Virtual Private Network of UCC
The following portion of the case study are stated in week 2 & 3 and remain unchanged,
read it if you need to remind yourself on the case-study. Advance to the new potion
directly if you don’t need to be reminded:
Comprised of the two former technical schools and three liberal arts colleges,
The United Community College (UCC) offers a variety of post-secondary programs to 12,000 people every year through its 18
training centers in the region. Like most colleges in the region, its use of information technology had grown tremendously in the past
few years. Although the organization had a complete network infrastructure setup and rich application systems for its users, they were
only available inside the UCC campuses.
The VPN (Virtual Private Network) technology can protect the resources on the UCC network against the problems on the Internet
and at the same time enable staff and students to enjoy the IT services away from campuses. VPN technology can setup secured
encryption tunnels for authenticated users to access the UCC network resources and services “virtually” and “privately” through the
low-cost public network.
The VPN project was estimated to cost one million dollars and the Government will be funding half of the project. The other half of
the project would be funded by the UCC Student Development Fund which usually supports projects proposed by different
departments in UCC for student development purpose. In the next two years, if it were approved, 80% of the fund would be allocated
to the VPN project.
Having been a faculty member of UCC for the past ten years and well respected by the other colleagues, Clair Flynn was appointed as
the Chief Investigator for the feasibility study of VPN project. As an experienced professional, Clair knew that she should consider
this project from a holistic view and understand how the project was situated within the organizational context.
The VPN project was managed to be approved by the UCC Council and decided to outsource to a consultant firm called PV&Lee.
Tommy Prince, a senior consultant of PV&Lee, was assigned as project manager for this VPN project. Tommy’s boss and mentor,
Mary, knew that Tommy had a lot of potential and wanted to give him a challenging assignment.
At the kickoff meeting for the project, Tommy could see that understanding and meeting stakeholder needs and expectations for the
project would be a huge challenge. The new appointed President of UCC attended the first few minutes of the meeting. It was an
indicator of the high profile of the project. The new President was known for not trusting external consultants. He questioned the value
of spending more money on information systems for the UCC in the meeting. The decision to fund this project had been made before
he was appointed. No Government representatives were invited to the meeting.
Kimmy was the head of the Campus Planning Office in UCC. She had worked in the Campus Planning Office for twenty-five years
and knew the campus planning problems that UCC is faced. However, Kimmy knew very little about information systems and
preferred doing work the old-fashioned way. She had heard horror stories about students receiving wrong class schedules and even
wrong academic awards because of computer errors. Kimmy’s new assistant, Jim, was very computer savvy and seemed most
supportive of the project. The kickoff meeting did not go well, as it seemed disorganized and highly political.
The UCC VPN project started. Good working relationships were developed between the team members and creative new ideas were
developed. Tommy had a lot of experience with project management, but he had never worked with the education sector and he was
not an expert on VPN technology. His firm assigned its top technical person, John, to the project to assist him.
The following portion of the case study is NEW and is related to this week’s in-class
discussion on motivation theory:
John had worked on a couple of VPN projects with the local Universities recently and he
understands the education system very well. He was getting high salary due to the annual
increments accumulated throughout the past twenty-five years. His salary is the sole
income to support his family expenses and his two children studying in prestigious
oversea Universities. Ironically, his high salary was also one of the reasons why he had
been transferring between projects in the recent years. Most project managers did not
wanted to carry his salary loading with their project budgets. John’s anxiety on
redundant was also affecting his performance. That is the main reason for his frequent
transfer between projects. He was also surprised that Tommy was ten years younger than
he was.
A few months into the project, another team member, Dorothy, started coming into work
late. The quality of her work deteriorated and, increasingly, she was not communicating
with other members of the team. She was a hardware design expert. Tommy talked
about the problem informally with other team members to try to find out if Dorothy’s
personal circumstances have changed and if this might be affecting her work. The team
members did not know of anything. Tommy decided to talk with Dorothy to try to
understand the problem.
