Ishan Chhabra
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KayTee Incorporated Case Analysis
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May 25, 2022
Advanced Project Management Assignment-1
Introduction
The KayTee case is about the failure of a company due to a lack of standardization in business
operations and processes, and a lack of commitment from executives despite having strong
functional domain-level expertise. KayTee was a firm founded by two friends Terry and Kevin to
meet the social services needs of the Katanga community on the west coast of Africa. Both
Terry and Kevin had years of experience in the social services sector with respect to fundraising
and operations and had also held numerous leadership positions in social services
organizations. Despite the founders having a great functional - domain level expertise, their lack
of commitment to the organization with respect to time and effort lead to the ultimate failure of
the company. The founders failed to facilitate collaboration, communication and standardize
processes across numerous functional teams of the organization. The founders were so busy at
their day jobs that they lacked the bandwidth to contribute to the KayTee. Kaytee also failed due
to not having a project management methodology which was a required criterion by many
contracts awarding agencies, which made KayTee lose out on numerous bids for the projects.
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Using the maturity model from week 1, what maturity level is KayTee, Inc.
operating at? Explain your answer.
Based on the reading from week 1, I conclude that KayTee is a firm operating at the “Embryonic
stage” where the firm lacks the basic project management structure, and has little to no support
from executives or line managers. The firm is primarily reliant on the domain-level expertise of
functional managers and executives to successfully execute and produce high-quality projects.
The traction of projects for an embryonic firm is too small to require a need for project
management methodology. The firm is functioning as a job-shop where they execute projects as
required by the clients, and the success of the project is dependent on the project management
skill of the organization. There was no training program implemented by Terry and Kevin for the
organization related to standardization, process improvement or project management. In order
to successfully scale the firm while maintaining the quality standards, KayTee needs to
implement a project management methodology, and a communication and collaboration
platform across its numerous functional teams. Lack of collaboration and communication among
functional managers gave the freedom to employees to execute the projects the way they
wanted without following any standards. A standardized project management platform such as
Trello or Jira would help to facilitate collaboration, and the firm would also need to standardize
other processes such as reporting mechanisms, project charters, job-aids, tools, and forms.
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Why was KayTee, Inc. successful when the company first started?
KayTee was successful when the company started because the firm’s leadership team had a
strong vision for the firm and had strong domain-level expertise in social services sector. Terry
had worked as Head of Operations for a local company and had a strong track record of
fundraising for social intervention projects, and Kevin has numerous years of experience in
managing grants for multiple local and international projects. The firm had successfully identified
a niche in the market and differentiated itself from the competitors by identifying the top 5
customer and client concerns that were not addressed by other companies. This made KayTee
successfully achieve its product specifications, customer needs and business objectives.
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Why did KayTee, Inc. lose business over time?
One of the primary reasons that KayTee went out of business was because KayTee lacked
collaboration and communication among the functional managers and teams. Based on
Kerzner, “World-class project management methodologies are integrated with other
management processes, such as change management, risk management, total quality
management, and concurrent engineering”. KayTee lacked integration among the stakeholders
involved in the projects which resulted in a lack of standardization of work across the entire
organization. Integration of management processes across numerous stakeholders involved in
a project plays a key role to get all the stakeholders on the same page regarding meeting the
project scope, product requirements, business objectives, and allocation of resources.
According to Kerzner, “World-class methodologies are continuously enhanced through KPI
reviews, lessons-learned updates, benchmarking, and customer recommendations”. Another
key reason that Kaytee went out of business because they might have been unable to track
progress across their projects because of not having a proper project management
methodology. KayTee was unable to integrate the senior management and executives into their
projects because of their lack of commitment to the firm and was unable to foster a culture of
continuous improvement. A culture of continuous improvement would have helped KayTee to
find out problems they face in their projects and fix them to meet the scaling demands of the
organization.
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What could KayTee, Inc. do to increase their project management maturity?
Based on Kerzner’s reading, the following steps would help KayTee to successfully meet the
growing demands of the scaling organization while maintaining the quality standards of their
projects.
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“Improved interfacing with suppliers Improved interfacing with customers”
KayTee needs to adapt to a more customer-centric approach to their organization. If the
customers are looking for a good project management methodology to achieve business
objectives and project scope, KayTee should implement right project management ethology
to standardize their business operations and processes, and efficiently allocate their
resources.
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“Clearer definition of milestones”
In order to meet growing demands of the organization with respect to scaling, KayTee
should set clear definition of milestones both for their projects and their overall corporate
goals and business strategy.
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“Clearer role delineation of senior management”
There should clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of the senior management and
they should be highly involved in the decision-making process about project management
methodology and implementation throughout the organization.
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“Recognition of the need for additional templates
There should be standardized templates for tools, forms, and project charters across each
functional units which align with the overall corporate strategy and business goals.
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“Recognition of the need for additional metrics”
Implementing metrics both at the project management level and corporate level are ideal to
track the progress across different projects. Metrics help to set target with respect to time,
effort and financial capital involved in different projects or functional units, and help to
prioritize the resources to efficiently achieve the business objectives and customer needs.
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“Template development for steering committee involvement”
KayTee significantly lacked commitment from the steering committee. A template
development for steering committee involvement would help to keep the involvement of
keystakeholders align with the project goals, and also help to distribute roles and
responsibilities across different functional manger and executives based on skill set match.
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“Enhancement of the project management guidebook”
KayTee needs to implement an organization wide project management methodology and
training material to standardize the “process of work and reporting” across all the functional
units. The project management guide should cover all aspects of starting, tracking and
reporting of projects which aligns with the project scope and overall mission of the company.
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The company should also implement a collaboration platform such as JIRA/Trello to
facilitate collaboration and communication across different functional groups.
Conclusion
KayTee is a company with a strong value proposition and product market fit. They have strong
leadership team, but they lack the standardization and project management methology to
successfully execute their projects. KayTee should get the executives more involved to
implement a culture of continuous improvement, where the company is learning from its
mistakes, and are constantly optimizing their operations to scale in a lean manner. In order to
successfully scale the organization, KayTee needs to implement a strong project management
mythology to efficiently meet its business goals, project scope, product requirements, and
customer needs.
Sources
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices : Achieving global excellence. John
Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.