DeGrandis, AOC, Ladybird: Project Performance Evaluation Presentation

This presentation evaluates the performance of three projects: DeGrandis Running Shoes, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Partnership, and Ladybird Sporting Apparel. The evaluation assesses each project's alignment with strategic goals and ethical standards, analyzing their respective project performance scorecards. The analysis covers key aspects such as customer satisfaction, revenue generation, and adherence to ethical guidelines, highlighting successes and failures. The presentation offers conclusions on the effectiveness of each project, including recommendations for improvements. The DeGrandis project, despite exceeding budget, successfully introduced new cushioning technology. The AOC partnership generated significant revenue but faced ethical breaches. The Ladybird project failed due to poor product quality. The presentation underscores the importance of proper planning, stakeholder inclusion, ethical conduct, and customer focus in strategic project management. The student analyzes the projects and provides recommendations to improve future project outcomes.

Strategic Project Management
Name of Student
Date

Project A: DeGrandis Running
Shoes
• The project was enacted to introduce
a new cushioning technology for shoe
sole. The project managed to
successfully deliver the product within
the time frame associated with the
project.

Project Alignment: Strategic Goals
and Ethical Standards
• Effective project management entails comprehensive alignment project objectives
and the company’s strategic goals. At the same time, ethical standards should govern
project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation in corporate sector (Ahn
and Park 2016).
• In DeGrandis project, the objectives of the project were in line with the organization’s
strategic milestones.
• The company’s management needed to improve customer experience as well as
enhance the revenue margin.
• In fact, the company has witnessed an increase in revenue with a margin of over $5
million.
• On the contrary, the project did not entirely adhere to inclusion and ethical factors.
The board was not consulted when seeking the partnering company to manufacture
the shoes.
• A comprehensive assessment of partners assists the project team to ensure that the
ethical provision and expectations have been met (Ingason 2015). The inclusion of all
stakeholders also ensures that ethical issues have been addressed (Davis 2014).

Project Performance Scorecard
Snapshot
• Project performance measures are multidimensional and cover multiple
elements, which could be categorized into five key perspectives. Use,
quality, learning, benefit, and process perspectives could be determine
the performance of a project (Mazur, Pisarski, Chang, and Ashkanasy
2014).
• DeGrandis running shoe project was tailored to provide a comfortable
shoe brand, which was achieved through the manufacture of a sole
based on new cushioning technology.
• The benefits of the project included customer satisfaction, competitive
advantage, and revenue generation, which were attained even though
the project budget exceeded the anticipated value.
• Although the anticipated results in terms of quality were met, the process
did not include all the stakeholders since the board of directors was not
part of the consultation during the selection of the manufacturing partner.

Project Performance Scorecard:
DeGrandis Running Shoes Project
Stakeholder
Perspective –
BOD not
completely
involved
Use Perspective –
Introduce new
shoe sole
consolidation
technology
Learning
Perspective – New
product development
and innovation
achieved
Quality
Perspective –
Product was
satisfactory and
customers’ needs
were met
Project Process
Perspective –
Process was
comprehensive but
the budget was
exceeded
Project Benefits
Perspective –
Revenue increase $5
million, Competition
against international
brands
DeGrandis
Running Shoes
Project

Conclusions
• Proper planning should take care of the external factors and
accommodate for financial risks (Carvalho and Rabechini 2015).
• The actual budget of the project was beyond the estimated value.
• Secondly, the team failed to achieve comprehensive inclusion of
stakeholders across all the stages of the project. Primary
stakeholders in projects should be included in decision processes
(Eskerod and Huemann 2013).
• The third failure emanates from improper assessment and
evaluation of the project partners to determine whether they meet
all the required standards, which resulted in collaborating with a
manufacturing firm that uses child labor to meet its workforce
needs.

Recommendations
• In this project, it is important to reconsider
manufacturing partners who adheres to the
company’s ethical practice and operation
criteria.
• Moreover, the project team needs to ensure that
they include all the primary stakeholders during
key decisions of the project to increase the
diversity of ideas, stakeholder satisfaction, and
project success (Eskerod, Huemann, and
Savage 2015).

