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CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Engineering Culture at Beck
Dragan Z
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PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

Problem: How can Beck Engineering adapt to the rapid and discontinuous change in demand
and technology?
Solution: Use Scrum Methodology which focuses on short, sharp delivery of projects - allowing
time for rapid feedback and speedy response to changes
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II
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However, it was operating in an environment that had fast and intermittent modifications in
demand, competition, and technology
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Meanwhile, Jim Traddell is a director of a Project
Management Office partnered with Raja James to help him in the aspects of the culture since the
team was curious to learn about the engineering culture at Beck
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Raja was about to leave the office to meet his
informant
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Those platforms and derivatives products helped
employees come about
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That’s why they were respected
and held in high regard
...
The
desire is to first obtain the real product, component, and feature prices, then determine spare part
prices
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Another thing
that they found out was that Beck tried to be customer-centric whereas they help translate what
customers precisely want of the product design
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Meanwhile, Beck is culturally different among others in the sense that
they worked very hard to show to their engineers that all products are equally made and the
customer has every right to see how long down the manufacturing line their product is
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III
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Its
annual income is approximately $ 800 million, with 4,000 employees
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All competitive advantages became available temporarily due to the instability within
the industry
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Any

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CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
advantage is temporary, contributing surprise and flexibility to Beck’s strategy
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Meanwhile, Jim Traddell is a director of a Project
Management Office and is also a project initiator that led the meeting with the consultant
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To make it happen, a meeting with an engineer was
arranged to be conducted in a local restaurant
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Tippie Anne, a 34 - year engineer, stated during her interview that they had a habit of
calling themselves “engineer” which they were
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However, the new Beck comprised 4,000 employees and cash at the hand of $900
million
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Also, the old Beck valued
MBAs
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The newly minted MBAs would then prepare business plans for new products
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But
that didn’t last long
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However, the new Beck was in the making for years and the senior managers spent a lot of time
creating project culture
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Managers appreciated that Beck would not survive if it didn’t have high-value products that were
designed and developed by engineers
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Meanwhile, Raja asked Tippie regarding the design to cost and cost to design
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The design to cost philosophy was being used by the new Beck whereas
the old Beck used to cost to design
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The desire is to first obtain the real product, component,
and feature prices, then determine spare part prices
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Meanwhile, cost - to - design approach
suggests that engineers first design the product, then figure out the price, which the customer may
consider overly high
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This skill offered their organization strategic market opportunities
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Then, they consulted their Kano’s map, and we learned that the asking price was
right
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They used tools of survey design, customer segment, and custom visit documents
to understand what customers wanted before the work began and for undecided customers, they
designed all of the tools and processes to help them determine the customer’s preferences
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Moreover, they are trained to stand in front of customers and
become customer-centric
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Also, they
placed a lot of determination to identify not only the product production status but where it will be
the next day, in the next two days, until its completion
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IV
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FAVORABLE

UNFAVORABLE

Strengths
- Company had been around for
almost 64 years
- $900M annual income
- 4,000 employees
- Customer-centric approach
- Design to cost approach
- High-end output
Opportunities
- Increase the number of
customers
- More clients

Weaknesses
- Organization units are loosely
coupled up with proper
entrepreneurial behavior (Old
Beck)
- Old school management (Old
Beck)
- No advancement in technology
Threats
- Competition of other engineering
companies
- The lack of proper financial
management and business tactics

ALTERNATIVES
Option #1: Apply Event Chain Methodology
Event Chain Methodology is an interesting technique because instead of focusing
on tasks, it focuses on planning for potential risks
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•
•

Pros: Event Chain Methodology enables managers to examine the relationship between
tasks and external pressures
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Cons: Sometimes, project managers can get caught up in identifying threats, they can
forget that external events can be beneficial and present opportunities

Option #2: Apply Spiral Methodology
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Each loop of the spiral is divided into

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CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
four phases - analysis, risk evaluation, execution, and planning - and for every phase, you
undergo multiple review processes and risk assessments
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Cons: The risk analysis element of Spiral requires specific expertise, which may only
be available through additional training
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Option #: Apply Scrum Methodology
Does this method quickly adapt to shifting requirements? Named after the rugby
play, Scrum focuses on short, sharp delivery of projects - allowing time for rapid feedback
and speedy response to changes
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At the end of
every sprint, the team must have produced a usable product
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Cons: Scope creep is a huge issue in Scrum projects - they can easily bloat out of
control if not reigned in
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✓
✓

Economy
(cost)

Effectivity

✓

✓

✓
✓

✓

RECOMMENDATION

I recommend Option# 3 which is to apply Scrum Methodology for Beck Engineering to adapt to
a rapid and discontinuous change in demand and technology
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Workflow max
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