Project Management Module

Professor: Helga Meyer

“PROSALO Project Management”

Submitted by

Project manager: Kritika Gill Project Controller: Thomas Ying Quality Manager: Syed Hassan

Systems Architect: Supanut Petrugs Risk Manager: Camille Beauchemin

Master in International Tourism Management International Graduate Center

Date: December 12th 2016

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Table of Contents

1. Project manager……………………………………………………………………3 1.1 Project Strategy…………………………………………………………….3 1.2 RASCI, Team Development and escalation…………………….5 1.3 Stakeholder Management…………………………………………….6 1.4 Reflection…………………………………………………………………..…7

2. Project Controller………………………………………………………………….8 2.1 Milestone, Phases, Concept of Time Reserves……………….9 2.2 Project Cost Baseline – Challenges and Limitations……..13 2.3 Concept of Bottom up Cost Estimation………………………..15 2.4 Reflection……………………………………………………………………16

3. Quality Manager………………………………………………………………….18 3.1 Priorities……………………………………………………………………..20 3.2 Quality Assurance Plan: Required Actions……………………20 3.3 Review Plan………………………………………………………………..21 3.4 Reflection……………………………………………………………………22

4. Systems Architect………………………………………………………………..24 4.1 Use cases…………………………………………………………………….25 4.2 Requirements Definition…………………………………………….28 4.3 Plan for Verification and Validation…………………………….29 4.4 Reflection …………………………………………………………………..30

5. Risk Manager………………………………………………………………………32 5.1 Risk Description………………………………………………………….34 5.2 Risk Evaluation and Portfolio………………………………………34 5.3 Risk Strategy and Mitigation Plan……………………………….36 5.4 Reflection……………………………………………………………………38

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Background

Objectives

2. Role and Responsibilities of a Project Manager

3. Skills of a Project Manager

4. RASCI

5. Team Development

6. Escalations

7. Stakeholder Management

8. Reflection

References

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Project Prosalo

1. Introduction

Background

The most important role in the project is that of a Project Manager and the roles and responsibilities

he has to make a project successful. As he is responsible for overall management of the project, he is

the sole person accountable to produce the end result. It is paramount to understand how the

project manager interlinks and allocates the responsibilities to work towards one common goal.

Research Objectives

This paper is focused on the strategy used in the Project Prosalo, how the team was developed and

various stages of team development. The usage of the RASCI method to assign responsibilities to

have more clear objectives by each team member. Also, In depth understanding of the roles of the

project manager and how he contributes to have a successful project.

2. Roles and Responsibilities of the Project Manager

Project Managers are change agents: they make project goals their own and use their skills and

expertise to inspire a sense of shared purpose within the project team (PMI). He is responsible for

Initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of the project.

In the Initiation phase of Project Prosalo a detailed project charter was prepared. Apart from this the

background of the Project which is the need to set up an office in Brussels along with benefits is

mentioned which in case of Prosalo is staying closer to the changing trends of the European Market.

The Charter has a clear and focused Mission statement and also the Exclusions, Budget of the Project

to give a complete overview of the project.

Planning

It is imperative for the project manager to clearly define and clarify the scope of the project, project

plan and policies and procedures to be followed during project. During the planning phase of prosalo,

the vision was set in which clear objectives of the project were laid and the strategy of the project

was thought of which will be implemented to achieve the goals. Also, a finished plan was prepared

which describes what should have been achieved at the end of the project. Most favorable road map

was selected which clearly describes the aims. In the planning phase the following was decided:

Scope of the Project: The Boundaries of the project were decided upon. The major

objectives, tasks, goal, time and deliverables were established.

Work Breakdown Structure: The work structure will be planned in detail keeping each

activity in mind and was designed into manageable sections. It is basically an outline of the

entire project is designed keeping in mind major functional deliverables. This will eventually

help the team to follow an organized work pattern. The team will make milestones and

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schedules that indicate the change of phases and the events to control and analyze the

progress of the project. This will also help the team to recognize the accomplishments.

Scheduling: In this segment, a critical path to finish the project was chosen and also the free

slack will be decided upon.

Risk Assessment: Projects are always future oriented, which means they are subject to

unforeseeable problems or risks. (Roland Ottmann, 2012, p.143) It is vital for a successful

project to identify any possible risks that might affect the project. After careful evaluation

with the team, customers and end users associated risks will be identified and the impacts it

could have on the project and impact matrix was prepared and the strategy options will be

decided upon to minimize or deal with the risk in the most effective way.

Stakeholder Management: All possible stakeholders will be identified and understood and

according to their power and interest in the project and how they will managed to ensure no

delays in the progress of the project.

Closing project Plan: This will be prepared to finalize all completed activities of the project to

formally close the project. To ensure completion and identify the best practices and lessons

for any future projects.

Organizing, Monitoring and controlling

The structure of the team will be set which will meet the needs at different stages of the project.

Assigning responsibilities and authority to various team members various tasks. Also, leaders in the

group will be designated power and responsibility who will be accountable for the tasks of their team

and will report directly to the Project manager in case of any escalations. The progress will be tracked

the progress of the project and monitor the progress of the assigned tasks and communicate same

effectively to the team and management. Also, measuring team performance through

reports ,documentation and assessing timelines and budget are needed to be controlled by the

project manager.

3. Skills of the Project Manager

Project Manager plays the most important role as he directs the entire operation. He has many

responsibilities, from directing and maintaining the project plans to make reports of the performance

of the project. He plays as a mentor to his entire team in terms of proving any sort of consultation in

the team. He is the mediator between the sponsor and his team. He along with his team decides and

plan the kind of resources required for the project. The organizer of the entire team and a negotiator

to get the resources required for the project. The project manager also plays a role of a diplomat to

make connections with the stakeholders and many others who are in anyway affecting the project to

get their support. Apart from all of the above, it is vital for a project manager to have leadership

ability. He creates the vision for the team and provides guidance in a participative style. Also, he

needs to be appreciative and value the contributions of every team and should be a source of

encouragement and motivation. In addition to all this, he needs to build an environment of trust and

enjoyment so that the tasks do not become mundane for the team members. A capable project

manager provides opportunity for learning and development by encouraging individuals to assume

the initiative, take risks, and make decisions.( Clements/Gido, 2009, p.307). People, who are less

experienced, learn from others and develop more skills at the end of the project. As project

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managers need to communicate effectively to their team it is imperative that they are good

communicators. They should know how to share the information in a variety of ways. Also as they

are the mediator between management and also have to prepare frequent reports.

4. RASCI

This responsibility Matrix Structure in Project Prosalo has been used to assign tasks or deliverables

to each role in the team. As there are four levels of accountability, Responsibility where in the team

member who is assigned this role will have the responsibility to handle and achieve the particular

task. This is followed by Accountable, the Individual who will be answerable for the activity will need

to approve the work that member who is responsible does. Also for every task, there has to be just

one role and not multiple with this level of responsibility. The team members who are assigned the

consulted level are typically subject matter experts and others have to take their opinions to review

the work. And then those member who need to be informed and made aware of progress should be

notified to be notified as a form of one- way communication.