Project B: Australian Olympic
Committee (AOC) Partnership
• The project was a partnership with
AOC where the company was
mandated with the responsibility of
supplying sporting items to the
Australian Olympic team.

Strategic Goals Alignment and Ethical
Standards in the Project
• Based on the outcomes of the project, the Olympic team received the sporting
equipment as expected while the company generated significant revenue in
return.
• In fact, the estimated revenue increase was about $3 million and above, which
clearly show that the outcomes of the project were in line with the strategic goals
of the company in terms of revenue generation.
• When a project is aligned with the organizational goals, it is possible to achieve
the anticipated performance indicators (Patanakul and Shenhar 2012;
Shanmuganathan and Baskar 2016).
• On the other hand, it was later discovered that one of the DeGrandis senior
executives, who was also the sponsor for the project, had bribed an AOC official
to approve the company’s sponsorship.
• Bribery and corruptions taint the image of a project and impair the corporate
goodwill that is expected as part of the code of conduct (Dagiliene, Leitoniene,
and Grencikova 2014). In this case, the project failed to meet the ethical
standards of corporate operations.

Project Performance Scorecard
Snapshot
• Although the project ran six months over in terms of schedule, each
requirement in terms of sporting equipment was successfully met.
• At the end of the entire partnership, the organization registered more
than $3 million revenue increase.
• It is important for project team to create a comprehensive project
requirement while paying attention to the needs and expectations of
each stakeholder involved (Eskerod, Huemann, and Ringhofer 2015).
• In this project, multidimensional consultation was conducted to create
a list of requirements that was used for planning, implementation, and
evaluation.
• However, in terms of process, the project team was unable to meet
the code of conduct provisions when the project sponsor bribed an
AOC official.

Project Performance Scorecard: AOC
Partnership Project
Stakeholder Perspective – A
comprehensive inclusion criteria
was followed to create a list of
project requirement
AOC Partnership
Project
Project Process
Perspective – Process
was comprehensive
but the timeline was
exceeded
Quality Perspective –
Project was successful
and AOC’s needs were
met
Project Benefits
Perspective – Revenue
increase $3 million,

Conclusions
• The project team ensured that they have linked
the objectives of the project to the strategic
goals of the company especially in terms of
revenue generation.
• The project resulted in an increase of over $3
million in income.
• However, it failed to meet the ethical standards
the moment one of the senior executives offered
monetary incentives to an AOC official to
approve the partnership.

Recommendations
• A clear and unified communication channel enhances
transparency and accountability (Silvius, Schipper,
Van Den Brink, and Planko, 2012).
• The company needs to establish an official point of
contact for each project to avoid cases where bribe is
used to influence project outcomes.
• Interdisciplinary working techniques are also
essential in preventing the violation of the
organization’s code of conduct during project
planning, implementation, and evaluation (Svejvig
and Andersen 2015).

Project C: Ladybird Sporting Apparel
• The Ladybird sporting apparel project
was designed to introduce
environmentally friendly brands of
sporting products in local and
international markets.

Project Alignment: Strategic Goals
and Ethical Standards
• DeGraandis is not the only company concerned with
the introduction of environmentally friendly products
to the market since there is increased awareness
regarding the need for conservation (Garza-Reyes
2015; Olson 2013).
• As seen in this project, the company failed to provide
good quality products to the customers.
• It is unethical for companies to offer poor quality
products to consumers while attributing high
expectations and value (Jonasson and Ingason
2013).

Project Performance Scorecard
Snapshot
• Although the objective was attained, the eventual quality
was poor.
• Customers were not satisfied with the quality of the new
apparel.
• The project did not lead to a much-anticipated change in
revenue because with time the sales declined and finally
the company closed the orders from Ladybird.
• Nevertheless, apart from the challenges associated with
the performance of the products in the market, the project
team ensured that the implementation took place within the
scheduled period and according to the estimated budget.

