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MGMT7020 Technology and Project Management Assignment - Australian National University, Australia

TASK: Project Management Plan

PURPOSE: Students will be required to assume a management role in the project governance structure and develop key elements of the project plan. The plan requires students to draw upon learnings, concepts and issues identified in the case study from the Technology module.

DESCRIPTION: In this assignment, you will develop the key elements of a project plan. Your team will play the roles of the Project Owner and the Project Manager. As the Project Owner, you are accountable for the development of Part A of the Project Plan. As the Project Manager, you are accountable for the development of Part B of the Project Plan.

REQUIREMENTS -

The South Australian (SA) government has selected your team to lead the project that will install several renewable energy generators and a battery facility on Kangaroo Island.

As a part of its overall energy strategy, the SA government intends to expand the number of renewable energy production sites across the state. It believes that this is a good way of raising consumer awareness of renewable energy alternatives and hopes that SA citizens will view this favourably when they go to the next election. In addition, it wants to demonstrate that the use of renewable energy can reduce the cost of business and household energy consumption. Finally, the SA government wants to demonstrate that they can reduce the percentage of energy that Kangaroo Island (KI) draws from mainland sources.

The selected solution consists of the installation of solar and wind power generation sites that will feed energy into a centralised battery storage facility located on KI. Additional power network connections will be required to connect the new sites however, the existing infrastructure will be used to deliver energy to consumer homes and businesses.

The project has been named the Kangaroo Island Power Solution (KIPS).

The project team, that you are leading, is responsible for the design, implementation and handover of the proposed solution to the SA Energy Commission (SAEC) and is subject to the following:

KIPS consists of five components.

• Solar Farms - there are 3 solar farms included in the solution. Solar Farm 1 is twice the size of both Solar Farm 2 and Solar Farm 3. Consequently, it is expected to cost twice as much as well as take twice as long to install.
• Wind Farms: there are 2 wind farms included in the solution. One of the farms is on the island however the other will be installed off shore which has raised several environmental concerns that are being voiced by several environmental watch groups and the KI resident's association. Due to complexity, the installation of the off-shore wind farm will take twice as long and cost twice as much as the on-shore wind farm.
• Battery Site: there is one battery site that will be located on the island. It is expected to be built in parallel with the installation of the Solar and Wind Farms but cannot be tested until at least one of the Farms has been installed and connected to the Battery site.
• Power grid infrastructure: Although the project intends to use the existing power grid to distribute energy to KI businesses and homes, new power lines will need to be installed to connect the Solar and Wind Farms to the battery site. These lines cannot be tested until at least one of the farms has been installed and connected to the Battery site
• Central monitoring station: This is a brand-new station that will be located on KI and enable real time monitoring and reporting on the status of the new energy production and storage systems.

Your roles -

In this assignment, you will develop the key elements of a project plan. Your team will play the roles of the Project Owner and the Project Manager. As the Project Owner, you are accountable for the development of Part A of the Project Plan. As the Project Manager, you are accountable for the development of Part B of the Project Plan. You are expected to use the templates and approaches discussed in class.

Note: Please recall that this is a fictitious case so do not contact any organisation.

STRUCTURE & CONTENT: The expected structure for your project plan is as follows:

1. Introduction:

Provide a brief introduction to the project plan so that the reader understands your intent and has a high-level understanding of the project and the project plan's content

2. Part A - Project Context (Your team is working as the Project Owner)

2.1 Project outcomes - define the project outcomes for the project using the template discussed in class. In addition, make sure you leverage the SMART acronym to ensure that you have developed a thorough definition of the outcomes. You should have 5 - 6 well defined outcomes.

2.2 Project context -Include a simple, graphical overview of the project e.g. sites involved in the project, network technology, stakeholders, etc. This overview should easy to read and quickly communicate to an executive so that they understand what the project will deliver and the linkage to desired project outcomes.

2.3 Project challenges - describe the challenges the project may face in achieving the identified project outcomes. Remember that you are in the role of the Project Owner who is accountable for achieving the desired project outcomes.