5. Team Development

Team building and development are the act and process of forming, growing and improving the

knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals from different needs, organizational units and

professional background, into a cohesive, motivated, dedicated high performance team. (David

I.Cleland and Lewis R. Ireland, 2010, p.362 )The team of the project needs to include members with

different expertise and qualifications to ensure they are motivated and can handle their tasks

appropriately. There are five stages for developing a team out of which the first four were developed

by Bruce Wayne. And later on, Tuckman along with Mary Ann Jensen introduced the fifth stage.

The five Stages that will be used in developing a team for the PROSALO Project will be the folowing

Forming

This will be the first meeting for all teammates and they will be introduces to each other

where they will share information about their backgrounds and experiences and will get

acquainted with one another. The team will be formed and they will be introduced by the

project manager to the project objective and roles they will be expected to play. In this stage

the team will be completely dependent on the project manager to give direction and provide

structure to the group. Team members are quite inquisitive during this stage. Also, the initial

processes and procedures of the project will be defined for the various operations.

Storming

In this phase, the team members will be developing as a team. The team will now start to

apply their skills and will compete for acceptance of their ideas. The Project manager can

expect some conflicts during this stage as everyone will have different opinions. The need

will arise for agreements on handling conflicts. In this stage the project manager needs to be

less directive and provide clarification on roles and responsibilities of team members along

with providing support and guidance

Norming

The team members now have started working together more effectively and the

relationships between them have now become more settled and have accepted their

operating environment. The sharing of ideas and information increases. The project manager

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is now more supportive and less involved however they will make sure that the team works

collaboratively and moves in the right direction

Performing

The team in this stage, has been consistently performing well and are focused on the goal as

a team. A lot of progress has been made and is recognized so the satisfaction levels are very

high. The attention of the project manager during this phase in on the progress and

accomplishments and acts like a mentor for the team.

Adjourning

At the end of the project, the teams members will be moving off to new projects or jobs. The

project manager should ensure that the success is celebrated and capture best work

practices for future.

6. Escalation

It is imperative for a project manager to monitor the project very closely in order to avoid any harm

or delays to the project. Although the team will try and resolve issues internally there may be some

serious issues that need the involvement of the upper management are vital to this stage. The

manager needs to identify and evaluate the issue and realize what damage it can do and depending

on the issue and can escalate it to the authorities for a timely resolution. The management needs to

be made aware of the problem and such issues need higher priority. The approache to identify the

criticality of the issue will be defined so that the roles can be distributed in advance to avoid any

major issue that could impact the project.

7. Stakeholder Management

It is vital to recognize the stakeholders who are in anyway involved or impacting the project. It is

imperative to develop relationships with any person or an organization which can be your

stakeholder at a very early stage of the project so that various techniques can be followed to analyze

their influence and also then develop various strategies to manage and communicate with them

effectively. Also It is important to communicate with the stakeholders on the regular level depending

and develop constant links of communicating till the closing of the project. In this project, during the

planning stage a stakeholder analysis was conducted in which we recognized our major stakeholders.

Various steps were taken in this process like identification of various person or organizations and

their role, needs and level of authority and how they could impact the project.

In the planning stage, it was recognized with the help of past studies in similar projects that the

Brussels Ministry of Environment as one of our major stakeholders as they have a very high power

and an extremely high level Interest in the project as they approve our legal procedures to set up the

office . We have very carefully examined there rules and regulations of the entire process and will be

taking all the necessary actions to avoid any delays or concerns regarding getting the licensing and

the permits. During the course of identification we realized that Media will play an important role in

marketing and portraying the correct image of the new sales office in Brussels. Also they will be high

in interest as this will be generating a lot of Job opportunities and will open a whole new market in

Europe. Keeping in mind all the internal and external stakeholders it is understood that the Banks,

Communities , Staff, Board of company are also a part of it, they will all be kept informed and of the

project and will be under the constant communication.

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8. Reflection

The importance of learning project management cannot be emphasized enough. During the reading

and learning phase it is realized that project management is a complex field which requires a lot skill

set in every role. As the project manager plays the most important role being the head and the

mediator between the sponsor and his team, how vital it is for him to have clear and effective

communication skills. Also the balance of all the competencies is a key ingredient to successfully

manage the project. They take a mission to deliver consistently and on time with the given budget

and meet the expectations of the stakeholder and sponsors. And most importantly, the project

managers rely on others for their success so they need to work in accordance with the whole team.

The importance of clearly defining the responsibilities so the objective is more clear to every member

is a challenging but an important task.

References

Clements, James P., and Jack Gido. Effective Project Management. Mason, OH:

South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012.

Cleland, David I., and Lewis R. Ireland. Project Manager's Portable Handbook. New York:

McGraw-Hill, 2010.

Ottmann, Roland. The Naked Project Manager: A Book Based on Real-life Stories.

Röthenbach, Nuremberg: Ottmann Et Partner, 2012.

PMI | Project Management Institute." PMI | Project Management Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016

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Table of Contents

2. Project Controller

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Roles and Responsibilities

2.3 Project Planning

2.4 Project Cost Management

2.5 Reflection

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2. Project Controller

2.1. Introduction

Nowadays the work in project management is getting more complex, it seems like too demanding for

the project manager to hold tons of things on their should at the same time. Project controller is

therefore born for separating the duties from project manager in order to enhance the efficiency. This

report is going to introduce how do I perform my role as a project controller in the project Prosalo

and how does this position contribute to the project. The concepts and process of the works will be

discussed deeply.

2.2. Roles and Responsibilities of Project Controller

First of all it is important to know about the role of project controller in a project. Although the job

duties of project controller is recently widely expanded and subdivided into many different category,

they can be still briefly introduced as using scientific methodology and tools and also analytical skills

to: 1) develop and maintain schedule, 2) estimate costs and draw up budget baseline, and 3) monitor

the progress on project and forecast the impact of change (ACostE, 2007, p.11).

2.3. Project Planning

Project Life Cycle and Milestones

A project is a temporary endeavor which has a defined life span with a actual beginning and an end

and contain a specific target to achieve (Melton & Trish, 2007, p.7). The period between the start and

the end of a project is referred as project life cycle. Typically a project life cycle passes through four

distinct stages: defining, planning, executing, and finally delivering (Lasson & Eric & Gary & Clifford,

2011, p.7). However, depending on the scale and scope of project, the life cycle can be expanded

base on these 4 phases. The life cycle of Prosalo, apart from those 4 typical stages, “testing” is added

in between executing stage and delivering stage in order to confirm the office is usable and all the

employees are well-prepared for work as the team hope that the office can run smooth once it start

operating. Therefore, Prosalo is a project which is based on a 5-phase-life-cycle.