Project Performance Scorecard:
Ladybird Sporting Apparel Project
Stakeholder
Perspective
Project Process
Perspective
Ladybird Sporting Apparel Project
Project Benefits
Perspective
Quality
Perspective
Scorecard Metric of
Perspective
Scorecard Outcome or Results
There were no inclusion-
related issues
The process adhered to the
timeline and the budget but
there were no inspection of the
final product before the
launching was done
The quality was poor and did
not meet the expectation of
customers
The company expected to
enhance its revenue but the
market backlash impeded the
achievement of this dimension
Learning
Perspective Product were improved to be
environmentally friendly

Conclusions
• The process and outcomes are equally
important (Zeng, Ma, Lin, Zeng, and Tam 2015).
• A critical assessment of this project indicates
that it was a total failure because the final
products did not meet the needs and
expectations of the customers.
• However, the project was delivered in time and
within the allocated budget.

Recommendations
• Based on the magnitude of failure depicted in the Ladybird
partnership project, the project team needs to understand
the importance of incorporating the needs, expectations,
tastes, and preferences of the targeted customers in
product development and ascertaining that the same
elements have been attained in the final product before
launching it to the market.
• Additionally, the company needs to partner with other
organizations that adhere to quality issues and customer
satisfaction as opposed to those that could compromise on
quality and focus on profits.

References
• Ahn, S.Y. and Park, D.J., 2016, ‘Corporate social responsibility and corporate longevity: The
mediating role of social capital and moral legitimacy in Korea.’ J. Bus. Ethics, pp. 1–18.
• Carvalho, M.M.D. and Rabechini, R., 2015, ‘Impact of risk management on project performance:
The importance of soft skills.’ Int. J. Prod. Res., Vol. 53, pp. 321–340.
• Dagiliene, L., Leitoniene, S., and Grencikova, A., 2014, ‘Increasing business transparency by
corporate social reporting: Development and problems in Lithuania.’ Eng. Econ. Vol. 25, pp. 54–
61.
• Davis, K., 2014, ‘Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success.’ Int. J.
Proj. Manag., Vol. 32, pp. 189–201.
• Eskerod, P. and Huemann, M., 2013, ‘Sustainable development and project stakeholder
management: What standards say.’ Int. J. Manag. Proj. Bus. Vol. 6, pp. 36–50.
• Eskerod, P., Huemann, M., and Savage, G., 2015, ‘Project stakeholder management—Past and
present.’ Proj. Manag. J., Vol. 46, pp. 6–14.
• Eskerod, P., Huemann, M., and Ringhofer, C., 2015, ‘Stakeholder Inclusiveness: Enriching
Project Management with General Stakeholder Theory.’ Proj. Manag. J., Vol. 46, pp. 42–53.
• Garza-Reyes, J.A., 2015, ‘Lean and green—A systematic review of the state of the art literature.’
J. Clean. Prod. Vol. 102, pp. 18–29.

References Cont.
• Ingason, H. T., 2015, IPMA Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. International Journal of
Project Management, Vol. 7, No. 33, p. 1635.
• Jonasson, H. I., and Ingason, H. T., 2013, Project ethics. Gower Publishing, Ltd.
• Mazur, A., Pisarski, A., Chang, A., and Ashkanasy, N.M., 2014, ‘Rating defense major project
success: The role of personal attributes and stakeholder relationships.’ Int. J. Proj. Manag., Vol.
32, pp. 944–957.
• Olson, E.L., 2013, ‘Perspective: The green innovation value chain: A tool for evaluating the
diffusion prospects of green products.’ J. Prod. Innov. Manag., Vol. 30, pp. 782–793.
• Patanakul, P. and Shenhar, A., 2012, ‘What project strategy really is: the fundamental building
block in strategic project management.’ Proj Manag J, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 4-20.
• Shanmuganathan, N., and Baskar, G., 2016, ‘Effective Cost and Time Management Techniques
in Construction Industry.’ International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology, Vol. VII, No.
II, pp. 743-747.
• Silvius, G., Schipper, R., Van Den Brink, J., and Planko, J., 2012, Sustainability in project
management. Gower Publishing, Ltd.
• Svejvig, P. and Andersen, P., 2015, ‘Rethinking project management: A structured literature
review with a critical look at the brave new world.’ Int. J. Proj. Manag. Vol. 33, pp. 278–290.
• Zeng, S.X., Ma, H.Y., Lin, H., Zeng, R.C., and Tam, V.W., 2015, ‘Social responsibility of major
infrastructure projects in China.’ Int. J. Proj. Manag. Vol. 33, pp. 537–548.