Altex Corporation

Altex Corporation Student: Professor: Course title: Date: Altex Corporation Read Case 3: Altex Corporation in the case study section of your text. Write a summary of the case and answer the following questions from the end of the case.  The case involves Altex Corporation and its contract award following World War II. Kerzner (2005) states that after the Second World War, the United States entered into a Cold War with Russia, and for the United States to win; it had to develop sophisticated weaponry that would inflict great destruction to any aggressor. A substantial amount of money running into hundreds of millions of dollars was invested to ideas relating to technology, which had not been developed as yet. Consequently, defense and aerospace contractors were increasing rapidly primarily because of cost-plus-percentage-of-cost contract awards. Technological and speed capability were seen to be very important than cost. To worsen the matter, contracts were mostly awarded not to the first, but to the third or second most qualified bidder for the only purpose of maintaining competition and as well as maximizing the full number of defense contractors. At this time, Altex Corporation was ecstatic when it was awarded the research and development (R&D) stage of the Advanced Tactical Missile Program (ATMP). According to the terms of the contract, Altex Corporation had to submit to the Army in 60 days after the awarding of the contract, a formal project plan for the 2-year ATMP effort. During that period, contracts did not require the development of a risk management plan, and a meeting to assess the risks in the ATMP effort was held with the project manager of R&D (Kerzner, 2005). Why was a risk management plan considered unnecessary?  It was considered unnecessary because contracts during that time did not require a risk management plan to be developed. Moreover, it was considered unnecessary since according to the project sponsor, many new weapon systems requirements were established by military officials who did not have a sense of reality regarding what it takes to build a weapon system basing upon technology that did not even exist yet. Should risk management planning be performed in the proposal stage or after contract award, assuming that it must be done?  Chin (2004) stated that risk management involves identifying, assessing, monitoring and managing risks. In project management, a risk management plan is a type of document prepared by a project manager to foresee the estimate impact, risks and define responses to issues. The plan contains details of the strategy that the project manager will employ when dealing with risks specific to the project. Therefore, risk management planning should be performed after contract award to address the organizational readiness that will be needed to prepare for the project implementation (Chin, 2004). Does the...