Critical Essay on Commitment: Graphic Novel on Managing Project Risk

Introduction

The book Commitment-Novel about Managing Project Risk is a graphic novel with seven sections and an epilogue about risk management that aims at improving the decision-making process. The book focuses on helping individuals obtain more information and have control of their decisions. Real options and theories are well explained in this book. The book introduces the challenges faced by a project managers to the reader via the main character, Rose Randall. As a project manager, Rose faces several difficulties, and help to deal with the struggling project came from a source she never expected. The book gives examples of Real Options model that explains how a project can control its risks.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Chapter one of this book introduces two characters, Rose and David, where David is a project manager and Rose, who is the protagonist of the novel, is the administrator of the project. David, the project manager and the boss to Rose, takes advantage of her because she feels obligated to him. Reason being, David supported Rose when the other project managers failed to hire her following a fall of a previous project. In her role as a project administrator, Rose passes on edicts from David, analyses the progress of the project and provides the reports necessary for management. Analyzing the development of the project is one of the critical concepts of risk management in this novel. The aim is to evaluate how objectives and results might change in the event of a risk and ways to mitigate potential risks. David is seen to be highly convinced by his work, but the project in this chapter is a perfect death march. This is because the chances of the project to fail are very high. The section ends with the introduction of another character Lil, who is a sister to Rose and she is the one who insisted her to seek help

Chapter two of Commitment is like an adventure story where David is fired after introducing his plan on completion of the project. Rose rescues the project as a way of saving the job both to her and the team (Maassen, Matts & Geary, 2016). Having taken over the project, Rose faces personal doubt and fears on whether she will be able to overcome the challenges. The need to lead the team brings about the necessity to conquer these fears, and this is what made Rose turn into the project schedules and Gantt charts to look for a way forward. Though the team is working extremely hard, she urges them to work harder and starts organizing tasks, but this still never solved the problem. It is at this point that Lil introduced to Rose the concept of real options. A practical option is not a commitment or an obligation but the right to undertake specific business tasks.

The idea of real options is defined by three unique features. The first one is that it is a choice and if one can't choose, then there is no option. The second feature is about the value of the opportunity and gives reasons whether to carry out the option or not. The certainty of the option automatically makes it a commitment or a decision that can now be well-executed, and this makes the option no longer a choice. The last attribute of an opportunity is that it expires. Availability of options at some given point ceases due to changes in conditions and time. Therefore, a choice can be available at a specific duration and be rendered useless in another period. The book describes the requirements of the project as commitments that engage the team into a death march development path.

The members can trace the road to success if the requirements and decisions can be viewed as options based on the discovered situations as the development of the software continues. This chapter introduces change which is a critical concept in risk management. The ability to embrace change in a project means that you have already accepted risks, and by this, the risks can be managed successfully. The chapter concludes by management ready to terminate the development of the project, and this was because the plan submitted by Rose was no different from the one presented by David.

Chapter three of this novel begins with the introduction of agile methods. Rose cries for help, and Lily answers her cry and persuades Rose to call for a helping hand from the mentors. Rose decided to take the advice from Lily and called the mentor to plan for a meeting. The number used to reach the mentor was from a business card given to her by Lily. The meeting was scheduled to be at the Cantina of Learning, and as she left to meet Jon, nobody said goodbye which makes Rose look like an outcast to her team. One of the blogs owned by Lily has a call out describing knowledge options and provides advice on finding a mentor who is an expert in the subject of your interest. Rose leaving work to meet a mentor at the Cantina of Learning is an option to obtain knowledge necessary for the existing circumstances. The meeting between Rose and the mentor, Jon, is the beginning of a redemption journey.

Jon informs Rose on stand-ups and visualizing work which is a way of identifying all the work in progress. This is a risk management concept because work visualization identifies the position of the team in the development of a project and gives direction on the coordination of the team activities. Identification of work in process is an added advantage because it helps to track every task. This process discourages multitasking from avoiding work in queue that slows down the production of results. Visualization is one of the critical methods in agile and a concept of risk management where teams self-organize and self- manage. Jon introduces Rose to Liz, who pointed out the solutions of each real option. The first solution is to postpone the decision as you collect more information. The second is to choose an option that is easiest to change, and the last one is to invest in an alternative approach that makes change easier. Liz recommends Gary as the best coach to Rose to help her use the new tools. The chapter ends with a letter from Rose introducing the concept of refactoring and a blog entry from Liz talking about the value of change.

