Was the project manager effective? Why or why not?
The efficacy of the project manager in the specified case is a rather controversial issue. At first glance, Zoe reaches the goal that was set at the beginning of the project – the murderers of her father are captured, and the death is avenged. Therefore, it can be assumed that Zoe, being at the helm of the project, has led the team to victory.
On second thought, however, the project has suffered a range of issues in the process, some operations failing due to inappropriate risk management. For instance, Zoe has been captured by the enemies several times. The specified events could have affected the outcome of the entire project, triggering its immediate failure and putting every member in danger. The fact that Zoe is saved by Nico as opposed to wiggling her way out of the threat on her own (A cat in Paris, 2010), makes her skills as a leader and the manager of a project even more doubtful.
The fact that she is rather clumsy as a project manager and that her success is driven by luck as opposed to careful planning is getting increasingly conspicuous as the movie plot unwraps. To put it simply, Zoe’s abilities in risk management and process monitoring leave much to be desired.
Therefore, from the perspective of project management, Zoe’s skills can be viewed as mediocre. However, one may assume that reaching the project goal implies having professional skills that Zoe could not possibly have at her age and that required the guidance of a much more mature person. Therefore, making allowances for Zoe’s age, one may assume that she has done rather well for a project manager (Lyons & Wilker, 2012).
Was the project team effective? Why or why not?
As has been stressed above, the members of the project team were assisting Zoe with her investigation throughout the movie. Therefore, their contribution to the progress of the case and the identification of the criminals can be interpreted as quite impressive. In other words, the team can be characterized by high rates of dedication to the project goals. However, the team in the movie does not operate under the guidance of Zoe as a fully functioning project team is supposed to.
Instead, the team members make decisions based on the scenario that they are supposed to address, which can be viewed as a positive characteristic, yet it does not contribute to the promotion of a well-coordinated action system in the team. However, the team status meetings, which the communication between Zoe and the rest of the members can be referred to as, may be viewed as a rather strong aspect thereof.
One must admit, however, that the members of the team were recruited rather wisely, each of them contributing to the solution of the problem. The technological expertise thereof could also be viewed as solid, yet the credibility of Nino, who was technically a criminal, was quite doubtful. Regardless, the project team can be considered effective. Although the approach adopted to coordinate the team could use polishing, it can be viewed as rather efficient and, therefore, successful (Crowder & Friess, 2014).
From the sociocultural dimension of project management, identify two areas of opportunity, and provide specific recommendations for improvement
Addressing the area of opportunity known as leadership, one must mention that the project described above could use a better direction (Surette, 2014). As has been stressed above, Zoe as the manager of the project has to perform the basic leadership functions and guide the team members through the process of investigation. In addition, as a leader, Zoe also has to make sure that the functions, roles, and responsibilities are distributed reasonably among the team members. However, as the movie plot unwraps, one realizes that Zoe has rather weak control over the actions of her teammates. Therefore, the leadership issue can be viewed as rather questionable (Kerr, 2012). However, one may assume that she did an excellent job at motivating the participants to get involved in the project in the first place.
The problem solving, in its turn, can be viewed as bearable. The characters have to face a range of unexpected situations that could have been addressed if more thought had gone into the development of a coherent problem-solving strategy. However, the approach that they adopt to escape the complicated situations that they get trapped in shows that they are capable of solving problems quite efficiently adopting the situational approach.
From the technical dimension of project management, identify two areas of opportunity, and provide specific recommendations for improvement
The project outcomes can be viewed as not quite expected for the manager. For instance, the fact that Zoe gains a father figure at the end of the movie building stronger relations with Nino, though rather predictable, is not included in the set of the project goals. Therefore, the scope of the project can be viewed as lacking focus (Maltz & Rice, 2015). Nevertheless, the manager reaches the goals set (i.e., identifying the murderer and avenging the father’s death). Therefore, the project has a somewhat blurred scope (Maltz & Rice, 2015).
Reference List
Girerd, J.-R. (2010). A cat in Paris. Bourg-lès-Valence : Folimage.
Crowder, J. A., & Friess, S. (2014). Agile project management: Managing for success. New York, NY: Springer.
Kerr, C. (2012). Multicultural family art therapy. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lyons, N., & Wilker, M. (2012). Interactive project management: Pixels, people, and process. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Maltz, M. D., & Rice, S. K. (2015). Envisioning criminology: Researchers on research as a process of discovery. New York, NY: Springer.
Surette, R. (2014). Media, crime, and criminal justice. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.