Cliff Branch was the president of a small IT consulting firm that specialized in developing Internet and mobile applications and providing full-service support. The staff consisted of programmers, business analysts, database specialists, web designers, project managers, and others. The firm had 50 full-time people and planned to hire at least 10 more in the next year. The firm also planned to increase the number of part-time consultants it used. The company had done very well during the past few years, but it was recently having difficulty winning contracts. Spending time and resources to respond to various requests for proposals from prospective clients was becoming expensive. Many clients were starting to require presentations and even some prototype development before awarding a contract.
Cliff knew he had an aggressive approach to risk and liked to bid on the projects with the highest payoff. He did not use a systematic approach to evaluate the risks involved in various projects before bidding on them. He focused on the profit potentials and on how challenging the projects were. His strategy was now causing problems for the company because it was investing heavily in the preparation of proposal, yet winning few contracts. Several employees who were not currently working on projects were still on the payroll, and some of their part-time consultants were actively pursuing other opportunities because they were being underutilized. What could Cliff and his company do to better understand project risks? Should Cliff adjust his strategy for deciding what projects to pursue? How?
(Schwalbe, Kathy. (2016). Information technology project management. 8th Edition. Cengage Learning. Student Edition. ISBN-13: 978-1-285-45234-0)
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