As mentioned before, one of the key role of project controller is planning and scheduling. The project

life cycle makes a outline of Prosalo from beginning to delivery, but objectives of those stages are still

missing. The final product of a project work is a bundle of success from each project phases, thus it is

important to clarified the specific targets needed to achieve in every single stage. It is hard to have a

plan or know what to do without expected output, those expected output of different stages are

known as “Milestones”. Milestones are those events which are meaningful and significant for the

project and need to be finished before going to the next step. They should be a solid event, or and

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object, because the milestones should tell the result of a phase but not a work which is pending to

do. Normally there are at least 4 milestones in a project as the team have to achieve certain target

otherwise the next stage can not be started. For instance, it is impossible to hire employees directly

without any strategies and planning or delivery the office before finishing interior design.

Besides indicating handover from one phase to the next phase, the importance of milestones is to

provide “Control Gate” to the project. There is possibility that some of the deliverable are missed or

the performance can not fulfill certain of standard. Milestones give a chance to the project team to

have a review for the last stage to see if the project is suitable to continue to the next stage. If

problems were found, the team have to determine how to tackle those problems. It could be

accepting the problems, making improvement, changing objectives, or even stop the project if things

go wrong seriously. The existence of milestones makes each phase of project as individual mini

project and it is obviously easier for planning and controlling (Mike, Laurie, 2007, p.64). The quality of

project can be ensured as deliverable and result would be reviewed at every milestone and

appropriate action can be taken.

After understanding the characteristic and functions of milestone, the project controller of Prosalo

could start to think about which milestones should be included in the project. The objective of

defining stage is basically same among all the projects. In this stage, the project management should

understand ideas, concepts and requirement of the project and confirm the scope which will make

benefits to the customer. Planning stage then comes after the defining stage. The target of Prosalo

can be mainly divided into two parts - setting up a office in Brussels and hiring 12 young talented

employees. As they are two totally different types of product, it is necessary to manage them

separately. On the office side, the decisions of office planning should all been made including

location, office needs and people who should be contacted such as government authority and

contractors. On the other hand, decisions about hiring and training strategies should also been

made at the end of the planning stage, which may include requirement of candidates, the flow of

interview and training’s arrangement. The project management then go through the planning stage

to the execution stage. Most of the products of Prosalo are expected to finish after this stage. There

will be totally 4 milestones here. Firstly, the office’s location should be settled, which means, all the

contract and licensing work are accomplished. This is only a vacant office so the next objective is to

have a usable office by interior design and furnishing. Furthermore, after some process of

interviewing and hiring, 12 young and talented employees are hired. Training and exam will then be

provided to ensure their ability in the future career so the employees are all well-prepared at the

end of the execution stage. The final milestone, also as the final product of Prosalo, the office will be

delivered to WING at the closure stage.

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Milestones are only delegate to the targets which are expected to reach at different phases. In order

to give better understanding about such milestones to the project management, project specific

phases should be made to serve as a supportive document. It shows some specific information and

description of the milestones such as major activities, duration, decision have to make and resources

which are needed. The project team will then be clear about the objectives they need to achieve and

more importantly, this document provides the main sources for the Work Breakdown Structure

(WBS).

Scheduling and Time Reserve

Apart from phases and milestones, another essential element for forming project schedule is

duration estimating. The project team need to estimate how much time they need for reaching each

milestones and ensure the whole project can be finished timely within 26 weeks - quite a short

period. To help in estimating the duration as accurate as possible, some steps and methods can be

used here. The project team firstly have to think about the resources which can be used such as

manpower. Even this is a elite team, 5 people cannot manage too much work at the same time.

Information research can also be a way for time estimating. Big company often maintain a database

to record the historical information. Those records, which are from the similar activities, can be taken

as reference or basis of estimating (e.g. how long does the government authority take to respond

requests) (Project Management Institute, 2000, p.77). Thirdly, it is necessary to work together with the

risk manager to identify risks. The impact of risks mostly influence duration of time. Once a risk is

identified as high possibility and high impact, more time should be given to the related work for any

eventualities. The project team could choose to make a good use of time buffer as a cushion of

unexpected delay. Concepts of time reserve will be discussed later in the next paragraph.

The result of duration estimating is presented graphically by a Gannt Chart (see Figure 1). This is also

the top level schedule of Prosalo. There are other ways to display project schedule but Gannt Chart is

the most popular one as it contain all the information (start and end date, duration, phases,

milestones) in a easy format to read. With the schedule and WBS, the project team now may know

clearly about what, when, who, where and how the project is going to be done.

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(Fig 1. Top Level Schedule of Prosalo)

No matter how much effort have been put on the duration estimating, the project schedule is still

only an assumption. There are many factors which may cause potential delay to the project and the

project team can never guarantee timely completion of the project. Therefore, time buffer (or time

reserve) should be applied to raise the probability of finishing project on time. Mainly there are two

ways to find buffers - they can be feed into the project schedule intentionally by starting all activities

as early as possible, which is called Critical Chain Management; another one is to discover buffers by

network path computation, which is known as Critical Path Method and the following paragraph will

be focusing on this method.

As mentioned before, the final product of a project is normally a result of two or more small

achievement. These achievement have different start and end point and go forward by their own

path. It is almost impossible all the milestones are reached at the same time so the duration of each

path can be very different. Even some of the milestones can be reached relatively earlier, they still

need to wait for the the result of the long path, otherwise the project can’t go to the next step. There

are two main path of Prosalo, one is office setting and another is employees hiring. Office setting

needs longer duration because of waiting for respond of government authority, licensing and interior

design, while employees hiring takes shorter time as interviewing is not a complicated process.

However, although all the employees can be hired in a short time, exam can only be given them once

the office is well-prepared and usable. The period that one path need to wait until another path to

finish is known as slack. The path with the longest duration is called critical path as there are no slack

you can find in this path (Fahad, 2014). Let’s say duration of the critical path in Prosalo (office setting)

would last for 13 weeks, and duration of hiring new employees is just 6 weeks. If they both start at

the same point, the path of hiring employees would have 7-weeks-slack before going to testing stage.

Project team can therefore spare more resources to the critical path as it is tighter.

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With the Critical Path Method, project controller can then calculate the total and free slack’s number

of different activities. Total slack means the amount of time that a activity can be delayed without

delay the project completion date. Free slack means a activity can be delayed without delay the early

start date. (Dennis, 2007, p.217) The forward pass approach generate the early start and early finish

date (ES / EF) of all activities and the late start and late finish date (LS / LF) of activities can be

calculated by backward pass approach. After doing some simple calculation with the ES / EF and LS /

LF then we can get the amount of total slack and free slack.

Actually the Critical Path Method is not a perfect way to deal with potential delay. The emphasis of

this tool is to find out the slack from non-critical path and allocate resources to the critical path.