Chapter four begins with the introduction of more agile and lean techniques, including staff liquidity and work visualization. Gary and Rose build display on the procedure to take to develop functionality. Use of the wall as a kanban board helped Rose recognize that her team was more focused on starting new tasks than finishing them. Rose identifying status of jobs is a risk management concept, and this helps to identify specific risks and ways to handle them. To solve noise issues caused by the new level of conversations near the board led Rose to give up her office to the team to hold discussions and moved into the common team space.

The organization hierarchy is flattened, and the team is part of the decision-making process which is a crucial concept of risk management where risk information is disclosed. Rose is faced with a challenge where development is faster than the test group. Staff liquidity concept is introduced which is necessary for risk management where team members change roles to solve problems. Lily connects Rose to another mentor, Magnus who told Rose that stakeholders are more interested in value not specific features of the project. Magnus ends his conversation with Rose by emphasizing that a team should consider the reason for a decision before committing to any course of action. The chapter culminates with entry from Lily's blog discussing value.

Chapter five is relatively a short chapter, and it highlights one of the vital techniques in which agile teams can manage and organize themselves on their own. The section starts where the manager to Rose informs her that has removed off two junior personnel and posted them to another project. Rose advises him that the move to take the two would result in a disruption to the liquidity of the team's staff. Her boss retaliates that instead, he could have taken her experienced staff. The conflict over staffing opens the door for Rose to expound on the concept of staff liquidity. The staff liquidity process commences by assigning people with few tasks of which they have the expertise, in other words, least options. In the case of the self-managed workforce, it demands that the members have self-knowledge and a good deal for the team. Personnel, whose choices are more, fill the capacity gaps after the initial assignment and are available to respond in the event things occur. Flexibility is achieved when the team members with the most options are allocated last. From the text, notably, having a vast experience may not translate options. Experience and expertise in one field provide the least choices, and hence it should be allocated in the beginning.

Rose emphasizes that the team assigns to the limitations that are found in the process of project development. In the text, she combines two concepts, which are the bottlenecks and the constraints; however, the error is of less significance. The manager is appalled on finding out the team's decision to pair testers and business analysts. Rose responds by explaining that the group had faced challenges when analysts submitted their work to both planning development and test planning, which functioned in parallel. Unfortunately, the issues that had occurred in the test planning were discovered during text execution hence necessitating rework when it is too late. By pairing test planning and business analysis before, has remarkably advanced the knowledge of the team, of the tasks they are allocated from the beginning of the process. Therefore, in the development cycle, less rework will be required. Rose finally let go of two personnel, but instead of giving out junior testers, who have few options, she gives up two people who are more experienced and have more options. The manager views the move as Rose's problem with relating with the senior people or experts. He orders for a review to determine whether the project should be terminated.

Towards the end of the chapter is the blog entry on staff liquidity and shortening feedback loops. An annual project whose output is realized at the end of the project gets the feedback of production only once. However, a plan that delivers within a month receives response several times, thereby minimizing the risk of failure to provide value. Short repetitions and feedbacks reduce the threat since the team has considerably more options. Staff liquidity is achieved by lowering or getting rid of dependence on one individual to do a given job. Also, assigning staff with the lowest number of options initially, and those with the most in the last. Finally, the personnel with more options should train those with few to build on the abilities of the taskforce.

In chapter six of Commitment, a corporate inquisitor is introduced, Duncan is sent by the management to observe the project's progress. The book authors use the observation by Duncan and his conversation with rose to link game theory with real options. The game theory here entails the study of models of cooperation and conflict in the making of decisions. Rose mentions that when given the choice of uncertainty or certainty, most people will pick the latter. Hence, when given an option to wait for more information or to move on and make a decision without it, they would rather risk making a wrong decision. In the blog entry, she indicates that she has started observing options everywhere since she learned about the real options. Options balancing, is made a business of a price one is willing to incur for a choice to be an option instead of a commitment. Rose, advices this about adjusting options: be conscious about what you consider an option, be aware when making commitments as they cannot be reversed and do not expect too much...