Module 4 – Case
PROJECT CLOSEOUT
Case Assignment
“The past is never dead.
It’s not even past.”
—–William Faulkner
In this Module, we consider what happens to a project once
it reaches the finish line, if it ever does.
Some projects, such
as the iPhone, are finished at product rollout.
Production, of course, continues as a frantic pace, but the design is
frozen, at least for a time.
Other major projects, notably telescopes and particle
accelerators, are never finished, at least in the eyes of the development
teams. Rather, they’re taken away from
them by the customers, who are anxious to begin work, and convinced that better
is the enemy of good enough.
Other projects just sort of wither away. President Reagan’s ballistic missile defense
system, popularly known as Star Wars, encountered a plethora of technical
challenges and budget overruns. The
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 decreased the perceived urgency of a
missile defense system, and the program has languished ever since. The first full-scale test, to be followed by
an operational deployment, was cancelled in 2009.
The Manhattan Project was enormously successful, yet it
stalled at the end of WWII. The US had a
monopoly on nuclear weapons, which it wanted to safeguard; yet after the tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946,
the stockpile of A-bombs was exhausted.
The propeller-driven B29 bomber continued to be the only delivery
system. The elite team of physicist at
Los Alamos dispersed to institutes and university faculties. Although the “Fat Man” bomb was a massive,
inefficient device, no new design work was undertaken.
Obviously, nuclear weapons did not go away. In addition to weapons development, a host of
ancillary industries have come into being, such as nuclear power
generation. The newest generation of
thermonuclear weapons, with yields in the megaton range, can be carried in
backpacks. What happened?
For this Case, please trace the evolution of the American
nuclear weapons program from VJ Day (Sep 2, 1945) through dissolution of the
Manhattan Engineer District in 1947. Be
sure to address the following questions:
Q1: What steps were
taken to consolidate and safeguard the knowledge gained during execution of the
Project; that is, to benefit from
“lessons learned?”
Q2: What decisions were made concerning the sharing of that
knowledge?
Q3: Most American officials were convinced that “the secret”
of the A-bomb could remain an American monopoly, given adequate security. Was that realistic? Why or why not?
Q4: How did the organizational legacy of the Manhattan
Project, particularly the strong link between basic scientific research and
national security, affect American policy going forward?
Q5: With the benefit
of hindsight, and modern project management techniques, how could the end of
the Manhattan Project have been managed more effectively?
Assignment Expectations
Integrate your answers to the above questions into a
well-constructed essay. Feel free to
use tables and bulleted lists, if appropriate.
The readings do not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to “fill in the
gaps,” using your understanding of the Project’s history, plus the Background
Information.
Style and format must comply with the Writing Style
Guide. ( TUI Guide, n.d.)
This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling, grammar and style
will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (Writing Guide) is
encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write,
neither more nor less.
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