| Course | GM591 Strategic Project Selection and Initiation |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion board post |
| Length | About 390 words, 2 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 discussion post |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM591 Unit 1
Three Budget Cycles for a Portal Nobody Expected to Launch: A Unit 1 Post on Escalation
GM591 · Unit 1 Discussion
Posted by [Student Name]
The electric cooperative, its staff, the vendor and the classmates are composite; the research cited is real.
Initial Post
Three years ago our cooperative's board approved $450,000 to rebuild the member portal, where members check usage, report outages and update accounts. Seven months later our portal vendor was acquired, and the new owner froze development of the product we were building on. Over the next two budget cycles, the project asked for $650,000 more, and both requests were approved without debate.
Everyone on the team knew three things. The platform would lose support within a few years. No launch date we set had held. And members were already paying their bills online through the billing vendor's own page, which was the feature they used most.
So why did the money keep flowing? Barry Staw's 1976 experiment offers an answer. Business students who were personally responsible for an investment that went badly put more money behind it than students who inherited the same losing decision (Staw, 1976). Our general manager announced the new portal at the annual meeting, in front of about 600 members, a month before the vendor was sold. From then on, stopping the project meant admitting a public promise had failed.
The portal was never judged against what members needed; after the annual meeting, it was judged against what the general manager had promised.
Isabelle Royer found that bad projects often survive because of a collective belief in their success, and that someone has to be given the role of questioning it (Royer, 2003). We had no one in that role.
Here is the sentence nobody wrote at approval: "If the platform vendor ends development or the launch slips more than six months, the project returns to the board for a decision to continue or stop, and no further money is released until it does."
Classmates, has your organization written a stop condition into a project at approval, and was it ever used?
Reply to Marcus
Marcus, your clinic's scheduling system sounds like ours with one difference: your executive director inherited it. Did that make it easier for her to stop, as Staw's experiment would predict?
References
Royer, I. (2003). Why bad projects are so hard to kill. Harvard Business Review, 81(2), 48-56.
Staw, B. M. (1976). Knee-deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16(1), 27-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(76)90005-2
GM591 Unit 1 instructions, in plain terms
The first GM591 board asks you to describe a project your organization kept funding when it should have stopped. Set out the facts in order with amounts and dates: approval, the event that changed the outlook and each later decision to continue. Then say what people involved already knew at those decisions, since escalation is about continuing despite information, not without it. Explain why the money kept coming using a source from the escalation literature, such as Staw's experiment on personal responsibility, applied to a specific moment in your case. Describe people by role and treat their pressures fairly. Close by drafting the condition that, written at approval, would have forced a decision, and ask classmates whether their organizations write such conditions. Aim for about four hundred words, ground the argument in one or more APA 7 sources and write one reply that poses a question.
How the GM 591 Unit 1 example is put together
The post opens with three years of portal funding at a composite cooperative: $450,000 at approval, a vendor acquisition seven months later that froze the product and two later requests totaling $650,000. The second paragraph lists what the team knew: support would end, no launch date had held, and members already paid online through the billing vendor. Staw's 1976 study of business students who were personally responsible for a losing investment explains the continued funding, tied to the general manager's announcement at the annual meeting a month before the sale. The highlighted sentence says the portal was judged against a promise rather than member needs. Royer's finding on collective belief and the need for someone to question it follows. The drafted clause returns the project to the board if the vendor ends development or the launch slips six months. The reply asks Marcus about an inherited project.
GM591 Unit 1 rubric: what earns full points
GM591 instructors look first for a dated sequence of funding decisions and evidence that continuing was unreasonable on what was known at the time. A post that lists amounts and decision points earns more than one describing a project that simply went badly. The analytical credit comes from applying an escalation source to a specific moment, such as a public commitment, rather than citing it in general. Fairness to the people involved matters; the research explains how capable people escalate. The drafted exit condition carries significant weight because it turns the analysis into a rule others could use. The closing question should invite comparison. Replies earn credit for linking a classmate's case to the research. Staw's Organizational Behavior and Human Performance study and Royer's Harvard Business Review article supply the citations in APA 7.
GM591 Unit 1 help from the desk
Many GM591 Unit 1 posts describe a failed project without showing that continuing was a choice made despite known problems. Others blame a leader's ego and stop there. A common gap is the moment: escalation research is most useful when tied to a specific event, such as a public announcement, that raised the cost of stopping. Some posts close on a moral rather than a rule anyone could adopt. Lay out each funding decision with amounts and dates, say what was known at each, apply one finding from the research to the moment that mattered, describe people fairly by role and write the exit sentence that would have forced a decision.
Get a GM591 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Pick a project at your own workplace that kept running after its case had collapsed, and note roughly when each warning appeared and who could have halted it. Send that sketch with the Unit 1 prompt and its rubric. A first post comes back free inside 24-48h, the organization and people described by role. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GM591 Unit 1 questions, answered
What if the project eventually succeeded?
It can still carry the post, provided it continued through a period when ending it was the sensible choice on the information available. Success afterward does not prove the continuation was reasoned; it may have been lucky. Say what was known at each decision point and judge the decisions on that, which is how the course usually wants such calls assessed.
Is it fair to criticize my own organization's leaders on the board?
Keep the account factual and the people described by role, and treat their pressures seriously. Escalation research is useful precisely because it explains how capable people keep funding a failing effort, so the post can be critical of the decisions without accusing anyone. Leave out details that would identify the organization to classmates.
Do I need to cite research in a first post?
Most opening boards expect at least one source, and the escalation literature is the natural one here. Staw's early experiments and later studies of software projects give the post a mechanism to apply rather than an opinion to state. One source applied closely to your project typically earns more than three mentioned in passing.
Where can I find a free GM591 Unit 1 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM591 Unit 1 discussion post on an electric cooperative's member portal funded through three budget cycles, with Staw and Royer on escalation, a drafted exit clause and APA 7 references.
Why did the announcement at the annual meeting matter?
It made the general manager personally and publicly committed to the portal. Staw found that people responsible for a losing course of action invest more in it, so after the announcement stopping meant admitting a public promise had failed.