The purpose of this Case Study assignment is to walk through the logical framework (LogFrame) and to create the project management documents needed to successfully lead a projec

Instructions

Logical Framwork for

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o descend gently.

I wish you could have been with us on that bright, sunny Saturday on the 50-yard line of the football field in Paradise High School in California. Watching from the sidelines were my proud parents, hopeful buddies, and one very anxious sister, Cheryl.

I assembled HALO 1 on its launch pad, filled the capsule with water, carefully loaded the unaware guppies, sealed the nose cone with Scotch tape, and began the countdown.

10-9-8-7-6… (Action: Light the fuse)

5-4-3-2-1 (Action: Stand back)

Lift off!

HALO 1 shot up like a rocket, leaving a trail of smoke. It should have reached 2,000 feet, but halfway up it broke apart, the parachute failed, and the passenger capsule came plummeting down towards the goalposts. I rushed to the end zone with my portable water- filled recovery van (which was actually a Chinese food takeout container). Fortunately, the capsule fell onto soft grass, unbroken.

But half of the water was gone from the capsule and my intrepid volunteers were twisted into shapes few tiny fish ever experience. My scientific conclusion was that guppies are not designed for the unexpected 3-G force of takeoff (at least not without training).

I ripped off the Scotch tape that sealed the passenger capsule and dumped the fish into the recovery van. When they sank to the bottom, my heart sank with them. Oh no! There goes my rocket career.

But a subtle fin flicker suggested they were not dead, but were merely unconscious. I discovered that by gently blowing on them, dipping them into water, blowing and dipping, blowing and dipping back and forth, they began to wiggle and slowly regained consciousness.

I wrote a story about the experience for Model Rocket News that gained wide attention and convinced me to pursue an aerospace engineering degree at the University of Washington, as part of the plan to further my budding rocket career. (See Figure 1.2.)

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FIGURE 1.2 The Dramatic Launch of HALO 1

Preserved for Posterity I would like to say Minnie and Mickey escaped unharmed. Unfortunately, Minnie gained a permanent kink in her spine that caused her to spiral downward and hit bottom whenever she swam. For the rest of his life, Mickey swam level, but only in tight ¾-inch concentric circles.

They are still around, well-preserved in a small glass bottle, much like Egyptian mummies. To commemorate their historic flight and contribution to the world of rocketeering, someday I will donate these brave pioneers to the Schmidtsonian Institute for future generations to admire.

In future chapters, we will cover other episodes of my unusual Rocket Man story, and share the lessons learned along the way.

Different Contexts But Similar Issues After earning my BS in engineering at Washington and then an MBA at Harvard, I took a job as a Program Planner in the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, DC, where I learned how to orchestrate strategic plans.

After three years of government work, I became an international development advisor. For several years, I trained project leaders in over 20 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to design projects that improve the lives of the rural poor.

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That is where I mastered the power of this systems approach that has become the basis of my life's work with clients.

After several years of international development work, I switched my consulting practice to serve corporate, government, research, and nonprofit organizations. People in these organizations also struggled to get projects off the ground efficiently. They candidly shared their thoughts and feelings about their projects, such as:

“We plan, but our plans fall apart when we try to execute them.”

“We have good ideas, but cannot seem to implement them.”

“The goals keep changing.”

“Teamwork is lacking and it is tough to get people moving in the same direction.”

“Nasty, unexpected surprises derail us and we spend too much time fire-fighting.”

“Opportunities evaporate because we do not move fast enough.”

“We are more than frustrated!”

The last comment came from a busy manager who was clearly angry because it took weeks to design a project that could have been done in days. Back then, I was certain my approach could help, but at the time it was geared toward the needs of development audiences.

So, I adapted it to meet business needs and began teaching it at the UCLA Extension Technical Management Program. For over three decades, thousands of project managers, mid-career professionals, and technical leaders who attended over 60 of my Strategic Project Management courses there proved the system worked by applying it to projects large and small and getting the results they sought. Some diverse examples:

A global nonprofit health organization needing to create an enterprise management system to serve widely diverse users worldwide.

A satellite television provider needing more sophisticated ways to combat identity theft and fraud.

An industrial company reinventing itself after a competitor's technology breakthrough threatened their main product.

A specialized industrial software company seeking to grow their business.

A nuclear scientist organizing experts at national research laboratories to recover radioactive materials that could fall into the wrong hands.

A visionary entrepreneur needing to design a Minimum Viable Product to secure substantial investor funding.

A social service agency manager caring for mentally and physically handicapped residents needing to solve the root cause of mysterious injuries to their residents.

A department manager in a nonprofit organization needing help to set up a Project Management Office (PMO).

A group of video-game fanatics needing to scale their business to support the rapidly growing popularity of their new online game.

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A national research laboratory needing a long-range research strategy to integrate renewable energy into the national electrical grid.

These very different projects shared certain commonalities. None of them were simple or straig