1. Running head: DANIKEN PROJECT 1
Daniken Project
Angela Baer
INF 338: Leadership and Communication Skills for Project Managers
Instructor Deere
March, 30, 2015

2. DANIKEN PROJECT 2
The world of business is extremely competitive today. This is especially true for Christmas
tree farmers. It is not only that artificial trees are more convenient but, also due to a change in the
way consumers shop and vendors conduct business. Everything revolves around technology
including the field of project management. However, with the proper planning and
communication channels even small projects can be successful. Therefore, Project managers
need to incorporate communication, leadership, and Project Management software into their
toolbox.
Background Information
Daniken tree farm was established in 1968. Since, then the farm has grown to 65 acres and
55,000 trees. They make most of their revenue in the holiday season from Thanksgiving till
Christmas. They not only grow their own trees that are indigenous to the area they also import fir
trees from other areas of the country. They keep a small staff year round to care for the trees they
grow themselves for resale. The farm also resells some of their purchased inventory to other
resellers in the area acting as a middle man. They provide a gift shop that sells ornaments,
decorated wreaths, grave pieces, home décor and gifts. They decorate the wreaths and make the
grave pieces by hand. They will also make special order wreaths for customers.
The Problem
They are using very archaic methods of tracking sales and inventory. Everything must be
written down by hand and counted twice. Thus, wasting time and incurring many mistakes in
purchasing and production activities. This handwritten sales system also increases the time it
takes to checkout a customer and the length of the checkout lanes. Since, they do not have a
tracking system for purchases and sales they are missing sales opportunities and spending too

3. DANIKEN PROJECT 3
much on purchases. They also need a more efficient way to track vendor needs to ensure they are
not left with unsold inventory at the end of the season. They also do not have a way to track
actual labor needed for cash registers. Therefore, there is need for a new sales and inventory
tracking method to streamline purchasing, production and labor.
Impact of the Problem
The lack of a proper sales and inventory tracking methods has had many devastating effects
on Daniken Tree farm and others like it. For instance: as fuel cost and labor cost continue to rise
purchasing inventory that cannot be sold can and has negatively affect profits. There is a
dramatic gap between what is sold and what is ordered. There are shortages in some products
while there is a surplus of others. The staffing can be overburdened at non-peak times creating an
over expense for labor and vice versa. There is also an impact of lost sales by not having what
the customer’s wants to purchase. The most devastating affect is that customers will visit the
competition instead of waiting for products that have to be ordered due to the vendor’s resell
items that are removed from the company’s inventory. This is a direct result of faulty sales
forecasting and inventory tracking.
Stakeholders and affected Departments
The stakeholders are the Daniken Family, employees, customers, and vendors. The affected
departments are the decorating department, sales and purchasing.
Voice of the Customer Analysis
The Daniken family has expressed a need for a way to track sales to better understand the
types of products and price points their customers demand. The owner Dave Daniken (2014)
stated “it would be nice to know how much product I need to order and type of trees that need to

4. DANIKEN PROJECT 4
be planted the following year”. Mrs. Daniken would like to have a better idea of how many
decorated wreaths and grave pieces are sold to order the supplies for the following year. They
both agree a sales and inventory method that is technologically up to date would help them run
their operation more efficiently. They both said that they have been winging the purchasing by
what they have left over at the end of the previous season. They feel that using archaic record
keeping is inevitably affecting profitability.
Strategic Alignment
The Daniken family has expressed a need for an inventory and sales tracking system. The
company provides a service to their customers by providing Christmas trees and other holiday
décor. The company is very basic in its operations such as record keeping by hand. In fact they
do not even keep register tape in their cash registers; all transactions are hand written. They
forms that are used have no way of identifying what type of tree is being purchased. The main
objective of the company is to increase profitability by controlling cost and to satisfy their
customer’s need of the perfect Christmas tree. Therefore, a sales and inventory tracking method
would be a good strategic fit for the tree farm.
Key Assumptions
The Daniken project of addressing the tree farms need of a sales and inventory tracking
system would fulfill the need of the clients. The system whatever method that is choose would
cut waste in the purchasing department. The ability to forecast what sells best would help the
company increase profitability. Point-of-sale (POS) systems today offer the small- to medium-
sized business ways of tracking customer buying preferences, better control over inventory and

5. DANIKEN PROJECT 5
expenses and employee timekeeping (Venetis, 1997). Therefore, the small investment should pay
for itself in a couple of years.
Project Plan
The project plan and precedence diagram are as follows:
Daniken
Project
Hire contractor
Purchase
Material
InstallInsulation
Build
Network
InstallallPOS
Hardware and
software
Purchase
Hardware
Hire Network
Engineer
Build
Merchandise
Database
Cost Anaylsis
Input Data into
Server

6. DANIKEN PROJECT 6
As one can see the critical paths and major milestones are outlined in the blue headings. The
ending and beginning times for each sub tasks are included under the headings the department
that is responsible and cost are also included. The first tasks is to ready the barn for the new POS
systems. This tasks requires a contractor and insulation to insure the structure is weather tight.
Once, the building is undergoing its remodel an engineer can begin building the computer
network. The POS system can be purchased as all the cable is being run to the building. The
ongoing tasks will be to build an inventory database that will be installed on the POS server.
There will be weekly meetings to insure the project team is on the same page. These meetings
will help manage conflicts and setbacks that might happen between tasks or teams. However,
since, this is a small project and the main stakeholders have been identified and are aligned with
the project deliverables there should not be much conflict (Smith & Imbrie, 2007). The main

