Marketing of County Funded Hospital

You are a project manager in the marketing department for a county funded hospital. The hospital is launching an extensive public service program for cardiac health. The program will involve print ads in local newspapers, television spots, posters at local eateries and health clubs, and sponsorship of events at the county fair. You have been discussing the project with your boss, the director of marketing, Walter Jones, and you are discussing options for a local celebrity to be a key spokesperson. You are hoping to have one of the local professional basketball players because they are typically available during the summer county fair season. The goal is that the first splash of public service announcements and ads takes place in the next 90 days, in conjunction with "Heart Healthy Month."

This is a critical project for the hospital, and you are honored (and a little nervous) to be the project manager. This project is part of a larger strategic initiative to develop community awareness of the hospital's expertise in cardiac care and increase the hospital's revenues over a 3-year period. The budget for the project is clearly defined and seems to be adequate. The various departments of the hospital are supportive of the project, and there is clarity and consensus around the scope and objectives of the campaign.

Unfortunately, the hospital's project budgets are under fire for experiencing significant budget overruns within the last year on a number of projects. The hospital's CFO has made it clear to your director that the project will need to be diligent in managing this project so that schedule and cost overruns do not occur.

You will need to build the project schedule that meets the required dates for the upcoming "Heart Healthy Month," plus the schedule for the remaining deliverables. Good luck!

Question:
Since the hospital's project budgeting approach is under the microscope due to several large, public budget overruns, Walter is asking you for very concrete three-point/range estimates and budget numbers. You are able to get good "most-likely" estimates from your team for the work they are doing, but the largest numbers (and most unknown right now) are the vendor estimates. You could develop some estimates based on your vendor experiences from the private hospital, but you know those numbers are on the high end of the cost range. You and Walter discussed this during your last face-to-face status meeting. He was not comfortable using just those numbers (although that would make the project appear to come in under budget) and wanted to have numbers that are more likely. He asked you to follow up with him via e-mail detailing the approach you will take. You suspect that he will enhance the e-mail and send it to the CFO in response to the CFO's concerns.

Using your knowledge of the case study, prepare the e-mail you will send Walter that describes your approach to defining the project budget. Be sure to clearly define your approach for obtaining estimates for the 10 vendors that may be used on the project. Remember that you have not selected the vendors yet, but you do have a list of 50 possibilities.