CASE STUDY

Note: In developing your answers you can make any assumptions you wish, provided these

are reasonable, do not contradict the content of the case study and are clearly written down.

Assume you are a professional project manager working for a food product company called

Fresh Foods Inc. The company specialises in producing and distributing healthy food

products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and plant-based protein.

You are used to being put in charge of projects that have previously been managed by

somebody else and have run into difficulties, with a remit to improve the performance of the

project and achieve the best possible outcome.

Fresh Foods has been commissioned by a large grocery store chain ("the client") to develop

and launch a new line of plant-based meat alternatives, including burgers, sausages, and

ground meat. The grocery store chain is looking to tap into the growing trend of consumers

who are looking for healthier and more sustainable food options.

As part of the product development process, Fresh Foods initiated the current project that

you have now taken over. The company has assembled a team of experts in food science,

marketing, and operations to oversee the development of the new line of plant-based meat

alternatives. The team includes representatives from the main functional divisions that will be

involved in the project, including the Research and Development (R&D) Division, the

Marketing Division and the Operations Division. The team also includes members from the

various support functions, such as IT, and the various centralised functions, such as Finance

and Human Resources.

The product development equipment is supplied by a specialist food science equipment

supplier called FoodLab Ltd and installed by a specialist contractor called FoodMachinery

Ltd. The marketing campaign is being developed by Fresh Foods' own Marketing Division,

and the operations team is responsible for scaling up production and distributing the

products to the grocery stores.

The project has been running for around three months now and has hit serious problems.

The internal team structure was disrupted when a number of Fresh Foods' senior project

managers all left at the same time to join a rival food product company. This left Fresh Foods

with an immediate shortage of experienced project practitioners. The company appointed a

number of new project management graduates and promoted some people to junior project

manager status, but the result in this case has been poor and the project has gone

increasingly over budget and has fallen further and further behind schedule. Fresh Foods

has become extremely concerned and has appointed you to act as a senior project manager

taking responsibility for all aspects of the project. The contractors and suppliers, together

with the internal project team members, remain unchanged. The only difference is that you

now head the team and responsible for producing the best possible outcome./nAs part of your remit, you are required to examine the performance of the project in detail in

terms of time, cost and risk planning and control, and where appropriate, make

recommendations as to how the performance of the project can be improved.

You have immediately established a steering committee with the client's representative and

made sure the Legal Services Section (LSS), within the Operations Division, will resume

responsibilty for handling all contracts with external parties and that the Procurement

Services Section (PSS), within the Finance Division, to handle all negotiations, bids and

payments for the various suppliers. You report directly to Fresh Foods executive

management through the steering committee with the committee chairperson being your

sponsor./nQuestion 1

Maximum Word Count 1000 words

(a) Making any reasonable assumptions, design and illustrate a suitable organisational

breakdown structure (OBS) to represent the project organisational structure showing

all communication, authority and contractual linkages and explain the rationale

behind the design.

(10 marks)

"Internal project management within a matrix structure offers the best of both the

project and functional systems to some extent." Critically discuss this statement,

supporting your answer with examples from projects you are familiar with or the case

study.

(15 marks)

(Total 25 marks)

(b)