Exercises at the end of the chapter are designed to strengthen your understanding and retention of the information recently acquired in the chapter.
Essay Questions
Write several paragraphs to provide more in-depth analysis and consideration when answering the following questions.
- In June 2009, the CEO of Fiat took on the management of Chrysler and began a project with the objective of joining the two companies. He chose to “flatten” the management organization by increasing the number of people who report to him from a “handful” to twenty-three. Video conferences between the Chrysler and Fiat management teams take place from a conference room in Chrysler headquarters in Michigan where there are twenty-three seats and microphones for the Chrysler team members (Boudette, 2009). What do you think are the pros and cons of changing the CEO’s span of control in this manner? Will this increase or decrease the complexity of the organization? Your answer should display an understanding of span of control and organizational complexity.
- The DPCI™ and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI): The human personality is more complex than a project; an evaluation system developed by Isabel Myers-Briggs based on the work of psychologist Carl Jung attempts to provide a simple profile based on four ranges of personality traits: introverted versus extroverted, intuitive versus sensing, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perceiving. How does the Myers-Briggs profile compare and contrast with using the DPCI to determine the strengths and challenges of a project?
Discussion
The exercises in this section are designed to promote an exchange of information among students in the classroom or in an online discussion. The exercises are more open ended, which means that what you find might be completely different from what your classmates find, and you can all benefit by sharing what you have learned.
- Controls and procurement. Under what circumstances would the responsibilities of the controls manager and the procurement manager overlap? Describe the situation. Your description should indicate an understanding of the roles and duties of each manager. Consider the examples provided by your classmates and compare them with your example to determine if you correctly understand these two roles.
- Describe the four phases of a project in your own words. Pick a project that would have a score of 1 on the Darnall-Preston Complexity Index in the areas of size, organizational complexity, technology newness, and technology familiarity. Consider the examples provided by your classmates and compare them with your example to determine if you correctly understand how to score a project’s complexity in these areas.
References
Boudette, N. E., “Fiat CEO Sets New Tone at Chrysler,” Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124537403628329989.html (accessed June 21, 2009).
