Business 518 Gps-To-Go Takes on Garmin

GPS-to-GO Takes on Garmin

Analyze the personality and temperament of Joseph Thomas.

After reading the case on GPS-to-GO it was hard to come to the conclusion of Joseph Thomas. Temperament refers to one’s personality meaning are they an introvert or extrovert. Mr. Thomas seems to be more of an introvert because when he was in the meeting with Scott and he tried multiple times to get his point across, he was continuously ignored by Scott. Thomas does not seem like a leader that would tell anyone how to do anything. He simply let the project go the way it was going and did not challenge anyone. He clearly sees that the project has gone over budget or is going over budget but he is not speaking up. Yet he wants to convince Scott one way or the other that the project is in great order. Thomas had a last minute meeting with his team to figure out if there is a way the cost could be cut down before he had to speak with Scott. He knew the project was over budget for a while but has decided to not speak up about it. What would have been the outcome if Scott had not shown up? Would the project have just kept taking up time and money till there was nothing left? Thomas also felt as though he could solve some of the issues with the money by having the products manufactured outside of the United States. That could be a good idea, but the cost is said to still be over budget.

Separate the four (4) steps in the project life cycle and comment about how Joseph Thomas moved through them.

The first step in the project life cycle is the project launch or project initiation. This is when the project is open or the live of the project just started. At this point a project team would be put together and budget proposals would be made. Joseph Thomas did not approach the first step of the project life cycle properly. Joseph Thomas obviously launched or initiated a project because it is clear that there was a project on GPS systems. This is the point that the budget would be set and we know that there was a budget that was set for this project because throughout the project, Joseph kept trying to find ways to cut down on the overly spent budget. The budget was clear and to the point, the purpose of this project was also defined. Everyone understood that they were attempting to come up with a great GPS system that would surpass current technology.

The second step is project planning, but there was not so much planning mentioned throughout the case. If planning was a top priority or a step made during this project, Thomas would never had thought that he had “confident that eventually the company would create something far more advanced than competitors and that the problem was the definition of eventually”. (Pillittere 2009, p. 3). He knew the project would be a success but he didn’t know when that would be. In any project, time