Project Leadership: Case Study of Apple’s Project Purple

This case study analyzes the leadership challenges faced by Apple's Project Purple team in launching the iPhone. It also provides recommendations for launching a successful project.

Project Leadership: Case Study of Apple’s Project
Purple
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Introduction
Since project purple was rolled out in 2007, iphones have become both an economic and cultural phenomenon (Nieto-
Rodriguez, 2018). The sole purpose of creating the iPhone was so as to incorporate entertaining content in phones (since phones then
lacked entertainment content and were not as good as iPods (Devine, 2012).
Project Context
Similar to the majority of Apple’s success stories, the roots of iPhone can be traced back to the Apple’s co-founder and
CEO, Steve Jobs. Jobs began thinking about an Apple phone in 2002 shortly after the release of the first iPad. The most remarkable
and notable aspect about this project is that Apple never launched a full-blown project in developing the iPhone’s first concepts. The
phase of ideation was undertaken discretely with a limited allocation of resources. This is unlike most organizations that launch a full-
scale project for virtually all the ideas they generate and thus leading to numerous failed projects.

The Key Leadership Challenges Experienced
in the Project
In launching new projects, the project’s leadership team faces a complex mix of challenges. The leaders need to mobilize and
motivate a diverse and multidisciplinary taskforce, streamline working across organizational boundaries, and improve the taskforce’s
efficiency to achieve the project’s visualized growth.
Moreover, from the external environment, the team leaders have to face even more complicated and globalized challenging
environments. They need to manage numerous government requirements, keep up with the developmental speed of the competitors, and meet
the key stakeholder’s expectations about the project (Gentry, Eckert, Stawiski & Zhao, 2016).

The Key Leadership Challenges Experienced in the Project
(cont’d.)
The key leadership challenges experienced by Apple’s “Project Purple” leaders included:
1.) Developing Managerial Effectiveness
This challenge affected especially the ability of the leaders in developing the project’s requisite skills. These indispensable skills include thinking
strategically, managing time efficiently, prioritizing tasks and critical decision-making (Gentry et al., 2016).
The project’s team had a short time frame of two years to work on the ideation and production phase of the phone and this was extremely hard to
accomplish especially when dealing with a new product.
2.) Proactively Guiding Change
As a project leader of a newly launched project, it is usually challenging to mobilize, manage, understand, and lead change. Moreover, how the
leader deals with the reaction of employees’ to change is instrumental in achieving success (Gentry et al., 2016).
Numerous Apple executive members tried severally to convince Steve Jobs how producing an iPhone would revolutionize the company’s
performance and entirely change its fortune. Steve Jobs, however, rejected the idea multiple times until the right time.

3.) Managing Expectations of the Key Stakeholders and Politics
When rolling out a novel project it is difficult for the organization’s leaders to manage the company’s critical
relationships, brand image and politics. Additionally, obtaining support from all the managerial divisions is tricky. Getting
buy-in from the company’s key stakeholders, and other departments is typically complex.
4.) The challenge of developing and leading a dedicated team.
When rolling out “Project Purple”, Apple’s top leadership had difficulties in building the right team for the
project. Moreover, team management of a huge team, more specifically 1000 employees in “Project Purple,” was not an easy
task for the organization’s leadership.
Continued

Possible Recommendations for a New Project
1.) Before launching a new project, it is crucial to thoroughly experiment with the product until it is completed and ready to be
launched.
2.) If an executive is dedicated to transforming their organization by carrying out strategic initiatives, it is imperative for them to
push back on half-baked ideas until they are completely mature to be launched as full-blown projects.
3.) To achieve managerial effectiveness for critical resources such as time, it is necessary for the team to commit to a fixed
launching date. The pressure created on the team from setting fixed timelines for important project milestones make the team
members to focus on the project.
4.) Finally, to achieve success in any new project undertaking, it is mandatory to convene a team of the most talented individuals
with undivided dedication(Nieto-Rodriguez, 2016).

Conclusion
Scrutinizing Project Purple through the lens of critical strategic management elements, it is evident that the
project was seamlessly executed and indubitably the most successful project in the history of the industry.
For any organization to launch a strategic project as successful as Project Purple, it is imperative for them to
follow a similar approach as the one used by Apple.

References
Devine, R. (2012). "Project Purple" and the pre-history of the iPhone. iMore. Retrieved from
https://www.imore.com/apple-senior-vice-presidents-phil-schiller-and-scott-forstall-share-brief-pre-history-iphone-and
Gentry, A. W., Eckert, H. R., Stawiski, A.S., & Zhao, S. (2016). The Challenges Leaders Face Around the World More Similar
than Different. Retrieved from https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ChallengesLeadersFace.pdf
Nieto-Rodriguez, A. (2017). Strategic project management. CIO. Retrieved from
https://www.cio.com/article/3236171/project-management/is-the-iphone-the-best-project-in-history.html.