Comparing and Contrasting Teradyne's Traditional Project Execution Strategy to the Approach It Used in Jaguar

1. Compare and contrast Teradyne's traditional project execution strategy to the approach it used in Jaguar. What was different and what was similar? In the traditional approach, 1. The requirements were not well defined and the stakeholders kept on adding new features to during the development there were no clear goals defined. This led to the shift of delivery time and affected the quality. 2. Individual divisions and managers had the final say for using any tools. 3. Project progress and phase was not clearly visible to the higher management. 4. Divisions were very inconsistent in project tracking with some using detailed project planning, phase gate model and conduction after-action, while the rest did not use any. 5. Each market segment used a different test platform. 6. Resource allocation was over committed, sometimes to the extent of 300%. In Jaguar approach, 1. Adding new features during development is not allowed, thereby helping in finalizing delivery date. Requirements and are well defined. 2. Management tools such as 3-point estimation, critical path analysis, work breakdown structure and earned value analysis are used. 3. Higher management has a clear view of the progress of the project. 4. Project tracking becomes accurate with the help of tools. 5. Flexible platform strategy is used for testing. 6. It provided correct resource allocation but sometimes forced people into commitment, which is not possible in real life. 2. What impact did the project management tools have on the Jaguar Project? Specifically, how did it change behaviour? How did it impact performance? • Jack O’Brien, the head, was convinced that the tools would provide a robust means to communicate the project status to management and to identify critical issues. • A separate ‘program management’ function was established to facilitate the use of the tools. • Data was entered into a scheduling program to ensure convergence of the schedules across all the sub-teams. • The inter-temporal relationship between every task was specified in advance so the impact of delay of a task on other tasks could be calculated. • The tools allowed the tasks to be simulated in three different scenarios. • The management team was sceptical with regards to the project metrics and did not pay enough attention to the data. • The hardware subsystems managed to hit new milestones, but the software kept on falling behind schedule. 3. What were the unintended consequences of using the project management tools? What lessons should Teradyne take away from the Jaguar project? Unintended consequences of using the Project Management Tools: 1. Though the project management tools were intended to improve the process but it garnered mixed reaction from the team members as they saw it as a distraction in their work.