3. Part B - Project Conduct (Your team is working as the Project Manager)

Your team has been tasked with developing a project management plan for the execution phase of the project. Remember that the work performed in Part B is in the planning phase and you have not yet begun the execution of the project.

3.1 Project organisation- Provide an overview of the project governance framework and provide a table that briefly describes the expectations of each of the major project management roles. In addition, provide a hierarchical organisation chart that describes your project team organisation. As the project manager what concerns do you have about establishing the project team organisation and are there specific actions you will take to facilitate its implementation? What behavioural characteristics do you believe you need to exhibit to effectively manage the project team?

3.2 Project stakeholders - identify the major project stakeholders, expected impact/support and describe the actions you will take to manage stakeholders during the project. Use a stakeholder map to provide a graphical view of the project stakeholders.

3.3 Project scope statement- succinctly describe the project scope ensuring that you cover multiple scope elements and clearly identify both in scope and out of scope items.

3.4 Work breakdown structure (WBS)

a. Develop a detailed WBS in hierarchical form for the project down to Level 4 or 5 (The project name is set to level 1). You should have 50 - 80 WBS elements.

b. Use a RACI matrix for each of your L2 deliverables to identify the project role(s) that are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed for the identified deliverable. Make sure that these roles appear in your project organisation.

3.5 Project schedule - establish WBS duration estimates and build a project schedule for all the WBS items in the project. Using a suitable planning tool, such as MS Project or Excel, develop a project schedule, including the tasks and activities, durations, dependencies, critical path and project milestones. Note - if you are using MS Project, you do not need to identify ES, EF, LS and LF i.e. you can just work with Start and Finish dates. As the Project Manager what will you do to manage the schedule?

3.6 Project budget - develop a time-based budget, starting at month 1, for the entire project duration so that your team can track expenditures. Your budget should be consistent with the costs associated with the timing of activities/tasks used in your schedule. Because you are creating this project you have the latitude to come up with your own cost estimates however, they should be realistic. Note this is not intended to be a detailed financial analysis.

3.7 Risk management plan (RMP) - Brainstorm the risks, probabilities and impacts. Create a risk probability/impact matrix and a risk register for the project. Make sure your scales are appropriate for this project and use the templates/approaches we discussed in class. How will you manage risks during the execution phase? Are there areas related to risk that you will also consider in parallel to risk management?

4. References - A reference list of all materials used to develop the report is required

5. Appendices,

Project context -

1. Clearly explains the outcomes of the project.

2. Provides an accurate, comprehensive and easy to read graphical view of the project so that an executive reader gets a sense of what the project will deliver breadth. Includes project outputs (as needed), stakeholders, technology, information flow, etc.

3. Clearly identifies the major challenges that the project owner needs to be aware of as they attempt to achieve the project outcomes.

4. Scope statement clearly defines the scope of the project and the boundary between in and out of scope elements are clear to the reader.

Project conduct -

1. Clearly describes the project governance framework, relationships, accountabilities and the expectations of the major roles. Uses the governance framework as discussed in class. Describes the project team organisation and clearly describes team formation concerns and the PM actions undertaken to help the team move though team formation phases.

2. Identifies the major stakeholders and accurately uses a stakeholder map, as discussed in class, to illustrate their respective impact and level of support for the project. Describes the actions that the project manager will take to either maintain or increase the stakeholder impact/support for the project.

3. Clearly describes a comprehensive, plausible WBS with the correct number of levels and accurate numbering. L2 includes all of the major project deliverables. Deliverables are represented as nouns and activities/tasks begin with a verb.

4. Delivers a project schedule that includes the WBS items down to the prescribed level and indicates summary tasks, milestones, durations, critical path and a variety of dependencies.

5. Clearly and accurately describes the monthly project budget schedule.

6. Provides a detailed risk management plan that represents the project's known risks and accurately describes the associated impact and likelihood of occurrence. Includes a risk register and describes how the project manager will manage risks and look for opportunities to improve project performance.

Note - WORD LIMIT: 1500 words and use APA in-text referencing.

Attachment:- Technology and Project Management Assignment File.rar