Project Dreamcast: Serious Play At

Project Dreamcast: Serious Play at

Sega Enterprises Ltd.

A Case Study

2. How should success of the Dreamcast project be measured? Draw a CPM diagram for the successful launch of the Dreamcast project. Based on the qualitative information on the case, what do you think will be the critical path?

The success of Dreamcast project should be measured by collecting status information to examine what issues are left open, the risks and last but not least the schedule status. In the latter we make sure that each scheduled task was started and ended according to the planned time. Followed by that is planning and taking adaptive action. The project would be successful if it follows its schedules right and at the end, brings out the desired results and objectives. The CPM of the project should be as follows with the critical path shown in bold black lines.

Task Description

A Market Study

B External Developer Focus Group

C Feature Selection

D Hardware Engineering

E Operating System Development

F Advertising Campaign

G Supplier Selection & Negotiation

H Component Inventory Buildup

I Assembly Facility Setup

J Finished Good Inventory Buildup

K Library & Programmer Toolkit Development.

L External Development Support Setup

M Internal Game Development

N External Game Development

O Platform Promotion

P Publisher Selection & Negotiation

Q Website Setup

R Release Promotion Material Design

S Distribution Channels Development & Negotiation

T Carrier Selection & Negotiation

U Launch Event Organization & PR

V Hardware & Software Shipment

W Launch!

3. Should the release of Dreamcast occur on the originally planned date? Use decision tree analysis to support your advice.

As is shown in the decision tree analysis below, if the launch of Dreamcast is postponed, Sega will lose credibility with a lot of retailers as well as the end consumer, not to mention giving a chance for competitors to enter the market before or slightly after Dreamcast which in turn will cause sales to drop below the projected level. Launching on time, on the other hand, especially that it doesn't hinder quality of the product, will, even though demand will be higher, satisfy customers well enough up until Sega can finally meet it. In the latter, expected sales will eventually be met.

4. In the Assignment folder on the server, you will find an excel file with data for a fictitious video game platform project. Answer the first three questions in the file. Filename: VideoLaunch.xls?

a. What is the critical path and total duration for this project?

The critical path of the project is shown by the bold arrows on the above diagram while the total duration of the project would be 129 weeks.

b. Suppose that a marketing study finds that the Advertising Campaign can be shortened to 15 weeks without significant impact reduction. What is the new CP and total project duration?

IF the advertising campaign, F, can be shortened by 5 weeks, the new CPM would be as shown above while the whole duration of the project will be reduced to 126 weeks.

c. Suppose we would like to reduce the time until launch to 28 months, what would you recommend?

If we are to reduce the time until launch to only 28 months, it means that we need to cut 6 weeks off one or more tasks found in the diagram above. Our recommendation would be to try and save time by hiring more people to work on critical tasks (hubs on the critical path) that can be shortened if we are to increase the number of people working on it. We'll start by decreasing the duration of A, the marketing study, to 12 weeks instead of the 14; the hardware engineering, D, by a 2 weeks to fall down to 23; the operating system development, E, by 2 weeks, to reach 14 and that way the total duration will be 28 months.

5. Please compare the development process of the Saturn and Dreamcast game platforms. What are the