Abstract

This case discusses software design and development company Menlo Innovations’ (Menlo) approach towards project management and innovation. Menlo’s founder and president, Richard Sheridan (Sheridan) established the company in association with his colleagues based on Thomas Edison’s Invention Factory. Sheridan advocated the use of project management during software implementation. Menlo adopted agile project management practices namely extreme programming that helped it simultaneously run several projects successfully. This re-quired employees to work in pairs en-couraging knowledge sharing and learning from each other. Similar to Edison’s Invention Factory, the culture at Menlo was characte-rized by an open, flexible, and a collaborative working environment. The case also dis-cusses Menlo’s flexible workplace practices that helped it in curbing attrition and employee retention while its innovative approach to project management encouraged employee engagement and led to innovation. However, a few analysts opined that it remained to be seen whether Menlo’s flexible workplace approach could also be applied in a corporate environment.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand how Sheridan and the other co-founders at Menlo fostered innovation at the company
• Compare and contrast Menlo’s approach to project management with the practices of traditional software project management
• Understand the significance of project management in the success of a company
• Understand the rationale behind Sheridan adopting a flexible approach to workplace based on Edison’s Invention Factory
• Understand how the implementation of an innovative working environment benefits the company and the employees

Keywords

Project management, Agile project management, Extreme programming, Innovation, Business strategy, Workplace flexibility, Work-life balance, Extreme interviewing, High-tech Anthropology, Organizational culture, Team building, Employee retention, Employee engagement, Information technology, Software development