Case Study - The Aussie Gardens
BACKGROUND
The Zefton Conference Centre and Executive Retreat is an exclusive facility on 15 hectares located within sixty minutes' drive from a large capital city. It is also about forty minutes' drive from an international airport. It has become an exclusive training and conference venue and executive retreat for many of Australia's largest corporations.
The property includes 4 hectares of English garden consisting of oak, elm, rhododendron, and conifer trees reflecting its traditional design values when it was first built 100 years ago, 8 hectares of untouched Australian bush, expanses of open lawn, a nine-hole golf course, an exercise track, bushwalk trails, and various outdoor sporting facilities such as tennis court, croquet lawn, pool, etc.
The main building is a hill-station-style nineteenth century country residence of four formal areas and ten bedrooms. Another newer building houses the main conference facility and 20 individual living suites.
The owner of the retreat, Michael Zefton, wants to enhance the ambience of the resort to appeal to the increasing numbers of overseas business visitors wanting to experience some of Australia's unique environments. His plan is to develop the untouched 8 hectares into several "garden rooms" with distinctive Australian characteristics - wetlands, desert, scrubland, and rainforest.
His aims are to:
- Enhance the property by bringing a unique Australian perspective to the existing garden setting,
- Attract more overseas executive groups who are coming to Australia for business skills programs and are seeking an "Australian experience", and
- Maintain the facility's premier reputation.
Mr Zefton wants to do it right, but realises it could take up to a year to get the foundations, hard landscaping and planting completed, and probably another three to five years to obtain the maturity-allowing for plant establishment and growth -needed for a truly great "look and feel".
Mr Zefton also requires a controlled project, paying particular attention to:
- Staying within budget (yet to be determined)
- Limits on interruptions to the resort's existing business (it must continue operating during construction),
- Weather (the area commonly experiences cold, wet winters with extensive fog and mist periods, and three to four snowfalls each year during which time some work will need to be postponed), and
- Appropriateness of the environments being created, based on advice from the local and other relevant indigenous elders.
As the project owner, he will be sole decision-maker regarding project-critical issues while leaving the day-to-day issues to the Project Manager. He also wants to be "kept in the loop" about progress.
This new garden will be completed in three stages:
- Stage 1 -completed within twelve months, all foundation work, rock pools and water courses, rock features, paths and bridges, retaining walls, major trees and garden bed plants, and establishment of three of the "garden rooms" - wetlands, desert and scrubland
- Stage 2 -starting after Stage 1, establishment of the rainforest room, which will be a fully-enclosed and temperature- and humidity-controlled micro-environment, containing unique Australian rainforest flora, expected completion within 12 months, consolidation of other three "rooms"
- Stage 3 -commenced with Stage 2, structures comprising a mini shearing shed (not functioning), an enclosed bird sanctuary, and a small gift shop run by the local indigenous group and reflecting arts and crafts unique to the local area.
You will be provided with a team member from the main office, who has skills in procurement, financial management and stock control. All other human resources used on the project will be contracted in either as teams (e.g. landscaping and gardening) or individuals (e.g. landscape architect).
PROJECT INITIATION
YOUR BRIEF
You are the project manager for the Aussie Garden project. Based on the information above, complete a Stakeholder Analysis and Project Scope Statement, as specified below:
ST2 - I - 1. A preliminary stakeholder analysis addressing the following:
a. A list of key stakeholders
b. What they are expecting or needing from the project
c. The criteria they will use at the end of the project to determine if the project was successful from their perspective
d. How you will measure, at the end of the project, whether the stakeholders' success criteria have been met
ST2 - I - 2. A project scope statement addressing the following:
a. Project governance arrangements
b. An overarching statement of the project's purpose (why) and intent(what)
c. How the project objectives fit within the strategic intent and objectives of the organisational objectives.
d. A list of project deliverables and measures
e. Any critical scope inclusions and/or exclusions
f. Assumptions
g. Constraints
h. Summary timeline
i. Summary budget
j. Major risks
k. A preliminary Work Breakdown Structure (one level of detail)
l. Project authorisation form
Note: When developing any timelines, assume the start date is today's date.
In your response regarding WBS, there is an expectation that you will assemble a WBS that has approx. 6 major blocks and at least 3 levels of detail so that in the schedule it has around 150 - 200 lines.
In your response regarding the schedule it is unlikely that you will be able to develop a realistic schedule for a total time of less than 9 months.
YOUR BRIEF
You now need to develop a detailed plan of the Aussie Garden project.
Your plan should be in two parts: a Project Management Plan that describes how the 12 competency areas are to be managed over the life of the project, and an overall Project Plan that details the various activities that enable the project's deliverables to be achieved.
ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS
Development of various Project Management Plans and an overall Project Plan as described below:
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Competency Area
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Project Management Plan
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Project Plan
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ST2 - P - 1. Scope
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n How the project scope will be managed (the approach to be used)
n How the scope will be defined
n How scope will be controlled and changes will be managed
n How scope will be verified
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Project scope statement:
n Project statement
n Project purpose
n Deliverables and quality standards
n Inclusions and exclusions
n Assumptions
n Constraints
n Issues
Work breakdown structure
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ST2 - P - 2. Time
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n How the project schedule will be managed (the approach to be used)
n How the schedule will be tracked and controlled
n Schedule change control process and authorities
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A schedule (e.g. a Gantt Chart) showing all activities, durations, sequence and dependencies
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ST2 - P - 3. Cost
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n How the project costs will be managed (the approach to be used)
n How the project costs will be measured to ensure accuracy of actual costs vs. budgeted costs to obtain a clear picture of the cost management position
n How costs will be reported
n How project cost change will be managed (including a cost change control process)
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The project budget, showing all HR and other resources required for the project; the number of units of each; and total costs of each
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ST2 - P - 4. Quality
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n How the project quality will be managed (the approach to be used)
n How quality assurance process will operate
n How quality control will be used
n How quality requirements and measures will be communicated with stakeholders
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Quality requirements and standards
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ST2 - P - 5. HR
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n How the project team will be acquired
n How any training and development needs will be assessed
n How project team member performance (inc. feedback) will be managed
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The roles and responsibilities that are required
The project team structure and reporting lines
Training plans for team members
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ST2 - P - 6. Information and Communication
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n Identification and analysis of the information requirements for the project
n The process to be adopted for managing data and information, including verification and validation of project information
n How project information will be generated, securely stored and accessed by project team members
n How the project communications will be managed (the approach to be used)
n Guidelines for meetings
n The procedures to be adopted for team communications, interpersonal communication, 1 on 1 discussions etc
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Information management system and key processes
Key communications through the life of the project (communications matrix)
Key roles and their information and communications responsibilities
Issues log
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ST2 - P - 7. Risk
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n How the project risks will be managed (the approach to be used)
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Risk identification
Risk assessment and rating
Risk reviews and monitoring (including a risk register)
Strategies to manage identified risks (e.g. preventative, mitigation, avoidance plans)
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ST2 - P - 8. Procurement
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n How the project procurement will be managed (the approach to be used)
n How contracts are to be developed and managed
n Contract approval processes
n How Selection and decision criteria are determined
n How vendor performance metrics are determined
n How vendor performance is monitored
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Definition of items to be procured
The procurement process:
n Tendering
n Selection
n Contracting
n Monitoring
n Termination
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ST2 - P - 9. Stakeholder Engagement
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n How stakeholder engagement and management is undertaken
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Stakeholder identification
Stakeholder analysis
Stakeholder engagement plans
Strategy for ensuring that all stakeholders have a common understanding of their respective roles, responsibilities and expectations
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ST2 - P - 10. Project Governance
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n Policies and procedure that govern stakeholder performance and behaviours
n Escalation process
n Delegated authority matrix
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The project team roles and responsibilities, including authority levels for decision making and expenditure
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ST2 - P - 11. Team Effectiveness
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n See HR and Communication
n How team members will be involved in the project's planning and execution
n How conflict within the team will be managed
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See HR and Communication
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ST2 - P - 12. Integration
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n How the various components of the project will be managed in an integrated way (inc. planning, monitoring and control, evaluation)
n How changes will be managed
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Project Plan
Project Management Plans
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ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS
ST2 - P - 13. On this project, you need to establish an information system. Describe the elements of this system that you believe you would need to have in place. Your response must include:
- Storage of important hard copy documents (what and how)
- Storage of electronic documents and records (what and how)
- Storage of contact records - emails, phone messages etc
How would you setup communication to the team and stakeholders (in your response, you might like to refer to regular meetings, regular reports, exception reports, other documentation (electronic/hard copy)
What processes would you implement to ensure that the right information was getting to the right people at the right time?
ST2 - P - 14. The client rang you to say that some of the changes he had asked for were not being undertaken or included. You vaguely remember them and asking on of your team members to follow it up. It didn't seem so important at the time and reasonably straightforward. Describe:
- How your change management process should work?
- Outline how you would investigate this problem
- What might be some of the problems that ineffective communications of change lead to?
- If this scenario had occurred on one of your projects what might have been some of the lessons to be learned and how would you ensure they were?
ST2 - P - 15. Mr Zefton starts directing some of your project team members on specific details, causing delays and changes. What are the governance issues here? How might you need to proceed to restore good practice?
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