YOU DECIDE ACTIVITY WEEK 6

PROJ-598
PROFESSOR ROBERT ERICKSON
SUBMITTED BY
SRINIVAS ADITYA
D40424504.

According to the given task, ZAP Pharmaceutical

Company has assigned some fixed contracts for refurbishing their center and make it to
look new. There are lot of delays occurred in the project due to the old project manager
john. So he is been fired now and as a new contractor I (Shawna) took charge in the
company to overcome these issues. The main issue is the contracts are already been
signed and now I cannot change them, only solution is following a strategic plan and get
rid of these issues.
Hello everyone, I am the new project manager Shawna for
this ZAP pharma company. My tasks are to manage the projects in healthcare industry
with my tactics. I have existing tasks and my work will be in participating the
refurbishment of an existing office and install the IT infrastructure and also find a new
area for telephone answering hub. I got this project from the previous manager who
worked here.
According to the PMBOK guide it states briefly about the fixed
price. It mentions that the fixed price for a product to be provided while signing the
contract. So by doing this all the project objectives and costs can be managed with ease
including the technical performance and all the errors can be corrected. It also tells that
the buyers need to know what products and services are produced at the end of
contracts.

When talking about the present issue, here the problem is fixed
price contract and we can see that the previous project manager John didnt judge the
project well. Using PMBOK guide we can easily come to a judgement by referencing the
inputs and outputs of the project. If john used these tools, all problems would have been
solved which are raised. The first issue that can be addressed is paying more costs for
less and cheap works. We can see that he paid $350,000 for the furniture which would
cost only $40,000. This raised more number of problems with respect to the budget.
Now its up to me to address the issues that occurred. Let us go in detail one by one.
1. Is Bear or is ZAP responsible for the inspections? What is a reasonable course of
action given that the project may have to be delayed a week or more?

I think in this situation bear should be the one who is

responsible for the inspection. I think sections would help the company to work at its
standards. For example let us think if there is no inspection, the task will not be
completed and the company goes in vain. When signing the contract, bear has provided
a memo which is already signed by the previous manager john. It is having all the
contract details according to that manager. If the contracts clarifies what bear is
responsible for the inspection should be done, now I (Shawna) should be taken the
responsibility for inspecting the company.

Now the possible solution for this problem is to

change or modify the conditions and agreements which were signed during the contract.
This solution is durable but this will make the company to pay some fines because of
the mistakes done by the previous project manager John. So another solution is that I
should certify that the company is responsible for the inspection. So all the costs should
be paid by the company which is somewhat acceptable.
The actual challenge for me here is to follow the previous
written conditions by the previous manager or to right new terms and follow them.

2. What carpet should be installed? Should work be stopped to evaluate this issue?
What do you do to resolve this?
I think this is my biggest problem for me in this project
because I cannot modify and change the conditions which were already written during
the signing of the contract. The contract does not specify that Annies interior design can
install any carpet that does not meet some specific conditions like wear rating. Now I
have to set up an appointment with the company Annies Interior design and tell them
briefly about the agreement. I should explain them that the agreement was written in
such a way that the carpet should not be place if it didnt pass the wear rating.
If the company tries to approach another company to
get the proper carpet work, there may be a possible solution. But this is to be done
before signing the contract, now its too late. Because the work which is going through
now should be paused and now the carpet must be installed which results in the delay
or the project. Now the cost will be increased gradually because the work is stopped
because of the installation of the carpet. The possible solution for this is meeting with all
the stakeholders because they were already involved in the current project and the
organization.
3. How much is owed to Sheba? What actions would you take as the project
manager?

Another issue that I am addressing in this project is with the

office furniture. The previous written contract by the project manager John states that
Sheba should be paid $350,000 for the furniture work in the office. When I gone through
the original market price of the furniture and approached other furniture dealers, I
noticed that Sheba is over paid for the work. The whole furniture work would not
increase more than $40,000. Now the possible solution for this is thoroughly check the
contract which is written previously and check whether Sheba has ruptured any part of
the contract before terminating it.
Also I need to go through the terms and conditions in the
termination part of the contract to see whether there is any certain period of time for the
termination of the project. I think if the office equipment is delivered then the company
would have to follow the contract which is already written and pay the whole money to
Sheba and complete the contract.
Contractual Issues in the Project.
There is a delay in performing decisions about these issues,
I think my solutions would work out for the company. ZAP should be well aware that
they cannot postpone the decision and they need to set up a meeting to discuss these
things. The issues were:
Bear Construction Company is filing a claim that the company is not responsible
or will not pay for any inspections those were conducted by the local survey
managers. The company has provided the sheet of signed memo by the previous
project manager John during his time period. This states that the ZAP Company
is the one who is the authorized one for all its permits and inspections and any
other issues. However, if we clearly notice the contract written, we can find that
Bear is responsible for this. Failure in overcoming this problem will prolong and
delay the project to minimum of one week because Bear is not taking care of
these required inspections.

Another issue bought to me is Annies interior design where the contract states
that the carpet must have a specific wear rating requirement. The same contract
states that any use of Non generic materials during the work of the project is not
allowed. And the problem is it contains special wear rating because this would be
all non-generic materials. The company has already bought these materials and
started installation of the carpet and it does not meet the required rating.
There is another problem in the project with the furniture of the company. The
company has paid to Sheba $350,000 for the furniture work to be done inside.
But due to an error in the contract, it states that Sheba is over paid. I think talking
with her about this issue and settling it down as soon as possible will help the
company not to face and big consequences. It is important for me to set an

appointment with her and let her know about the contractual issues those were
done by the previous manager John and making her to agree for any new
contracts would be helpful.

References:

1. Garett A. Gregory, World Class Contracting. 5th edition 2010

2. PMI, PMBOK Fifth Edition, 2013