However, this is optimistically expect all the resources are available all the time. On the other hand,

the activities lying on the critical path have no buffer at all, even they got more resources from the

project team, it is still a challenge to finish those works within the duration. But still the Critical Path

Method is an ideal tool for Prosalo as it draws special attention to the critical path and it is good for

contingency planning and controlling the project which is not so complicated like Prosalo (Fahad,

2014). Last but not least, the resources needed to use in this project are not so much, resource

dependencies is therefore not a problem.

2.4. Project Cost Management

Project Cost Estimating and Baseline - Challenges and Limitation

The importance of cost to a project do not have to mention specifically. Project controller not only

need to calculate the cost of needed resources, but also decide how much cost should be spent on a

activity depending on it’s estimated effect. Cost of project mainly come from resources. The first step

of cost estimating is to determine what kind of resources are needed (e.g. people, equipment,

materials), quantities of those resources will be used and which activities would need them.

Milestones, WBS and historical information are the main input to determine needed resources

(Project Management Institute, 2000, p.85). Project controller should discuss with quality manager

about the scope of project as different objectives may need particular resources to fulfill in order to

maintain the quality of the project.

Once defined all the resources the project need, cost estimating can be started. This is a challenging

work because of different limitation. Ideally project controller need to estimate the cost of all

resources, and then allocate them to different work packages to get a project cost baseline. Project

Manager will hand in the budget plan to the management in order to request for budget. However, in

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reality, the sequence is always reversed. The management will firstly provide the project team a

certain amount of budget and the team have to decide how to allocate the budget, and Prosalo is one

of the case. On the other hand, project team need to think about the balance between those 3

factors in the project triangle. When project controller try to reduce project cost, there will always be

conflict against time and scope. For example, hiring one IT technician is definitely cheaper than hiring

two, but the time for setting up computer and network will probably increase. Cost can also be

reduced by canceling the exam, but then the quality will be a doubt. Project controller should have a

good communication with quality manager because time and performance are always prior to cost

(within budget is okay) in their perspective. Nevertheless, cost estimating and budgeting are still

needed so project manager can gain more budget from the management in case it is necessary.

The approach that Prosalo used is call Analogous estimating(see Figure 2). This technique is also

called top-down estimating. Basis of top-down estimating come from previous project which is

similar to Prosalo. Estimator refer to the numbers of previous project to determine the project total

cost (Dennis, 2007, p.55). Generally speaking, this technique is base on experience and information.

Top-down estimating is especially good for the initial stage of the project as no one has detailed idea

about which resources are going to be used (Larson, 2011, p.132). But the low accuracy is a huge

drawback - basically top-down estimate is a kind of “guesstimate”. Firstly, it is unusual that a previous

project exactly same as the current project. Maybe there are some cases which are also

about setting up a office, but Prosalo is quite special, which is a project aiming to set up a sales office

in Brussels (the rent in Brussels is high) with a showcase room. Thus it is hard to estimate the cost of

Prosalo by referencing other projects. Secondly, project team may not be familiar with all the aspects

of the project. There are none of the team member has the expertise and experience in dealing

construction work and interior design. The estimated cost of this activity is totally base on

information from internet. No one knows if it is correct, or to what extent it is accurate. Because of

the low accuracy, it is a challenge for the project manager to gain more budget as the details can not

be provided to the management.

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(Fig 2. Top-down cost estimating using WBS)

Concepts of Bottom-Up Estimating

There is another approach which is more efficient and accurate call bottom-up estimating. This

approach involves in the work package level and estimate the cost of individual activities. These

individual cost will then be rolled up to bring about a project total cost (Dennis, 2007, p.55). The

bottom-up estimating method is more reliable because it is on the basis of the WBS. Cost are more in

detail and false can be minimized. Three things have to be aware in order to raise the accuracy of the

result. First of all, project team have to define resource requirement as detail as possible. Secondly, all

the team members should join the estimating. The team member who are responsible for one

specific activity have to do the cost estimating for such activity because he/she is familiar with it. Of

course it will be even better if the team member have relative knowledge or experience of that

activity (Larson, 2011, p.132). Thirdly, bottom-up estimating raise not only accuracy but also cost,

project team have to make a balance between additional accuracy and additional cost (Project

Management Institute, 2000, p.88).

Budget Reserve

In order to tackle with identified and unforeseen risks, project controller also need to make cost

reserve by cooperating with the risk manager. Risk manager will first find out and define the potential

risk. According to the probability and harmfulness of the risks, fund will be allocated to different work

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packages, this is budget reserve. There is a per cent amount of total budget putting on the top level

of the whole project to cover unforeseen risks and it call management reserve.

2.5. Reflection

Though the process is full of challenges, I am still very happy and enjoy a lot of of being the project

controller of Prosalo. This project gives me a new understanding for planning. In the past the only

concept about time in my mind is “deadline”. Finishing the job before the deadline means

requirement fulfilled. But works will be getting larger and more complicated with my position going

higher, sometimes the project is like a bottomless pit. Tools and techniques like phases, milestones

and time estimating would be very helpful to organize and control time. They are important because

they tell you what you have to do next and how you can reach the goal. Thus they are actually useful

in many aspect on the daily life in addition to only project management. On the other hand, at the

beginning I was worry about my position as one of the ability that project controller may have is

strong sense on number, unfortunately this is what I am exactly weak in. Scheduling and cost

estimating include a lot numbers and they make me stick there for a period a time. But in fact the

difficulty come from the concepts behind those numbers, the calculation is just simple mathematics.

People can always benefit from doing something they are not so familiar with because of attempting

and delving into the new thing. I am glad that finally I am not only able to finish the scheduling and

cost estimating, but also giving my analysis of those method to show that I really learn something

therefrom.

Honestly speaking there are many defects of this project. Mistakes can be made as this is our first

project management, but still it is necessary to know what can be improve in order to strive for better

next time.

1. The time schedule seems too optimistic. We will start to hire employees while at the same

time we start the task of office setting. Ideally, communication with the government and

signing contract would not spend much of time so we are able to manage other things. But

no one knows if this assumption is correct or not. It is better to ask for opinion from someone

who are experiencing or do more information research.

2. The Critical Path Method is not so secure. Although the critical path have the first priority for

using resources, it has no slack to against risks and uncertainty. And the assumption of

unlimited resources is too optimistic. Therefore, using the Critical Chain Management would

be a better option. This approach is more realistic and encourage us to work efficiently.

3. The top-down cost estimating is too rough. Lack of knowledge and information is a reason,

but the team can do more on thinking about the needed resources and duration. Even the

top-down approach is about guess, the more preparation you do, the higher accuracy you

get.

17

Bibliography

Books

Dennis Lock, 2007. Project Management. Gower Publishing, 9th Revised Edition.

Larson, W. Eric, Gray, Clifford F., 2011. Project Management. The Managerial Process. McGraw-Hill, 5th International Edition.

Melton, Trish, 2007. Project Management Toolkit: The Basics for Project Success. Butterworth Heinemann, 2nd Revised edition

Mike Field, Laurie S. Keller, 2007. Project Management. Thomson Learning.

