Pluriel-Case study
Pluriel case study.doc
1. The Pluriel project is performed in an international setting. Based on the literature and the case, what specific challenges can you distinguish in the Pluriel project and how should these be handled? Please include the perspectives of the different stakeholders in the project, e.g. PSA, Inalfa, Italdesign, and subsuppliers.
2. The Pluriel project is a time-critical project, concerning a highly innovative new solution. What consequences does this have for planning and organizing the project? Based on the literature, propose a suitable planning method and organizational form for the project.
Project Management in International Setting-722A25-09-2
Pluriel Project Case
SMIO, 01.15.2010
Participates (Group 18):
Chi Jonathan
Son Mooyoung
TSAI Shin-Chih
WANG Xin
Lecturer: Nicolette Lakemond
Introduction
In the international setting, a project always has to deal with challenges. As a complex international project, the Pluriel project has to operate in a global level; it may also have to face many different challenges. In order to have a deep understanding of Pluriel case, the study tries to identify several major challenges from perspectives of different stakeholders and offer some solutions. Furthermore, the study also tries to suggest a suitable planning method and organization form for Pluriel project.
Challenges and how to handle the challenges
There are several major challenges Pluriel project may face, which are communication issue, trust issue and leadership issue. First, base on the case study, we noticed that the Pluriel project is an international project. In general, there are four different stakeholders involved in the projects, they are PSA, Inalfa, Italdesign, Subsuppliers. The Figure 2 in the case shown these stakeholders consisted of many different units and located in different countries all over the world. According to Sosa & Eppinger (2002), the communication among the international project team may be challenged by the communication barriers. Because of exist of physical distance, overlapping working time, and cultural difference, among the different members in the Pluriel project, the communication in the project may be challenged (Sosa & Eppinger, 2002). The most obvious barrier for communication in the project is the distance. As the major part of project, the Inalfa Roof Systems Technical Centre Venray and Inalfa Roof Systems Venray Project Team are located in Netherland; but the other important part of the project – PSA Villaverde Madrid Team with some units are located in Spain. Some sub-suppliers even located in America and Asia. The global distribution of the project organization increased the difficulty for communication. Culture difference is another barrier for the communication within the project (ibid). The different units in the projects are from different countries with different culture and traditions. There may some conflicts between different cultures, thus obstacle the progress of the project.
Communication is very important for a complex project like the Pluriel project. To make sure the quality and timing of the outcome of the project, a communication plan has to be established and implemented (Walt, 2005). The communication plan need to include kinds of activities, such as conferences, seminars and exchange programs. The communication plan can be identified as following; the method of active communication approach mentioned by Beckhard & Pritchard (1992), intending to create an environment where employees with different background can be involved in and exchange opinions. According to Beranek and Martz (2005), relational training also a good method to help improve communication and get higher level of cohesiveness, better virtual meeting process and higher level of satisfaction and outcome of projects.
Second challenge is trust. The major partners in the Pluriel project is cooperate each other for the first time, so there are not much strong trust among the different units within the project; e.g. Inalfa has involved in the roof industry for a while, but compare to their competitors, they are still a small player. It is the first cooperation between Inalfa and PSA, there is no pre-established trust between them. According to Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999), while the trust is low, a dark side will show up: low individual commitment, role overload, role ambiguity, absenteeism, and social loafing may be exaggerated in a virtual context. The trust building process in project may be slow. However, the Pluriel project is a time critical project. In order to produce the satisfied outcome in time, the project team has to cooperate with each other tightly based on a strong trust while the trust is built based on tensed communication in normal projects. In order to build a trust faster than usual, both Inalfa and PSA need to pay extra energy. First, they need to improve the communication as mentioned above. Second, according to Oertig & Buergi (2006), the face-to-face contact is a key method to develop trust. The face-to-face contact should be initiated by a formal team building sessions with a facilitator to “agree to the relationship” and define the rules as to how the team was going to work. Informal contact mentioned above also can help the formation of trust, e.g. sitting down over lunch to break barriers.
The third challenge is leadership issue. The Pluriel project is a complex cross-cultural project. It is hard to influent to all the employees who involved in the project. According to Oertig & Buergi (2006), in order to influent people over whom they have no real authority, Project Leaders have to “develop trust and respect, to enable them to successfully interact with each other and provide each other with what they need to develop the product (Ibid.)”.
From the different perspectives of the stakeholders in the project, there are different challenges for different stakeholders.
PSA:
According to the case study, PSA worked as the only sponsor of the Pluriel project. The major challenge for PSA is how to cooperate with the new supplier Inalfa in the Pluirel project and make sure the outcome of the project is satisfied and in time.
Inalfa:
Comparing to the competitors, Inalfa is a small player in the car roof industry. It is first time for them to involve in the big case. Lack of experience of the international project may be the biggest challenge for them. They need the support from not only PSA but also from Italdesign and subcontractors. So a good communication also is very important for them to manage the case and finish the entire project in time. And financial control ability may help Inalfa’s limitation on the budget.
