SYSTEMIZING PROJECT MANAGEMENT (PRACTICES) AT ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS INC.

Abstract

This case is about the evolution of project management practices in a small to medium enterprise, Electronic Systems Inc., which is working in an onshore-offshore organisational setting. The onshore office is situated in San Jose (Silicon Valley), California, USA while the offshore office is situated in Lahore, Pakistan. The case describes how the process of managing Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Layout Design projects changed from mere ad-hocism to a more structured and documented process in this organisation. The project managers at ESI felt a need to break away from the ad-hocism as also envisioned by Muhammad Imran, Chief Operating Officer of the organisation in early 2000. During this shift, the project managers faced a number of challenges and thereby made important decisions during the development of the structured process for managing PCB Layout Design projects. The onshore- offshore organisational setting also added to the complexity of developing a structured process. At the time of writing this case, there were some important decisions that needed to be made. As the project management process had been practiced within the operations of only one functional area of the organisation, i.e. PCB Layout Design Process, other functional areas namely; Board Design; Material Procurement; Board Assembly and Testing were still being managed in an isolated, functional, and less structured manner. So, on the one hand there was a need to develop structured processes for managing projects for each of these functional areas and subsequently requiring their integration with the already developed process for managing PCB Layout Design projects. On the other hand, the CEO of the organisation intended to cut down the costs of managing projects by offshoring parts of the project management process to the Lahore office. The decision may have important but currently unknown implications on the core business model of the organisation. A decision needs to be made about how to proceed from this point forward.