Prep

The Puerto Rico Education Project

System Development In An Island Paradise

Prepared by Bruce Rollier

Tom Ballard gazed out at the beautiful San Juan skyline for several minutes, letting his thoughts roam through the memories of pleasant dinners under the stars and weekends snorkeling in crystal clear waters. Then he forced himself to close the blinds so he could focus his attention on the critical situation he faced. The project that had begun just a year ago with such promise had become a near-disaster. His most important task was to reorganize the project and get it back on track, but an even more immediate problem was the dinner meeting he had called for 8 p.m., about an hour from now. Almost all of the project employees and their spouses would be there; in fact, the only ones not attending were the just-deposed project manager, Gary Johnson, and his wife, Teresa, who were on a plane heading for Washington, D.C. Most of those attending the dinner would be angry with Tom, with Gary, and with the company. Ballard had one hour to decide how to respond to their anger.

The Genesis of the Puerto Rico Education Project (PREP)

Puerto Rico has a population of four million on an island of only 3,400 square miles. It is a U.S. possession, and its citizens have full U.S. citizenship, but the people have chosen to continue as a commonwealth rather than as a state of the Union. This means that they receive protection and government aid, but they are not required to pay Federal income taxes, and they have considerably more governmental freedom than they would have as a state. The former governor, Luis Muñoz Marin, once commented, “In my heart I want independence; in my head I want statehood, but in my stomach, I want commonwealth!” Puerto Rico is more densely populated than any state of the U.S., and the proportion of people below the poverty level is much greater than on the U.S. mainland.

The Puerto Rico Education Project (PREP) resulted from a...