Italdesign:
Italdesign is working with the international engineering team which consisting of about 60 members from different organizations. We assume the biggest challenge is how to organize the international team and make sure everyone in the international team can work together efficient and effective.
Sub-suppliers:
For sub-suppliers, the old supplier may have to face the increase of order in short time. For new supplier, they have lack of the experience of the cooperation with Inalfa. In order to get over it, a good communication is necessary.
Planning method and organizational form for the Pluriel project
The pluriel project is related with many stakeholders such as Inalfa, Italdesign and PSA. For many stakeholders, the Pluriel project is first trying business, e.g. it is the first time for PSA to work with Inalfa; it also is the first time for Inalfa to work in this kind of complex international project. Because of the lack of corporation experience, many invisible variables and Unforeseeable changes will come up during the process of the Pluriel project, even though the project team may have considered many variables at planning phase.
Moreover, the Pluriel project is a complex case which close to long-term project for producing 10,000 roof systems every year rather than short-term project which may meet its end phase soon. This means, in the beginning phase of the project, neither PSA nor Inalfa really know whether the project works and the outcome is positive and accomplished on time. The project may need to re-plan after some problem or variables appear. We believe the project needs a continuous planning during the process of project. It can help the project to revise the approaches or activities, in order to achieve the positive outcome in the end. Considering all these conditions, we assume the rolling wave method, which consider enough variables at first phase and allows to be revised later, may a good choice for the planning on the Pluriel project. According to Tonnquist (2007) the core theory of rolling wave method is to plan first part of project in detail and allow the latter parts of the project contain a few major milestones only. While the progress of the project reaches the milestone of the first part, the project team can plan the next phase in detail. The method is good for the project with many variables. Advantage of this method is that unnecessary planning is avoided in the beginning of the project. The project team can focus on the first part of the project. But there is also a disadvantage that is difficult for the project team to assess exact costs and time in the beginning of the entire project.
Organizational Form
According to the case study of Pluriel project, we can find that the project is operating in international setting related with many different functional units located in various countries like as Netherlands, France, Italia, UK, Spain, Germany, Korea and USA. The multi-location setting may cause many difficulties for the project manager to organize and control the entire project. In order to achieve the project goal in time, the project manager should choose one of following methods to operate the project in international setting like this;
1. locate most important team managers in one location and work with the project manager; and make sure each unit in the project has one manager to control and report the progress to the project manager
2. Setup report schedules for each units of the project, and make sure every units are working in offices which have long distance communication equipment and communicating to each other by telecommunication method like as internet or phone.
According to Mcdonough, Kahn, Barczak (2001), the project teams have been divided into three types:
1. Colocated NPD teams are comprised of individuals who work together in the same physical location and are culturally similar.
2. Virtual NPD teams are comprised of individuals who have a moderate level of physical proximity and are culturally similar. One example of a virtual team is where team members are located in different parts of the same country. Another example is where team members are in the same building but on different floors.
3. Global NPD teams are comprised of individuals who work and live in different countries and are culturally diverse.
In case of inalfa’s pluriel project, many team members from various countries and companies are involved and cooperate together. Moreover various progresses of the project works are in process at the same time. Hence, we can say that composing a global virtual project team will be better than making one collocated project team.
Conclusion
Based on our analysis, in the case, as a complex international project, the Pluriel project has several challenges such as communication issues, trust issues, leadership issues, and time limitation. But from the different perspective of the stakeholders in the project, there are different opinions. In order to deal with these challenges, the project manager of Pluriel project needs to plan the project and organize the project team well. We also can supply the rolling wave method as a suitable planning method and visual project team method as organization method for the project.
Reference List
Beckhard, R., and Pritchard, W. (1992) “Changing the essence: the art of creating and leading fundamental change in organizations”. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers Inc.
Beranek, P.M. and Martz, B. (2005) “Making virtual teams more effective improving relational links”, Team Performance Management. Vol. 11, No. 5/6, PP. 200-213.
Jarvenpaa, S.L. and Leidner, D.E. (1999) “Communication and trust in global virtual teams”, Organization Science, Vol. 10, No. 6, PP. 791-815.
Mcdonough, E.F., Kahn, B.K. and Barczal, G. (2001) “An investigation of the use of global, virtual and collocated new products development teams”, Product innovation management, Vol. 18, No. 2, PP. 110-120
Sosa, M.E. and Eppinger, S.D. (2002) “Factors that influence technical communication in distributed product development: an empirical study in the telecommunications industry”, IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage., vol. 49, No. 1, PP. 45-58.
Tonnquist, B. (2008) Project management, Bonnier Utbildning, Stockholm.
Walt, S.J. (2005) “Looking Beyond the Obvious in Merger Integration”. Mergers and Acquisitions: The Dealermaker's Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3, PP. 41.