Project Management Institute, 2000. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Project Management Institute, Inc., Pennsylvania, 5th Edition

Article

ACostE, 2007. Reining in your project controls - introducing the Project Controller. Project Control Professional, May 2007, p.10-13. Internet Source

Fahad Usmani, 2014. Critical Path Method (CPM) in Project Management. Retrieved from https://pmstudycircle.com/2014/01/critical-path-method-cpm-in-project-management/

18

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Quality Management Approach

3. Project Manager’s responsibilities

4. Project Priorities

5. Quality Assurance Plan

6. Review Plan

7. Reflection

8. Appendix

19

Quality Management

Introduction:

This quality management plan helps to define the level of quality to be maintained during processes

of the project and is backed up by requirements. It also describes the procedures by which the

project team will maintain the required level of quality in its work process, work packages, cost

budgeting, and deliverables. The goal is to maintain the Quality of work and produce results that go

beyond requirements. Following are the specific requirements of this project.

Setting up Sales office in Prosalo

Hiring 12 young professional employees

€ 150,0000 for total cost

Time period for the project is 26 weeks

It is important to define what actually mean by quality in this project operationally. Quality in this

project is defined as “Setting up an sales office in a great location with infra-structure that is best

suited to young professional employees and their work environment within time frame.” The aim is

to hire twelve highly professional and competent employees, providing high quality training to them

and also providing certificates.

This Quality Management Plan for the PROSALO project will help to establish the activities in

processes, setting up procedures for maintaining the quality of projected work and services rendered

to the WING upon the completion of the project.

Quality Management Approach:

This portion portrays the approach that will be adopted to manage quality in entire project. Quality

management is essential to prevent un-necessary wastage of time and cost while providing desired

deliverables in the project. This quality management plan follows approach from “Process Quality” in

which quality is checked and maintained in time to time basis. This quality management plan is based

on following considerations.

Priorities

Quality Assurance/ Required Actions

Review Plan

Reflection

In order to ensure best quality, this Quality management plan describes various procedures following

which the project will be successful, the procedures are:

Scheduling meetings

Managing resources ( out sourcing , hiring procedure, testing instruments )

Cost review

Time analysis

Checking with buffers in time/budget

Feedback/ suggestions from employees

20

Project Manager’s Responsibilities

Project Manager: Planning and Defining Scope. Activity Planning and Sequencing

Project Controller: Working with project manager, clarifying objective and goal of the project

, creating project budget and schedule.

Quality Manager: Working with project that fits with the office’s internal and external

requirements, also with legal compliance and office expectation. The main focus of quality

manager is to ensure that products meet certain quality standards. They plan, direct or

coordinate quality assurance programs and formulate policies for quality control. Their goal

is to improve the organization's efficiency and profitability by reducing wastage of time and

cost and maintaining high level of performance.

Risk Manager: working with project loss control, finance, claims specialists, legal issues and

accounting

System Architect: working with project behavior and structure

Priorities:

This project has diverse priorities according to the set milestones. At initial/planning phase, this

project focuses more on performance. At second stage/Operations mode, project members will focus

more on time. At the last stage/ testing phase, team members will focus more on cost. Over all, all

three priorities will be considered throughout the project according to the need of the situation and

project dynamics.

Quality Assurance Plan:

Having already defined the term "Quality" for this project, the Quality Assurance Plan includes,

sticking to the quality control process by taking required actions at the required times that are as

follows:

Continuously conducting meetings with other leading members of the project.

Reducing communication gap and providing free access to important information and details

about the project and also facilitating communication between the leading members of the

project.

Preparing audit report of budget so that this project will not exceed the required limit.

Checking real-time milestones in order to ensure that project is going on within the time

frame and the deadlines are being met.

Trying to figure out and alleviating reasons, if any member of the project is not satisfied with

project operations or any other factor.

Making necessary audit report for deliverables (Office, Professional employees, instruments )

against cost.

Testing Office infrastructure and employees capabilities ( after training )

Every manager will make report on his/her duties that reflects performance

Getting Feedback from fresh employees about office location, infrastructure, hiring process,

and communication to their boss.

21

Expected date to carry out activities

Date Activities Results

24th Nov 2016 Conduct meeting in order to reduce communication gap and introduce team mates and briefing of project’s requirements, quality standard and basic time frame.

Positive

28th Nov 2016 Discuss in detail about Planning phase of project Positive

26th Dec 2016 Finalizing Office Planning Pending

16th Jan 2017 Finalizing Hiring Strategies and discussion in detail for operation phase

Pending

6th Feb 2017 Reporting for office execution Pending

20th Feb 2017 Checking office Location with cost budgeting Pending

27th Mar 2017 Checking office infrastructure and compare to actual cost Pending

10th April 2017 Reporting for hiring process Pending

24th April 2017 Checking if hiring process is already done and discussion about testing employees and office infrastructure

Pending

1st May 2017 Report of on-going testing procedure Pending

8th May 2017 Detailed report about testing phase from responsible persons and check with budget. If things are good, then discussion for handing over this office to WING

Pending

12th May 2017 Be sure that all preparation is already made Pending

15th May 2017 Feedback from WING Pending

Through these activities, the project will have desired deliverables in a condition where other factors

such as time, cost and performance remain according to plan. On the contrary, if there is some

problem then it is then responsibility of quality management team; specifically of the quality

manager, that he makes alert log to identify the problem and take necessary steps in order to resolve

the issue. This could be done through the below sample chart:

Logs

Date Type of Problem Responsible Authority

Suggested ( Action/Solution )

Deliverables

Time

Cost

Communication gap

Review Plan:

This section provides information about how this project is to be reviewed in order to reduce any

mistakes/error. This could be done by the “Quality Manager “for his record. And if quality manager

finds some problems in review plan then he should conduct meeting with other leading managers or

with specific manager, depending on the issue and the person responsible. This must be documented

in written form so that errors are corrected and responsible authority is approached to resolve this

issue. This project manages review plan in a format that is shown below.

22

Log

Date Review of activities Problems Responsible Appointment

Reflection:

At the very first stage, when all team members were assigned to complete this project in an effective

manner, all of them were not much familiar with terms “Work packages, Work breakdown structure,

milestone, stake holder register”. But after having brief instructions about these terms, all team

members are now well trained to cope with all kind of problems that may occur. In addition to this,

the instructions polished team member’s internal potential for analyzing situations in a critical and

serious manner. The Project manager was facing a problem in dealing with the sponsor but finally

project manager succeeded in convincing the sponsor, reduced communication gap among all other

leading team members. The System architect faced problems with short span of time but with the

help of samples of other similar past projects, this project system architect managed everything in a

very smooth manner. In general, all risk managers always find complications about legal

documentation, but in this project, risk manager did an excellent job in drawing appropriate legal

documents. Since this project has little budget, project controller encountered few difficulties while

analyzing top to down budgeting approach and bottom to up budgeting approach but the project

controller did tremendous efforts in order to meet requirements while keeping quality of

deliverables. Quality manager was little bit confused in defining the term “Quality “in this project.

