ALPHA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATED PROGRAM

MASTER OF BUSSINES ADMINISTERATION –IN PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
COURSE TITLE: SEMINAR IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT (MBA-PM724)

Case study Project Anatomy

Author: Joakim Lillieskold and Lars Taxen
GROUPE -6, ASSIGNEMRNT --2

STUDIED BY: ID NO
1. ASAYE TILAHUN-----------------------------------------MPM1/14/007/11
2. DAWITE WONDEMSIGNE-------------------------------MPM1/14/018/11
3. FASIL FANTU-----------------------------------------------MPM1/14/022/11
4. WENDWESEN BIRHANU--------------------------------MPM1/02/068/07
5. SIMAMLAK ADMASU------------------------------------MPM1/14/044/11
6. NETSANET ASEFA----------------------------------------MPM1/14/038/11
7. KANTEYIGEGN TSEGA----------------------------------MPM1/14/066/11
8. SOLOMON ABEBE-----------------------------------------MPM1/14/046/11

Submitted to: DR .FANTA .T

Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA
NOV 2019

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Executive summery.

The organization was trying to develop a new central processor for the AXE system. And
the project was called the central processor. The project is a composition of seven major
projects and several subprojects in different location with more than 300 people involved.
The project challenged by cultural differences due to different corporate cultures which
having different management styles and different approaches and there is no control over
the project status or when things should be done. So in order to manage those complexity
of projects and to gets things back on truck the company start restructuring its employees
and the new manager decide to try the new approach that has been implemented in the
Japanese EXT project which provide general picture(the anatomy). The anatomy is to
simply visualize a system by focusing on dependencies between system capability and
through integration, re-planning and follow up to address the problem. This approach
consisted of three phases:
 Definition of the anatomy
 Development task in to verifiable increments and
 Integration of those increments
The approach used to address the problem.

The central processor project incorporate seven major seven project in which each consists
of subproject a project with this vast scope and complexity need integration with each
subproject and major project to in order to achieve the intended objective but the project
was delayed as compared to the pre study also there was no control in the project.

Because of the project is too complex and risky, to use traditional approach, were requires
too much effort to keep track of all the changes. So it needs up-to-date general picture of
the project called ANATOMY of the project.
With this regard the new manger starts by interviewing people in the project to reach
bottom of the problem and apply the anatomy method. The anatomy is more like human
centric way of describing a system. The anatomies when used in development of large

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complex systems allow the project to easily grasp view of what to do, what is done and the
dependencies between work packages.

The prosses of creating the anatomy for central processor project consists of a group of
actors, mainly system architects and experts, meet and discuss which functions are
necessary in order to build-up the system from zero to full-system functionality. The
mindset during the creation of the anatomy was “if you ‘power-on’ what happen then and
then.” The question is repeated until you reach the end functionality. Thus, this approach
focuses on building up, instead of breaking down. The approach of creating the anatomy
containing three phases:

Definition of anatomy, where major parts of the system from an integration and
testability perspective and from customer point of view by asking What is the first thing
customer do? The next? And the next? What they expect out of the product? What is the
end result?
Increment planning, where the purpose is to find a shared view of how to implement the
system and in what order increments need to be completed to ensure smooth progress
Integration increment, where the purpose is to establish an integration plan based on
the anatomy and the increment plan. It also describes what is delivered, from whom and
when. It also clarifies the receiver for each internal delivery. Thus, it focuses on the
dependencies between subprojects.
Generally, when managing complex system development, the most common approach is
characterized by an assumption that complexity can be reduced by breaking it down into
pieces, and uncertainty can be reduced by careful planning. This approach often fails to
clarify the crucial dependencies between system functions, since the ‘breaking down’
approach is top-down, and thus does not show how the system actually works. In the case
of central processor project the approach that has been followed allow the project manager
to successfully manage the complex project and crate a shared understanding between
mangers. about the system dependencies which in turn is a prerequisite for commitments,
agreements and responsibilities in the project.
Some of the benefits given by this approach are:

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  Everyone’s contribution is visible
 Find system faults early
 There is a receiver for every delivery - Push and Pull concept
 Overall System and Project view or real progress
Weak point of the organization under consideration

 Even though the project scope was clear the mangers lacks to Manage the project
scope primarily concerning with defining and controlling what is and is not included
in the project
 The project was challenged by cultural differences, especially the corporate cultures.
 Many of the organization employee have been working in same organization setting for
several years and different part of the company have different management style and
approach

Strong point of the organization under consideration

 When the project faced delay and become at risk the organization notice this problem and
took corrective action to reorganizing employee who have been working for several year in
one department and make them to cooperate each other also reorganization bring many
manger from other part of the project so that they can contribute different idea for success of
the project.

lessons learned from the case.

Managing any project depend on the nature and scope of the project and the way how we
solve problem when they arise. When managing large project there is a belief that following
the common way of management of cost, time, scope and quality of the project under any
circumstance lead to project success, however, this common way may not applicable all the
time. The central processor project give a lessons about managing complex project the
method of developing project anatomy from defining anatomy to integration planning also
how in a complex project shared understanding can be created, plan the project and
provide the means for an efficient follow up of the status of subproject included in the
project

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Recommendation
 When managing complex system development project, it is important to use Project
anatomy in order to create a shared understanding

 During the development of project anatomy for complex project everyone involved in the
development should understand nature of the Anatomy.

case discussion.

1. Explain the purpose(s) of project anatomy

The purpose of the first step is to establish a shared architectural view of the system in the
form of an anatomy. All the involved actors should have the same general image of what
should be achieved. The image may be more or less correct; nevertheless, actors always
work and solve their part of the problem on the basis of the image they have.

2. What are the disadvantages of project anatomy?

There are some aspects that become more difficult when using the anatomy.

 It can be difficult to motivate the cost (i.e. time and resources) that is required to
create the anatomy and the integration plan.
 It is difficult to measure benefits such as a shared understanding and clarification
of dependencies; however, the experience from several projects clearly shows the
benefits of a concept such as the anatomy.
 Other difficulties in using the anatomy approach are that it can be hard to persuade
the developers to think from the perspective of the customer.

3. What are the differences between the project anatomy and the WBS? Is it any
better? Why/why not?
 WBS is the traditional approach to project planning usually proceeds from the
product structure.

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 A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is defined, stating the order in which different
activities are to be performed in order to develop the product parts. In defining the
WBS structure, the dependencies between the activities are only implicitly
controlled. However, it is the role of the network diagram to capture the
dependencies between activities, not the WBS Nevertheless, in large projects,
network plans become complex, and the consequences of actions most often
unforeseeable. Further, network diagrams can appear overwhelming when it comes
to maintaining them for dynamic projects, where frequent changes are the order of
the day. Consequently, updating and changing the schedule may be very time-
consuming.
 In project anatomy the approach was used as a tool for project management to
achieve control of the project, and traditional project planning was used only to plan
the increments individually. The shared view of what to do and in what order, given
by the anatomy and the integration plan reduces the risk for misunderstandings and
sub-optimizations