Part A: Planning Execution Plan
Part B: Risk Management Plan
for Part A – Planning Execution Plan
Please read the information in The ATA case study on Kate Greenwood’s experience as an international project manager at The Alternative Technology Association (ATA). Make sure you watch ALL of the ATA videos before you begin your assessment activities. You may need to review these specific videos for this assessment task:
• Video 1: Introduction to the ATA and its East Timor project
• Video 2: Business case and planning
Background
The ATA is a small Australian Non-Government and Not-for-profit Organisation (NGO & NFP) that started an East Timor (ET) Solar Project in the early 2000s. For further information on The ATA’s activities in this area, please refer to their website (http://www.ata.org.au/).
Assume you are back at the beginning of ET Solar project and have been appointed by Kate Greenwood to assist her in planning the execution of this project. Your first task is to put together a Project Execution Plan framework so that Kate can discuss her approach with the CEO before proceeding with further work. This Plan and the associated Business Case will be the main documents on which The ATA Board bases its approval decision. Also, The ATA is planning to approach Google for funding support and will require a sound Project Execution Plan in addition to the Business Case (the Business Case is not part of this task).
At this point, you should have done some research on the type of project execution plans that are in use in various industries. As a minimum, having worked through Modules 1 and 2, you should know the major sections in the project execution plan. You may have noticed through your research that regardless of the industry sector from which the project execution plan comes, the format, (i.e., section headings) is roughly the same.
If you feel out of your depth with too many unknowns and uncertainties or even a feeling of ‘I don’t know what I am doing’- welcome to the world of project management. It is not uncommon that a manager ventures into a discipline that he/she is not familiar with and has to learn ‘on the run’. Between the PMBoK reference, the Module’s notes and your own research, there should be more than sufficient information for you to tackle this task. We are looking for the thinking that supports your decisions and/or recommendations, and the underpinning logic, not how well you can repeat what you have been taught or have read.
The scope of the task for Part A
Kate requires only an outline of all the section and subsection headings of the project execution plan. For example, the plan begins with an Executive summary, Project description and then the Project management plan with the relevant sub-plans. Under each heading and subheading that you have chosen to include in the Plan, within the context of the East Timor Solar project, explain the reason why these sections are needed and the issues that you believe are important to address, with reference to academic and/or professional publications. Similarly, if you have excluded certain sections from the Plan, why they are omitted and what could be the potential risk of not including them, again with references to the published work.
At this stage, available information on East Timor in relation to this project is sketchy, though, through Kate’s video, you should already have some ideas about the issues she faced during the execution phase of the project. You should include the issues she mentioned in the video under the relevant heading or subheadings as matters that require either further investigation or work so that they can be addressed. Also, you are welcome to conduct further independent research on East Timor to assist you in putting this project execution framework together.
Instructions for Part B – Risk Management Plan
Google has agreed to fund ATA’s East Timor Solar project, but has requested a copy of the Project Risk Management Plan as part of their due diligence before final ‘sign-off’. Since you are a diligent international project manager assistant, you have already discussed the need for a risk management plan with Kate. In light of Google’s request, Kate has asked you to put together a risk management brief for consideration.
At this stage, we recommend that you watch ALL the relevant videos provided, specifically:
• Video 3: Stakeholder engagement and management
• Video 4: Project risks
Background
In Module 3, we discussed the project planning and explored the impact of cultural diversity on planning. We examined issues relating to scheduling, resource planning and cost estimation that are peculiar to international projects. In Module 4 we discussed risk management from an international project management perspective. Since international projects are by nature characterised by their high uncertainty, risk management is an important element of international project management.
The scope of the task
You are expected to use the risk management cycle as a guide and describe how the ATA should proceed with each stage of the cycle in order to come up with a sound project risk management plan for this project. You are expected to use the information provided to you on Kate’s video(s) and information from a credible source in relation to East Timor’s environment. For example, who would you include in risk workshop during the risk identification stage to find out more about importing licencing requirements? After ascertaining the requirements, and assuming there may be potential delays, how would you analyse and prioritise the risk? You are allowed to make some assumptions, provided you can justify how and why you make those assumptions. Using the fictitious import licencing example again, you may wish to mandate that any risks that cause a delay in the activity completion date greater than five working days are identified as critical, and structure the risk matrix accordingly. The reason could be you have assumed the Australian installation expert could only be in East Timor for a fixed period of time, therefore there is no ‘float’ for the installation activity on the schedule. There is room for some assumptions since you don’t have all the facts at hand but they need to be sensible, logical and based on certain facts (which require referencing) – don’t just make things up!
Again, it must be stressed that the aim of this task is for you to demonstrate how well you understand the concepts and well you can apply them in this semi-realistic case study. Simply repeating the generic processes taught in the Modules would earn you very little marks.
Please note this is a brief on what you believe should contain in the Project Risk Management Plan. You are not expected to draft a comprehensive Risk Management Plan, there isn’t sufficient word allowance for you to do that. Similar to the PEP, there should be an introduction and the outline of the sections/sub-sections accompanied by an explanation and justification, and also the potential risk exposure.
Present your brief in a report format, as if you are actually working for Kate. It should look and sound professional and suitable for tabling in an official meeting.
Preparing your submissions
Prepare your submission as a Word document, up to 2,000 words, +/- 10% and excluding list of references. Make sure you include at least six references to academic publications, using the Harvard referencing style. Refer to the Assessment 1 marking rubric before starting work on this assessment.
Part A: 1,000 words
Part B: 1,000 words
Sample Solution
