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Introduction In business, risk is a reality. The rewards may be substantial if risks are well managed; yet, when
risk is mismanaged as described in the Synaptic case, a business can suffer a serious disaster.
This case study supports the corporate risk management from numerous phases of project preplanning to the accomplishment of the close out stage. The Synaptic case shows how the method
of check list in risk analysis can be utilized in the course of life-cycle of the project.
Numerous uncertainties came across in research projects, schedule slippage, and cost overruns,
which are all of no exceptions at Synaptic. Among the Computational Research Scientists (CSO)
and the Information Management System (IM), there is a broadening cut off. This disconnection
that is the two group alienation is the outcome of lack of communication, cultural differences,
vague definition of scope of the project, and the overlapping of responsibilities and roles among
the two departments. Department of CSO sights IM as way far behind in technology and a
barrier to their projects. IM is discontented with what they perceive as t perverse commands are
placed by the CSO on their department. These demands consist of time lines that lack proper
documentation, coordination of events and prior planning (Kendrick, 2009). This clash has led
the department of CSO in forming their personal IT department in their own division. For the
company, this act has impacted in a technical failure when huge errors were discovered in the
Synaptic database. It has been concluded that user-developer clash and role vagueness can
impact negatively on project performance.
To tackle all the organizational confrontations Synaptic has been encountered, as a consultant, I
have been hired to assist in alleviating the interdepartmental clashes, work for meditation as a
middleman.
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Risk in Information Management
There are several risks associated with Information Management System, some of which are
described under analyzed in the case of Synaptic.
Centralized Information Management
All the information management tasks should be unilateral i.e. created, maintained, restructured
and disposed off under a single umbrella. Only a centralized system of Information Management
can help in reaping the aimed benefits and achieving the objectives for which valuable capital of
the Synaptic was spent to deploy an Information Management System (Heldman, 2011). If
departments or employees tend to make separate Information Management Systems it will create
disharmony resulting in disruption of work even leading to sudden failure or manipulated results.
Undefined Parameters
One of the basic flaws that Synaptic was committed in its Information Management System was
not following the parameters. This risk can be encountered by the organization when the
information management is not centralized and employees are working in an individual capacity.
This can disrupt the whole system of Information Management making the work done under
different parameter useless and not worthy (Kendrick, 2009). Making it aligned with the current
parameters could be highly time consuming, causing delays and sometimes even worthless. So it
must be ensured that parameter defined under a certain projects should be unanimous no matter
operated in various departments.
Information Theft
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Information for any organization, whether small or large is an asset and its protection should be
ensured at any cost. Information is such an asset that even if it is recovered successfully after
theft cannot be protected to go in wrong hands or disseminated to competitors (Institute, 2013).
So in designing and developing an Information System it must be ensured that it is highly
protected and secured from internal as well as external threats. Information Management System
can be damaged or interrupted by various elements so multi dimensional approach must be
followed in this regard.
Adoption of Latest Technology
Technology based organizations cannot sacrifice in terms of adopting the advancements and
innovations introduced in their field especially in terms of physical resources. In this case it has
been observed that Synaptic has been lacking in terms of the latest technology and deferring to
adopt the upgraded version of the database software (Heldman, 2011). This has resulted in the
slow work process, especially at the Information Management end. As a result, Computational
Scientists are dissatisfied over the performance of the Information Management department and
projects successfully launched and assigned priority go in vain due to the delays (Kendrick,
2009).
According to the case it has been around 5 years of minimum when Synaptic last updated their
database software. This legacy can be lethal for the organization and must be improvised in order
to eradicate time delays making the project success rate higher (Institute, 2013).
Strategy to Improve Cooperation between Information Management and Computational
Biology
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In order to make sure both Information Management and Computational Biology work in
coherence with each other it has been suggested that the organizational hierarchy in Synaptic
Corporation is changed to a certain extent. Management must look forward to design the
organization structure on the company in such a manner that Information Management and
Computational Biology work simultaneously in order to negate lapse in time (Heldman, 2011).
For this reason, the best suited organization structure that Synaptic must follow should be team
based or purpose based.
The team based structure has various advantages that will help Synaptic Information
Management and Computational Biology function to work mutually and remove the barriers that
are hindering in their way (Institute, 2013). Various benefits can be reaped by the management in
this scenario where the organization has suffered various consequences, some of which are as
follows
Increased Productivity
By working in teams management can ensure more productivity. The rate of projects that are
abandoned due to lack of benefits or increased costs can be managed because of innovative
ideas. Instead of striving for individual tasks both Information Management and Computational
Biology professionals will make sure that projects initiated come to successful launching rather
than recreating a business case or throwing them into trash (Kendrick, 2009). Leaders of the
team will be in a position to empower their subordinates. Complain about Computational
Scientists working in isolation will also be removed due to working as a team.
Improved Relationship
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The gap that has been created between the Information Management and Science department due
to the function based organization should be converted into team based organization structure as
this structure can change the Synaptic’s deficits into profits (Institute, 2013). Team work helps in
developing strong bonding among the workers of CSO and IMD, and this improved relationship
can help the Synaptic in maintaining a working cycle balance. New organization structure can
give new life to the Synaptic. An improved relation between the two departments is favorable for
Synaptic as team is responsible to complete the task on time no matter what happens.
Eliminating delays
The team based organization structure can reduce traditional scalar chains of control. In case of
Synaptic, issue between Information Management and Computational Biology were complaining
about the lapse in time (Institute, 2013). Team based organization structure will help in reducing
such time delays since custom development, allocation of space on servers and databases, program
execution and monitoring with periodic reports to the scientists, data updates and uploads, etc. will be
conducted in parallel.
Effective Decision Making
Team work can help the Synaptic in efficient decision making, as there will be more solutions
for a single problem (Institute, 2013). Team work based structure supports multiple opinions of
the employees whereas function based organization restrict the workers to work only for the
benefit of their department.
Eradication of Overlap in Responsibilities
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Since the organization structure is a function based so departments are working in solitude and
therefore various tasks have been done more times than required by the two departments. This is
resulting in excessive use of Synaptic resources and causing time delay which in return
impacting on the success rate of the projects and many abandoned due to time consuming
(Kendrick, 2009).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the main cause of the problem which lie in Synaptic is the organizational
structure that has been causing schedule risks in terms of delays and dependencies. Further, these
risks are causing hindrance in terms of information and decisions (Heldman, 2011). If the
structure of the organization is switched from function to team based or purpose based it will
help in reducing various risks associated and increased rate in the success of projects.
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References
Heldman, K. (2011). PMP: Project management professional exam study guide (6th ed.). Kindle
Edition. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Kendrick, T. (2009). Identifying and managing project risk: Essential tools for failure-proofing
your project (2nd ed.). Kindle Edition. New York, NY: AMACOM.
Project Management Institue. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge
(PMBOK guide) (5th ed.). Kindle Edition. Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institue,
Inc.