Leatty

Hello everyone!

Last week we had to write an assessment report to the board of directors of Leatty.  Leatty, a major property developer, has already been involved in several projects in China. The company's latest project is in Shanghai. The project is over budget and behind schedule and they faced several other problems. Before the Christmas break, Bernd Heimann and I (project sponsors of the senior management), had a meeting with the project managers to discuss these problems, and devise a new strategy for Leatty. Below you can read my assessment report to see what we discussed.

                                                                 ASSESSMENT REPORT

To:                                           Board of directors of Leatty         

From:                                     Floor Vasse (Project sponsor of the senior management)

Date:                                       5 July 2011

Subject:                                 Assessment report: Devise a strategy to rescue the project

Introduction

On 30 June, the project manager and project sponsor hold a meeting. They discussed the problems

and devised a new strategy to rescue the project in Shanghai. The project is 16 per cent over budget

and two months behind schedule. We urgently need to rescue the troubled project.  We have agreed on

the following plan of action for a new strategy to rescue the project.

Internet-based application

To begin with, we want everyone to use our Internet-based application. This is important, because

then  everyone can collaborate and manage their projects more efficiently. The problem is that some

people are not familiar with this software. Therefore, we want to provide them with a training, where

they will get instructions about how to use this software. With this we want to involve every employee

in this application.

Common goal, communication, working practices

Secondly, we suggest another meeting time, namely, 7 o’clock in Toronto, 13 o’clock in Berlin and 19 o’clock in Shanghai. We think that this meeting time, is better for everyone. With this, we want to improve the communication. Furthermore, we propose to have one get together a year, because it is important to have face-to-face communication. This makes it easier to exchange information and solve problems. Due to poor communication, there is no real sense of working towards a common goal. Therefore, we want to introduce a bonus system. If the company reaches the deadline, they will get a reward for that. We want to improve working practices by having more engineers to reduce the work.

Neutral coordinator

Finally, we want to create a safe atmosphere in the project by introducing a neutral coordinator, so that team members will talk openly about problems and risks. We suggest to introduce one coordinator per country, and they have to report to each other and work together.

Conclusion and recommendations

All in all, we need to improve our communication and we need to clearly set goals for everyone. There has to be a common goal, so that everyone gets involved in the project. By face-to-face communication and another meeting time, we can improve communication. We firmly believe that these improvements are core in the new strategy to rescue the project.

We look forward to your reaction.

Floor Vasse

Project sponsor of the senior management

This was my assessment report, enjoy the rest of your day!

Regards, Floor