople expressed interested in becoming a part of the team. She had then sent out a memo identifying the project team members, stating that Frank had supported the creation of the team, and announcing the first mandatory team meeting for 9:00 the following morning in the accounting department conference room. She was sitting alone in the conference room the following morning when at 9:10 Frank had barged into the room. He was red-faced and shouted at her that the project had been cancelled and she was to go back to her old tasks. She had never seen him so mad.
Over the two weeks since Frank’s explosion things only seemed to get worse. Michelle had heard rumors that there had been several angry meetings between the VP of Sales, the VP of data processing, and Frank about the cancelled expense report project. Although Michelle had not been officially informed about any of these meetings, trouble seemed to be in the air. Frank no longer seemed friendly towards her and seemed to be avoiding her.
Sitting in the bar, she again reflected on what she had done wrong. What could all these secret meetings be about? What should she do next?
Consider the travel expense report case. This case study involves Michelle's difficulties with her first project, a travel expense report project. Discuss with your course mates what went wrong, what she should have done differently, and what she should do now. Lay out a specific plan with timelines to address these issues. Assuming that her boss had demonstrated less than skillful management techniques and will not change his style over the short-run, describe how you would deal with such a boss if you were in Michelle's position. By the way, getting a new job or a transfer is not an option in your analysis.
Explanation / Answer
I think Michelle was not prepared for the failure of the plan. She was severly dependent on Frank for the project to move forward. She did not involve anyone else in laying out the objectives and action points of her plan, even though there were a lot of people who were a part of the execution of the same. Michelle should have kept Frank in the loop, be more considerate about his priorities and plan things accordingly.
As a damage control activity, Michelle should first apologise and discuss things with Frank to avoid any miscommunication. While Michelle knows that a lot of secret meetings are taking place at the senior management level, but in order to get a clarification on the same, she should voice her concerns in front of Frank, and seek his opinion regarding the same. Also,she shuld speak to the sales team as to why they were not inetrested in the project and what is it that she can do to involove them. She should then go back to other team members, who did not show up for the meeting and seek clarifications. she should be able to fix all of these issues within 1 week's time.
Once, all the team memebrs are on the same page, they should create a fresh plan for the project, with clear roles and responsibilities.
Given the assumption that her boss had demonstrated less than skillful management techniques and will not change his style over the short-run, as Michelle, I would try to be more and more invloved in the work delegated to me. Further, I would take an independent stand and assume accountability of my actions. While it is important to have a good mentor, given this situation, I would have to work with a lot more efforts and reduce my dependency on my boss. Also, it would be important to continuously communicate with the boss, show him my commitment,seek his suggestions and follow his guidelines.
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