MBA641 Assessment 3: Performance Evaluation of De Grandis Projects

This assignment is a performance evaluation of three projects undertaken by De Grandis Sporting Goods: De Grandis Running Shoes, Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Partnership, and Ladybird Sporting Apparel. The evaluation assesses each project's alignment with strategic goals and ethical standards. It includes a Project Performance Scorecard (PPS) snapshot, providing scores and explanations for various dimensions like stakeholders, project process, innovation, quality, and benefits. Each project analysis concludes with a concise summary and actionable recommendations. The De Grandis Running Shoes project is scrutinized for its unethical sourcing practices involving child labor, while the AOC Partnership is assessed for bribery issues. The Ladybird Sporting Apparel project is evaluated for its quality control failures. The analysis aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of project success, ethical considerations, and areas for improvement within the context of strategic project management.

Running head: STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Strategic project management transcript
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Table of Contents
Project A: De Grandis Running Shoes............................................................................................3
Commentary:...............................................................................................................................3
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................4
Recommendation:........................................................................................................................4
Project B: Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Partnership......................................................5
Commentary:...............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................5
Recommendation:........................................................................................................................6
Project C: Ladybird Sporting Apparel.............................................................................................6
Commentary:...............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation:........................................................................................................................7

2STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Project A: De Grandis Running Shoes
Commentary:
For the company of De Grandis Running Shoes, the company was mainly known for shoe
products ranging from different types of running shoe. Their recent project was mainly based on
manufacturing a new kind of shoe having cushioning sole that were incorporated through the use
of advanced shoe developing technology while providing a brand-new form of shoe within the
expected timeline of the project. Though the company gained success to provide expected
increase in the overall sales of their product through the outselling of the rival international
brand, but still the strategic goal of the company did not follow the right kind of ethical manner
to gain their success. This is because, among the stated Code of Conduct that falls under the
company’s supply chain agreement, the company does not approve engagement of any partners
who rely on child labor activities to produce the products. For every company, the business
organization should follow their formal codification of rights and obligations before performing
or planning any new projects and should convey the planned activities that needs to be
undertaken within the project to the board of directors of the company. But in case of the
company of De Grandis Running Shoes, the project team did not even convey the project plan of
consulting with Chinese supplier with their board of directors as the supplier organization was
engaged with child labor activities that the board of directors after knowing would not have
approved the agreement and hence their goal would not had been succeeded (Gold, Trautrims
and Trodd 2015). This is a highly unethical manner of achieving the strategic goal that the
company followed because while processing with any project related to supply chain, the project
team should follow the basic code of conducts that are predefined within the company’s supply
chain agreement.

3STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Dimension Score Explanation
Stakeholders
5/10
 De Grandis Running
Shoes is the shoe
making company and
manufactures running
shoes.
 They are
manufacturing new
kind of shoe with
cushioning sole
 They manufactured by
the help of advanced
shoe making
technology.
 The project was
successful as they
were able to increase
the sales.
 But they did not
convey their project
plans according to
government approval
of child labor to the

4STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Chinese suppliers.
 The Chinese suppliers
were associated with
child labor.
 The project was
ethically unapproved
and failed to meet the
general instructions of
the government.
Project process
1/10
 The project process
was unethical as they
were associated with
child labor.
The Chinese suppliers were
not checked. They were
unethically fulfilling the
requirements (Borja and
Castells 2013).
Innovation 8/10 Although the company was
associated with unfair and
unethical mean,, but the
project was innovative
enough to stir the market.

5STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
The new kind of shoe with
cushioning sole is innovative
enough.
The company has gained a lot
of profit in the market
Quality 5/10 The quality of the project is
debatable as the manufactured
project has been able to
produce fine quality product.
But the project has used
unethical means which has
lowered the quality of the
project.
Benefit 10/10 The only benefit achieved is
the good quality shoe.
Use 5/10 The manufacturing machines
have been used for the
production of the shoes in the
shoe project.
The child labor has been used
for the manufacturing process
where children have to do the

6STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
work by them.
Conclusion:
From this case we can hence conclude that board of directors plays a vital role within any
company and any vital change that would be taken up in any project within a company needs to
inform to them as they are responsible fir making any major decision of the company. The
unethical way that the project team followed in delivering the project without prior informing the
board of directors might have lead to the decrease in the overall sales of the company along with
damaging the company’s reputation as they failed to maintain the overall code of ethics of the
company where engaging in partnership with any of the stakeholders who are related to child
labor activities is strongly prohibited (Mertz et al. 2014). Child labor is a serious problem
nowadays and any company found guilty with this issue might face a serious concern legally.
Recommendation:
 Taking into account about the major unethical behavior that has occurred within the
company’s project, the following recommendations should be taken into account-
 The board of directors of the company should take active part in having knowledge of the
each and every step of the projects that are undertaken within the company
 It is the sole responsibility of the board of directors to approve the project deliverables
during the early stage of the project initiation (Richardson 2014).
 The code of ethics needs to followed strictly within the overall project with due approval
from the higher authority before the project gets delivered to the end users (Harris Jr et
al. 2013).

7STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Project B: Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Partnership
Commentary:
The main objective that was considered within the second project of the De Grandis
Sporting Goods aimed at becoming the official dealer of supplying sporting equipments to the
major Olympic Team of Australia. At the beginning of the plan, all the necessary necessities of
the plan were recognized along with the possible stakeholders of the project. The project
objectives were successfully met except the scheduled timeframe that ran over more than six
months. Though the company succeeded in meeting their strategic goal and incurred an increase
in their sales to over $3 million, but during the auditing process, it was found that the ethical
standards were not at all met during the entire project. This is so as during the auditing process it
was found that the sponsor of the project who was a senior executive member of the company,
rewarded a high inducement to the AOC authorized so as to get the business approved by them
which is the first case where the company failed to meet its ethical standard. Also, as per the
code of conduct followed by the company, it was clearly written about the prohibition of
payment of any type of bribes for business purposes which the company failed to follow during
this project.
Dimension Score Explanation
Stakeholders 5/10  Australian Olympic
Committee were
selected and were
approached by the De

8STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Grandis Sporting
Goods.
 the company made
profit in meeting their
strategic goal and
were able to increase
their sales over $3
million
Project process 5/10 The company paid high
incentive for the selection of
the brand by the AOC.
Used unethical means for the
procurement (Turker and
Altuntas 2014).
Innovation 1/10 There was no innovation in
the particular course
Quality 4/10 The quality of the project was
not good as it failed to meet
the expectation.
It failed as they chose
unethical means for the
procurement process.

9STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
Benefit 6/10 The company was able to get
associated with AOC
Use 1/10 Unethical procedure like
bribing was used
Conclusion:
As per the second project, it can be concluded accepting or paying any bribe during
project initiation or in any of the project phase of a company is strictly against any company’s
code of ethics and can lead to damage of company’s reputation when gone viral through the
media. Most of the business organizations have their code of ethics that condemns corruption
while not tolerating any type of bribes and failing to meet so can lead to the overall project
failure along with damage of the reputation of the organization (Parrott 2014). Hence every
project that are conducted within any company needs to stay away from the bribery issue as this
is a serious ethical concern that can even lead to taking up of legal actions against the company’s
brand.
Recommendation:
Taking into consideration of the major standard of ethics that got violated within the second
project, the following recommendations are stated as follows:
 The company should strictly prohibit the acceptance of any type of bribery within the
ongoing of any project (Silvius and Schipper 2014).
 The documentation of the project should be transparent enough

10STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
 All the financial documents including the official agreement paper should be submitted to
the higher authority and should be clear enough maintain all the code of ethics of the
company (Fewings and Henjewele 2019).
Project C: Ladybird Sporting Apparel
Commentary:
The plan C of the company of De Grandis Sporting Goods was based on introduction of
the internationally known and an environmentally friendly sporting apparel brand of sports
known as the Ladybird brand ranging from a different ranges of sport related products. Here
also, though the project requirements and its strategic objectives were met during the project, but
the standard of cloth that they used within the production of the superior quality and hence the
company received a high range of customer complaints based on quality issue. From this case it
can hence be analyzed that the company did not even followed the quality standard of the cloth
that they used within their manufacturing of the sports apparel and this is where they failed to
follow the ethical standard within the project deliverable. For any project maintaining the project
quality is the first and foremost consideration that should be taken into account as failing to do so
will increase the risk of client dis satisfaction and in turn will lead to the overall damage of the
company’s reputation. The project team in this case did not maintain the quality standard of the
cloth they used so as to deliver the project in time and thus provided the entire project with low
quality delivery of product.
Dimension Score Explanation
Stakeholders 9/10 Ladybird Sporting Apparel
was provided with the goods

11STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRANSCRIPT
manufactured by the De
Grandis Sporting Goods
company.
The organization is a famous
company and is an
environmentally friendly
sporting apparel brand of
sports that is internationally
renowned.
Project process 7/10 The project process has been
well defined.
The quantity met however the
quality was the issue.
Innovation 5/10 They manufactured
environmentally friendly
sporting apparel.
Quality 1/10 The quality was the main
issue. The quality that was
delivered were substandard
and the customers
complained.
Benefit 6/10 The company failed to gain
any benefit as the customers