Contents

• Introduction 2
• Death march 3
• Projects which faced “Death Marches” 5
• Case 1: A SAP based payroll system for Queensland Health 5
• Case 2: Implementation of DGPS in America 7
• Conclusion 8
• References 10

Description

This assignment is based on the following requirement –
In project management, a death march is any of several types of pathologic projects that are obviously at high risk of bad outcome (i.e., project failure, and possibly threat of personal and group reputation damage). “Death marches” of the destined-to-fail type usually are a result of unrealistic or overly optimistic expectations in scheduling, feature scope, or both, and often include lack of appropriate documentation or relevant training and outside expertise that would be needed to do the task successfully. Often, the death march will involve desperate attempts to right the course of the project.
Your assignment is to identify two recent large projects that can be considered "death marches" and to discuss the reason for these project failures.
In discussing these failures your essay should address the following issues:
• What special project management skills do you envisage would have been required?
• Where all stakeholders correctly identified?
• Did scope creep occur in these projects?
• What steps could have been put in place to avoid scope creep?
• How would the project management team handle new ideas and innovative technological developments that may indicate scope, resource and budget “creep” ?
• What communications plan will best suit projects of this nature?