After some initial denials of the problem, Dorothy admitted that she had lost interest in
the job. She expected she would be able to develop and use her hardware interfacing
skills. However, because of the project direction that has been chosen, she has little
opportunity for this. Basically, she was working as a C programmer with other team
members. While she admits that the work was challenging, she was concerned that she
was not developing her interfacing skills. She worried that finding a job that involves
hardware interfacing will be difficult after this project. Because she did not want to upset
the team by revealing that she was thinking about the next project, she has decided that it
is best to minimize conversation with them.
Personal difficulties can affect motivation because people cannot concentrate on their
work. As a project manager, Tommy thought that he should give people time and
support to resolve these issues before letting team members leave the team and find
opportunities elsewhere. However, Tommy also knew that this situation has to be dealt
with quickly. If the problems were not sorted out, the other group members would
become dissatisfied and feel that they were doing an unfair share of the work.
Questions:
1
2
3
4
Compare and contrast the difference in psychological needs of Dorothy and John.
Use Maslow’s motivation theories as model to support your statement.
Explain how Tommy can improve John’s morale and motivation. Outline your
recommended actions.
Explain how Tommy can improve Dorothy’s morale and motivation. Outline your
recommended actions.
Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between Maslow and
Herzberg motivation theories.
Answer:
1
According to Maslow’s model, the psychological needs of Dorothy is growth and
advancement need (self actualization) since she wanted to develop and use her
hardware interfacing skills when she first jointed the project.
John’s problem is fear of the future which belongs to the safety need since John’s
anxiety on redundant was affecting his performance. His anxiety is built up over
time as he has been frequently transfer between projects’
2
Tommy can improve John’s morale and motivation by provide him with safety
needs. The safety needs can be increased by increasing John’s responsibility, team
acceptance, and verbally ensuring John’s contribution in the project. Tommy can
also ensure John’s sense of safety by promising to continue his employment in the
project if he continues to perform well.
3
Tommy can provide Dorothy’s advancement needs by suggestion alternative
advancement substitutes. He can persuade Dorothy that broadening her
experience is a positive career step. He can give her more design autonomy and
organizes training courses in project management that will provide her with more
opportunities when current project has finished.
Both methods redirect her growth need for the advantage of the project and reach a
win-win situation between Dorothy and the company. However, Dorothy’s
consensus on the assignment is important because only she can determine whether
the new assignments are aligned with her grown need.
Before Dorothy’s ‘self actualization’ need is established, her ‘esteem’ and ‘social’
needs should also be restored. She was ‘not communicating with others’ which
implies damages have been done on the ‘social’ level. Her ‘work deteriorated’
may also means her ‘esteem’ has also been hurt. One remedy may be through
social programs like dinner party or barbecue gathering within the project to
reintroduce Dorothy into the project.
Recommended action: tight monitoring on attendance and frequent reviews on
work performance should be applied to ensure that de-motivation does not result in
poor quality or slippage. If it happened, the other team members would become
dissatisfied and feel that they were doing an unfair share of the workload. If the
problem did not resolve, allow Dorothy to leave the project quickly so that the rest
of the team will not be affected.
4
Maslow and Herzberg both stated that ‘NEEDS’ can motivate people to work.
However, Motivation-hygiene by Frederick Herzberg suggests that intrinsic
factors are related to job satisfaction and motivation, and extrinsic factors are
associated with job dissatisfaction.
The basis of Herzberg’s theory believed that the opposite of satisfaction was not
dissatisfaction. Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job would not
necessarily make the job satisfying.
Hygiene factors are factors that eliminated dissatisfaction. They included things
such as supervision, company policy, salary, working conditions, security, and so
forth—extrinsic factors associated with job context, or those things surrounding a
job.
Motivators were factors that increased job satisfaction and hence motivation.
They included things such as achievement, recognition, responsibility,
advancement, and so forth—intrinsic factors associated with job content, or those
things within the job itself.