Becoming an accidental project manager  (Page 2/5)

Since there would be five divisions represented, John planned that each of the five divisional representatives would write a section of the study, detailing the impacts of the order processing system on their operations and defining whatever order processing needs they have. The business analyst would capture and document the business requirements and write the technical portions of the report. John’s function would be to coordinate the efforts of the others and to integrate all the pieces into a cohesive plan.

As John started to put his team together, he immediately ran into trouble: he was unable to get a business analyst assigned full time to the project. Because his division was in the midst of developing the B2B system, all business analysts were already over committed. John went to his boss, Mike, with his problem, but was simply told that he would just have to make do with the resources available on a day-to-day basis.

John thought his luck was changing when he tried to obtain the procurement specialist for his project. After several enquiries someone told him he should talk with Doug Black, who worked in the contracts and procurement department. Doug was two months away from retirement so his workload was being reduced. John reasoned that one month assignment on his project would fit in with the plans to ease Doug into retirement. As a consequence Doug was assigned full time to the project to help pick up the slack of not have a business analyst on the project.

John next approached the information resource manager located in the Information Technology division and told him of his need for an internet specialist and e-commerce expert. The resource manager immediately assigned Sara Stone to help John with internet matters. Unfortunately, with no internal e-commerce system experience, John was told that he would have to go to an outside consultant for the e-commerce expertise needed.

The varying degrees of success John had had so far continued when he tried to recruit the representatives from the different divisions. The vice president of the information technology (IT) division, Sam Nelson, was nothing like what he hoped for. His request for assistance was met with an uncomfortable silence. A clearly upset Sam said, “I don’t fully understand why you and Mike are playing the lead role on something like this. Building an order processing system is basically an information technology chore and should be left to the IT experts. I’ve had my team looking into the matter of automating the order processing system for months, and now you come in here telling me what to do.” He dismissed John saying that he would "look into things personally." John noted that he had specifically not indicated that he would provide any cooperation. In contrast, John had a good reception from the finance division; the vice president of finance, Lynn Waters, announced it was about time BizNex Inc. entered into the twenty-first century and said she would be glad to assign someone from her office to help John on the project.