But due to excessive amount of collaboration with other top level management, Quality manager

was able to define “Quality “in this project in a right manner considering the requirements of

projects.

23

Appendix

QUALITY

There is a wide variety of definitions of quality. Walter Stewart defined quality as the goodness of

product. Later this definition was broadened and extended to both products and services. A query

was conducted on numerous managers in the United States to state their definition of quality. The

following nine definitions were the most popular:

1) Perfection

2) Consistency

3) Eliminating waste

4) Speed of delivery

5) Compliance with policies and procedures

6) Providing a good, usable product

7) Doing it right the first time

8) Delighting or pleasing customers

9) Total customer service and satisfaction

(Evans 2008, pp.6)

Quality management system (QMS) is a formal system that includes documenting the structure,

responsibilities and processes required to achieve effective quality management. In addition, quality

management is defined by American Society for Quality as follows: “The application of a quality

management system in managing a process to achieve maximum customer satisfaction at the lowest

overall cost to the organization while continuing to improve the process” (ASQ, 2013a).

Reflection model:

This model highlights that experiences in learning combine behavior, ideas and feelings and all of

these aspects need to be examined in the process of reflection. (Boud, Keogh and Walker,1985).

24

Table of Contents

4. Systems Architect 4.1 Use cases 4.2 Requirements Definition 4.3 Plan for Verification, Validation 4.4 Reflection

References

25

4.1 Use Cases

Project Baseline Report

As a “Systems Architect” of the project “PROSALO” who is responsible for looking for the tangible

output in the view of user perspective, I determined to deliver the project not only to meet the

needs but also satisfy all people operating the sales office after the end of the project. I do consider

and concern the requirements from WING and also our young professional employees by using users’

stories as a tool to do the project more understandingly and effectively. The aim of my work is to

closely coordinate with management team and put the role of “Systems Architect” during the project

to monitor each process to achieve as planned.

There are two major deliverables that require careful monitoring and verified testing before handing

over to WING: a Sales office and 12 young professionals.

26

“Sales office”

According to “Top Level Schedule”, the decision regarding to office planning will be done first in LM2

(within 4 weeks). What should be done in this process is the project management team needs to

clearly understand requirements and reach an agreement. Thus, everyone has a chance to propose

ideas and clarify things to make sure we are on the same track during the planning. As a role of

systems architect, location (2.1.1) and office needs (2.1.3) are my major tasks from Work Breakdown

Structure (WBS).

In planning process, the project management team and I as systems architect have come up with

obvious requirements of the sales office as follows

- Located in downtown area but not too showy

- Enough space for showroom and 12 employees

- Renting is in a budget

- Able to make a contract within desired period of time

For office needs, keeping in mind on users’ most benefits, it’s advantageous to list all utilities in each

room which relates to the features and functions in order to easily hand on the list to a contractor to

purchase all products with the requirements.

Utilitty List

Utilities Requirement Approx Cost Number Note

Room: Kitchen

1.Table Spacious & Durable EURO 100 1 For 12 Pax

2.Chair Comfortable, Durable & Light EURO 10 Each 12 -

3.Coffee machine Italian brand EURO 200 1 -

27

In the step of execution for the office, I need to cooperate more with a quality manager during

construction and design (3.1.3) to ensure standard and security of infrastructure. To do so, the

strategy of our project is to do make a weekly report to check the advancement of the project and do

“Initial testing” for things right away after installation to check such functions. However, the all

verification of the office will be absolutely checked again during office testing (4.1) with the plan of

verification and validation.

Report Week 10

Construction

And Design

Installment Completion Initial Testing Quality Manager

1.Electricity Done 100% Verified ((Signature))

2. Interior design On process 68% - -

3. Office utility

3.1. Table and Chair

On process

10%

-

-

“12 young professionals”

According to “Top Level Schedule”, the decision regarding to hiring strategies will be finalized in LM3

(within 3 weeks). As a role of systems architect, requirements of employees (2.2.2) are my

responsibility from Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). So, in order to support and assess young high

potentials to participate in the project, it is necessary to set up appropriate job requirements to

attract those who are ready and well qualified to join.

- Male or female based in Brussels

- Aged 22-25 years old

- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Public Relations, marketing or any

related fields

- Fresh graduate is welcome

- Good command of English in writing and speaking

- Creative and critical skills

- Green energy knowledge is a plus

- 1-year contract

With the assistance by quality control who examines the job requirements, I can conduct a good

work. Fortunately, I also appreciate the help from risk manager who proposes on signing-a-contract

condition to reduce employee turnover which will waste time and cost during the project if such

cases occur.

By the time of LM6 which employees will be hired, I have got 13 weeks since LM3 (Decision regarding

to Hiring Strategies). After job postings, I would take responsiblity on recruting candidate and setting

up interview (3.2.2) to secure WING to have right people working with. Ones who can pass through

the interview process are those who show high enthusiasm on this job which means who are readiest

and well qualified according to job requirements.

28

Candidates who get through the interview sesion have to do written examination before the real

interview with committee which comprises of a person from WING, one from MASA, Project

Manager and me as a Systems Architect.

Written examination would be psychometric and aptitude test related to each role of jobs (sales,

accountants, secretaries) to assess the personality and characteristics of candidates match each job

role. To illustrate, for sales officers we require those who obtain self motivated, strategic thinking,

personal diplomacy and influencing on customers‘ decision.

Eventually, to evaluate and find 12 young professional employees who fit PROSALO, those candidates

have to impress all committee during the interview which we also agree on these extra requirements

who can be obviously seen from such final criteria: hardworking, team player and creativity.

4.2 Requirements Definition

A requirement is a formalized statement identifying a capability, a functionality, a physical

characteristic, or a quality that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to

satisfy a contract, a standard, a specification, or other formally imposed documents

(ISO 10795, 2013)

PROSALO is a challenging project which I prioritize the requirements in order to satisfy WING who

anticipates the success of the project and facilitate employees who will operate the sale office in the

future. To meet those needs from both sides, as a systems architect, I choose to have procedure to

run on my work.

Steps of requirements management

1. Identify requirements

In every stage of work, we always start with the requirements of stakeholders who are WING and

employees to know what their needs are. Also, it helps me to avoid last-minute requirements that

may happen unexpectedly which will bring about risks to the project.

2. Manage the demand considering time, cost, scope + customer satisfaction

After working based on requirements from stakeholders, the project should be executed under the

triple constraint. For example, the office meets all requirements in terms of nice location, well-

equipped office but it delays to hand over for a month or costs double of the budget. It is a failure.

Thus, it is unavoidable to take strong consideration on time, cost, scope and especially customer

satisfaction.

3. Review

Eventually, each task of work needs to be reviewed whether it functions correctly or needs to be

fixed. Otherwise, how does the defect or malfunction meet the requirements? As a result, an

effective plan for verification and validation should be initiated.