7. DANIKEN PROJECT 7
areas for conflict to occur would be within the project timeline itself. However, the weekly
meetings and reporting should prevent any uncontrollable problems that cannot be overcome.
Therefore, a meeting plan should be established before the project plan is implemented and after
team selection.
Team Members
Although, this project is not a large endeavor, the team members still need consideration. The
first team member is the project manager. The project manager and the business owners are
where the planning process begins. This is because, as stated above this project is designed to
address a problem with the farms business operations. The next members of the team are a
construction contractor and their laborers. Next, a network engineer is needed for the project.
Also, team members will be needed for procurement of materials. A specialist that is fluent in the
selection and loading of the POS system. The last members of the team are a records clerk and
data entry specialist. It would also be useful for the PM to have an administrative assistant.
Some of the team members are chosen because they already hold positions with the company.
Others were chosen by the project sponsor or because they have knowledge of the subject matter.
Now, that team members are chosen the meeting plan discussed earlier needs to be established.
Meeting Plan
The onset of a project being implemented is very important. This is because, an effective team
is paramount to project success. It is also true that meetings can run amok and therefore, not be
very effective. However, if the initial meeting is planned and runs smoothly it can set the tone for
the project and team communications. The initial meeting plan is as follows: the purpose of this
meeting is to identify and get to know the team members, their responsibilities, and project

8. DANIKEN PROJECT 8
purpose and milestones. All team members stated above will need to be present. The owners are
Dave and Joey Daniken. The PM is Angela Baer. The contractor is Debatin and Sons
Construction Company and the foreman is John Debatin. The laborers do not need to be present
at this time. The network engineer is Dave Bouchard and the data entry specialist is Sally Smith.
The PM’s administrative assistant will also be responsible for procurement and must be present
and Jennifer Dohack has been selected for this position. The POS specialist is Donald Schuster
from Business Solutions. The records clerk is Kay Ennen from Daniken Tree Farm.
Now, we have the meeting purpose and attendees identified. Next, we will include the
projected budget, WBS, and Project Definition document in the agenda; and it will be distributed
to the attendees a week before the meeting for review. This should help the meeting to run
smoothly according to Smith & Imbrie (2007). The rules and each item will be discussed in the
meeting. There will also be a copy of the meetings minutes distributed afterwards to insure that
all decisions and proposals are documented. The team members will be notified that bi-weekly
meetings will be mandatory and they must report their progress four days before the meeting.
This will help in collecting data for the meeting agenda so, project progress can be discussed.
The PM software is used as a nonverbal form of communication for meetings and to also as a
reporting tool. The information team members can obtain by viewing Project Management
software is quite vast. The software allows them to view the entire project schedule at a glance.
They can also determine the resources needed, task start and end dates, and the tasks duration.
They can also view critical path activities. In order for the software to be used effectively the PM
will have to update the schedule, such as task completed and delayed (Smith & Imbrie, 2007).
The PM can also change the available resources for each tasks as they move along. The Gantt
chart allows the entire project to be visualized however, it is only effective if the information is

9. DANIKEN PROJECT 9
updated on a regular basis. However, the style of the leadership is an important factor of project
success and has a direct impact on team performance.
Leadership
The leadership style that was used for this project was the multifactorial leadership style. This
type of leader takes into account all variables within the scope of work and the team members
themselves (Lester, 1975). This leader was very effective in providing clear and concise
direction and group accountability. According to Thompson (2009) this integrated leadership
style is good for organizations that want to make better decisions. We were able to complete our
project on time and within budget. This is crucial in project management and successful
operations of organizations that perform projects. For example: every team member was
included in the decision and problem making processes of the project. We also had the luxury of
clear goals and an understanding of who was accountable for accomplishing those goals. That is
not to say that we did not work as a team to bring the project to a successful completion. My
personal thoughts on this leadership style was it produced a group wide sense of comradery and
job satisfaction.
The combination of all of the project management tools and software that were used allowed
the project to come to a successful completion. The deadline is still a few months away and the
project is complete. The owners of Daniken Tree Farm are currently learning how to use their
new POS system so, they can train their employees before the Fall Season begins. The Project
was also finished ten thousand dollars under budget since, the contingency did not have to be
used. However, the team became so close that we often attend Trivia night together so we still
have a project. Therefore, taking the time to plan not only the project itself but, also

10. DANIKEN PROJECT 10
communication methods also the team to function more effectively and bond as more than
coworkers.
In conclusion, Project Management and successful projects are a mixture of many skills and
tools. There is more than just a schedule needed to complete a successful project. Meetings and
communication are also necessary to track a projects progress; it takes proper planning and
leadership to use this tools effectively. Therefore, they are a vital tool in the Projects manager’s
toolbox.

11. DANIKEN PROJECT 11
References:
Heerkens, G.R. (2002). Project management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 978-0-07-
137952-6
Smith, K.A., & Imbrie, P.K. (2007). Teamwork and project management. (3rd ed.) Boston, MA:
McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-310367-9.
Thompson, L.A. (2009, March). Leadership model for professionals.Strategic Finance, 90(9),
25. Retrieved from the ProQuest Database
Venetis, T. (1997, Jul 14). POS systems. Computer Dealer News, 13, 69-70. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/202763463?accountid=32521
http://www.joe.org/joe/1975november/1975-6-a1.pdf