29

4.3 Plan for Verification, Validation

Verification is to ratify that the system meets the requirements while validation is to ratify that the

systems meet stakeholders’ needs and expectations. After we have done these steps, next is

acceptance testing which allows us to coordinate with customers whether they accept the system

and feel pleased to pay.

Our plan is to have initial testing in execution (3) and completely huge verification and validation in

testing (4). After each task in execution process has been done such as construction and design, in

order to reduce uncertainty of an occurrence which will have an impact on the project, it is crucial to

verify the system right away after the installation for example, electricity in the office, computers,

and other office utilities.

Then, the plan for verification, I as a systems architect I decided to adopt Verification Process: V-

Model to run through the whole office testing (4.1) and examination (4.2) of new employees (after

being trained) in testing (4). There four stages of verification process: inspection, review, analysis and

test to double check the office, infrastructure, utility and new employees whether they meet

requirements or not. Those which/who perform under the standard must be improved and verified

again.

(Prof. Dr. H. Meyer / Dipl.-Ing. Heinz-Josef Reher, 2012)

Last but not least, if there’s still a problem, we need to work on that immediately with project

management crew related to issues to find the best solutions for problems caused. And, when

everything goes well, we could pass through to validation of the project to be ready to hand over on

LM8 (one week before the duration of PROSALO).

30

4.4 Reflection

“Systems architect” is a person who dedicates a lot in this project. In my opinion, it is the person who

focuses on how it is going to be used, how useful the stuff is, and how impressive the people who use

it will feel. Apparently, what really helps me is “having the idea of user’s perspective” because if you

know what their requirements or what they want, it gives you a clearer idea of what it is and how it

looks like. What could be the problems during the project is “having too much the idea of user’s

perspective”. The reason why I assume like that is when you care too much on customers’

requirements, it gives you hard work too. Sometimes, what they need cannot meet with the triple

constraint such as real cost, limited time and scope (eg. scope creep). So, it should be well balanced.

Finally, without coordinating much and keeping close contact with quality manager, project manager

and the risk manager, I as being a systems architect wouldn’t perform the work successfully.

31

References

Dick Billows. Project Requirements. http://www.4pm.com/project-requirements-management, 2016. Accessed at November 30, 2016. Gerrit Muller. The Role and Task of the System Architect. http://www.gaudisite.nl/RoleSystemArchitectPaper.pdf, 2011. Accessed at December 3, 2016. Institute of Phychometric Coaching (IPC). http://www.psychometricinstitute.com.au/Managers-Sales-Business-Development.html, Accessed at December 2, 2016. ISO 10795. Requiremets Management. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:16404:ed-1:v1:en, 2013. Accessed at November 29. 2016.

32

Table of Contents

Introduction

5. Risk manager

Case study: Prosalo

Role of risk manager

5. 1 Risk description

5.1.1 Risk management planning

5.1.2 Probability and impact

5. 2 Risk evaluation and portfolio

5.3 Risk strategy and mitigation plan

5.4 Reflection

References

Appendix

33

Introduction

Risk is present in all projects on a small or large scale. It has, in most cases, a very negative

connotation and avoidance or reduction of risk seems to be the aimed course of action. Though risk

is seen as undesirable, risk is inherent to most projects and without it new opportunities would be

lost (Embrechts and al, 2015). A certain amount of risk is present in the completion of a project. Risk

management in a project, in accordance to its main focus, is to be able to identify potential risks and

then control the probability or impact or consequences of an event (The Institute of Risk

Management, 2002). The specific branch of project management that caters to risk is called risk

management and « is the processes whereby organisations methodically address the risks attaching

to their activities with the goal of achieving sustained benefit within each activity and across the

portfolio of all activities. » (The Institute of Risk Management, 2002)

5. Risk manager

Case study: Prosalo

Risk is specific to the case or project in which we are dealing. To fully understand what risks are

possible in this particular case, a brief explanation will be made. The project consists of the opening

of a new sales office in Brussels for a consulting company. The requirements for this new office,

called Prosalo, in the framework of the project, consist of a time limit and a financial limit of 26

weeks and 150 000 €.

At the end of this project, the deliverables are a fully functional office space ready for use, as

well as, a fully trained team of twelve young professionals. This means that the office delivered must

be ready to use and ready to make operational.

Role of risk manager

Seeing as each project presents its potential risks and potential issues, a risk manager is necessary to

manage these situations. The role of a risk manager is to «advise organisations on any potential risks

to the profitability or existence of the company. They identify and assess threats, put plans in place

for if things go wrong and decide how to avoid, reduce or transfer risks (Halder, 2016).» What is

important to remember is that a risk is not a problem, it is a potential situation that needs to be

addressed.

34

5. 1 Risk description

5.1.1 Risk management planning

In order to manage your projects risks, a plan must be laid out. Initially, identification of risks needs

to be done. In this stage, potential risks, causes and effects, tailored to the needs of your project,

need to be identified. Risk triggers, which can be compared to warning signs, are things that can help

you anticipate a possible risk to your project (Project management knowledge, 2016). After this, risk

analysis is necessary: evaluation of the probability of occurrence and impacts of risk, creating a short

list of most critical risks and evaluation of the feasibility and viability of the project fallowing the

results. Thirdly, a risk response plan and strategy is put in place (Project management, class slides,

2016).

5.1.2 Probability and impact

Importantly, at the beginning of the risk identification process, it is worthwhile, and crucial to set

common guidelines for the team in terms of probability and impact and how to evaluate them. In the

case of Prosalo, the scale for probability was set as follows: Low, medium, high, very high. Each of

these categories represents a percentage class, meaning the possibility that an event will occur out

of one hundred (Table 1).

Table 1: Evaluation of probability of risks in percentage

Probability Occurrence probabilities (%)

Low 1-25

Medium 26-50

High 51-74

Very high 75-100

As for the impact, it too will have a scale set as follows: Low, medium, high, very high. In this

case, three distinct categories can be affected. These categories refer to the triple constraints:

Performance, cost and schedule (time) (Table 2).

Table 2: Evaluation of impact of risk with performance, cost and schedule constraints

Performance Cost Schedule

Impact Achievement of requirements Increase in

developmental costs Delay

Low Errors only perceived < 5K € < 2 weeks

35

internally (Prosalo)

Medium Slightly degraded

performance ≥ 5K € to < 40K € ≥ 2 weeks to < 6 weeks

High

Significant impact of

performance, inability to

deliver the project on time

≥ 40K € to < 65K € ≥6 weeks to < 8 weeks

Very High

Endangering the mission of

the project and feasibility of

delivering office

≥ 65K ≥ 8 weeks

Once the risk probabilities and impacts determined and evaluated, the risk level can be

determined. Once the risk level is clear, a certain prioritization can take place (Appendix 1). These

levels will also help plan responses to be taken in terms of the different risks (Project management,

class slides 2016).

5. 2 Risk evaluation and portfolio

In terms of the Prosalo project, many risks where identified. Three of the main risks where the

following delay in project approval and permits, technical issues with devices and employee turnover.

A risk register was created for our project (Appendix 2).

The first risk would be described as follows; if there is a delay in project approval and permits

then the office delivery to WING will be delayed. The initial approval of the project will have to be

given by government bodies. This step is very important because the continuation of the project is

not possible without initial approval. Possible risk triggers for this are missing documents, changes in

legal aspects, different legal aspects in different countries, translation necessities that may take time.

The main constraint affected in this is time. Seeing as these approvals are a major concept in the

Prosalo project the impact of this risk is high (inability to deliver the project on time and significant

impact on overall performance of the project) and the probability is medium seeing as the amount of

paperwork needed will be high and therefore necessitates more time to process. These impact and

probability levels give an overall medium risk level. It is evaluated that the cost of this risk may be

equivalent to a four week delay period. The risk owner to this problem is the project manager seeing

as he or she will be the one in contact with government organizations.

The second risk that of technical issues with devices; if there are technical issues on devices,

then the employees cannot work in a supportive environment. The installation of such devices will

take place during the execution phase of the project. This step will permit the office to be ready on

36

time and operational at the date of delivery. The trigger for this risk is the installation of devices in

the office throughout the execution phase. The major effect is on cost and time and they are

estimated to be of 2000 € and 2 weeks to fix any potential problems. The impact is therefore low

because it is a problem that is only perceived internally. The probability is high seeing as a completely

new technology and information system is being set up. These impact and probability levels give an

overall low risk level. The risk owner to this problem is the system architect.

The last risk identified it that of employee turnover during the process of the project which is

to say during the hiring, training and post training phase before delivery of the office; if there is

employee turnover, then it will be necessary to repeat the hiring process. The trigger to this problem

is negative feedback given by the employee to the management team or trainer throughout or after

the training process. The low number of employees hired (12 total) places this risk at a high impact

level. If one employee leaves, a big part of the work force is gone. The major effect is in terms of cost

and time and they are estimated to be of 1500 € and 4 weeks to fix any potential problems because

of the necessity to train a new person. The probability of this happening is low seeing as all

employees will be made aware of the implications of the job at the time of interviewing and hiring.

The overall risk level is therefore low. The risk owner to this problem is the quality manager.

5.3 Risk strategy and mitigation plan

Strategies have been put in place to respond to each of the risks identified. Strategies are present in

order to make informed decisions about the steps to be taken to manage risk. The strategy is there

to help reduce the impact and/or the probability of a certain risk (Project management, class slides,

2016).

In the case of the first risk identified, delay in project approval and permits, the response

strategy to be taken would be acceptation and reduction of risk. Seeing as a part of this process is in

the hands of an institution that is exterior to the project, part of this risk is harder to manage. This is

where accepting of the possible outcome will take place. However, steps will be taken at the

beginning of this process in order to reduce the risk of this occurring. Making sure all necessary

documents are present and in order, making sure all translations of documents are available and all

legal requirements are met are the steps that will be undertaken.

In the case of the second risk, technical issues with devices, the response strategy is reducing

the risk probability. Once the planning phase and the office setup is complete, set up of electronics

and technological services will begin as soon as possible before official opening. This will reduce the

37

chances of last minute problems. Also, the devices and software will be tested in phases after each

installation in order to avoid problems at the end and having to start the whole process over.

In the case of the last risk, employee turnover, the response strategy is reducing the risk

probability. The way to address this risk is to create contracts that will be signed by the employees at

the time of hiring giving a minimum employment time, for example one year. This way the desire to

leave during the course of the project will be reduced.

5.4 Reflection

The role of risk manager is very important in a project, it helps direct a project in the right way that

will help minimize potential risks. The goal of a risk manager is to identify risks and try to minimize

their impacts and probability. Though risk managers formulate risk registers and determine what

strategies to use in order to achieve their goal, they do not work alone and every member of the

project is vital to help him or her manage risk. Every risk falls under the responsibility of a member of

the project and it is a team effort. As mentioned earlier, every risk identified in this project has a

different risk owner that in every case is different than the risk manager. This shows that risk is in the

hands of every member of the team. The risk manager therefore works closely with all other roles.

It was identified that risk in projects can be internal or can have an external origins and the

level of control you have over every aspect is not necessarily complete. Identifying these risks is,

however, a key part of any project seeing as it permits you to overcome challenges, deliver projects

on time with as little disturbances as possible and have control over the course of action that your

project takes. The role of a risk management is therefore very important.

This project has been very enlightening for us as future management professionals. It has

permitted me to fully understand how and why it is important to plan and manage a project using

the right tools. Tools such as the work breakdown structure, the master schedule, the risk register,

the stakeholder register and the Gantt chart. Planning projects in this way permits you to have a

clear goal or path during the project as well as helping you control different factors that could,

without the proper tools, become confusing and poorly managed. In this way, you can have

knowledge of the outcome and path that your project needs to take and avoid the unknown which

can be a huge risk without project management. Project management is applicable in many areas,

such as report writing, projects, working on organizational skills and working in team environments.

This particular project context was very interesting because of the intercultural context of the class.

Being able to see one situation through different points of view and different backgrounds was

38

interesting and eye opening. It permitted us to try and understand one another and work on our own

strengths and weaknesses.

39

References

Embrechts, P., Frey, R. & McNeil, A. (2005) Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and

tools. PDF. New Jersey: Princeton University press. (Viewed on December 10th 2016)

Halder, G. (2016) Job profile: Risk manager. Prospects.ac.uk. [Online] URL:

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/risk-manager (Page consulted on November 30th

2016)

Institute of risk management. (2002) A risk management standard. PDF. London. (Viewed on

December 5th 2016)

Investopedia. (2016) Risk Profile. Investopedia.com. [Online] URL:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/risk-profile.asp (Page consulted on December 5th)

Project management (2016) Slides MTM 2016: Risk management. Masters in international tourism

management.

Project management Knowledge. (2016) Triggers. Project-management-knowledge.com. [Online]

URL: http://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/t/triggers/ (Page consulted

on November 30th)

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1: Risk level 1

41

Appendix 2

Risk register for Prosalo Project

Risk Risk Trigger Major Effects Impact Probability

Risk level Strategy Action

Risk Owner

If there is a delay in project approval and permits then the office delivery to WING will be delayed

Missing documents, changes in legal aspects, different legal aspects in different countries, translation difficulties Time High Medium Medium

Accept and reduce

Give in well prepared documents and make sure all necessary documents are present

Project manager

If there are technical issues on devices, then the employees cannot work in a supportive environment

Installation of devices

Time and money Low High Low Reduce

Set up as soon as possible before official opening, Test the devices in phases after each installation

System Architect

If there is employee turnover, then we need to repeat the hiring process

Negative feedback, desire to resign, insatisfaction of employee

Time and money High Low Low Reduce

Create contracts that will be signed by the employees at hiring giving a minimum employment time

Quality manager