Posted: April 15th, 2015

Assessment 1: Participation in weekly forums

Assessment 1: participation in weekly forums

Assessment item 1 (Participation in weekly forums) is intended to provide students with an opportunity and an incentive to consolidate their grasp of the course material and to canvass ideas (including those related to their other assessment tasks). There are 13 weekly forums, one for each of the weekly activities set out in the course schedule

Students are encouraged to participate in all 13 forums but, for assessment purposes, are required to contribute substantively to student-to-student dialogue in a minimum of five (5) of the thirteen (13) weekly forums.

A substantive contribution constitutes a posting of up to, say, 500 words on forum. The posting may take the form of a question related to the weekly topic, a comment on the weekly topic or a question/comment on postings by one or more fellow students. The criteria for marking the forum participation of individual students are set out in Appendix 1 to this brief on assessment arrangements.

Appendix 1

Task: Contributions of 50-100 words to at least 5 of the 13 weekly forums

Criteria:

  1. Evidence of substantive engagement in the online conversation;
  2. Evidence of enquiry and research beyond the textbook;
  3. Grasp of concepts demonstrated;
  4. Quality of insight demonstrated.

 

 

Forum Questions:

Week 1 – Amid your other distractions this week you need to start thinking about a project for your project brief (assessment item 2).  As those of you who have read the guidance for assessment item 2 in the Assessment Brief will be aware, you need to select a project that enables you to explore the connection between the project and organisational objectives.  To get your juices flowing you might consider what PMBOK (5 ed) says about Projects and strategic planning (page 10):

“Projects are often utilised as a means of directly or indirectly achieving objectives within an organisation’s strategic plan.  Projects are typically authorised as a result of one or more of the following strategic considerations:

  • Market demand (eg a car company authorizing a project to build more fuel efficient cars in response to gasoline shortages);
  • Strategic opportunity/business need (eg a training company authorizing a project to create a new course to increase its revenues);
  • Social need (eg a non-governmental organisation…authorizing a project to provide potable water systems, latrines, and sanitation education to communities suffering from high rates of infection diseases);
  • Environmental consideration (eg a public company authorizing a project to create a new service for electric car sharing to reduce polution);
  • customer request (eg an electric utility authorizing a project to build a new sub-station to serve a new industrial park);
  • technological advance (eg an electronics firm authorizing a new project to develop faster, cheaper, and smaller laptop based on advances oin computer memory and electronics technology;
  • Legal requirements (eg a chemical manufacturer authorizing a project to establish guidelines for proper handling of a new toxic material.”

This weeks discussion forum is an opportunity to explore one of the foundational themes of the course (ie the connection between projects and business objectives) simultaneously with topics for assessment item 2 (project brief). Looking forward to your posts.

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Matthew

 

Hi All,

As a brief introduction I work for BHP Billiton managing the maintenance for an underground coal mine in QLD so I may have a slightly different perspective to others on this topic. 

BHP’s strategic goal is relatively simple: ‘To produce high quality low cost resources to add share holder value’.

In accordance with that strategic goal the mine that I work at has been somewhat of a flagship for low cost, high quality, high volume coal mining – on a recent visit the President of BHP Coal stated that if we are successful it will pave the way for several new mine developments based off our operating model.

I have therefore decided to approach these assessment tasks as I would a work project and base my Project Brief, Business Case and Project Plan on the development of a new underground coal mine as it clearly fits the strategic objectives of my organisation.

Who knows – all going well I may be preparing this information for our board in the coming years so this will be a great opportunity to develop these skills.

Matt

 

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Matthew Van B

 

Morning all,

With regards the the highlighted strategic considerations, I would like to float the idea that many times when there are multiple considerations driving a project and teams are working in isolation (stovepipes of excellence) to achieve their main aim, cohesive end states are rarely achieved.

Coming from a background in the Department of Defence, I have seen with frustration numerous occasions where a project or platform is delivered and has either not been appropriately socialised with the end user or interoperability is a massive issue due to project teams working independently to achieve their part of the overall project. This has been a large driving force behind my choice to become more involved and thus choose this area of study.

My intent is through a gap in market demand, strategic opportunity and technological advancement, with a heavy consideration on legal mandate and framework; to work towards a project development plan for a Social Media Exploitation deployable interface for use in recovery operations with ties to the Whole of Government space.

Would be interested in anyones thoughts about my idea of conflict between competing objectives.

 

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Abiramy

 

 Hi All,

 Strategic planning is a fundamental part of business management because it guides the overall direction of a company. During the strategic planning process, managers begin by creating a mission, which acts as the underlying guiding purpose of the business and goals that fulfill the mission. Managers then study the business environment that they face and create a business strategy that they believe will best allow the company to fulfill its goals and its mission. (Hearst Newspapers, 2015)

I also agree with Mtt VB’s point regarding lack of collaboration at workplace which will be reflected in the project outcome. I totally agree that collaborative approach is required to succeed and achieve the expected project end results. We are having the similar issues in our project and my opinion is that all depending on the top level leaders to manage and coordinate the team to work in collaborative way to attain the expected outcome. Strategic planning describes a process where managers form business objectives and create a strategy to achieve those objectives. 

I have elected to dive into this unit and get more knowledge to battle with the collaborative team environment issues and how to handle the battle to succeed in our project. My intent is to select a project that makes use of new technologies and invent more business process based on new technologies. Thanks

Abby

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Nicole

 

Hi Matt, Matt and fellow BoMPers,

Matt S – your project sounds like it meets the intent of the course and would also provide a great business opportunity for your organisation.

Matt vB – I understand exactly where you are coming from with regards to project teams working in isolation and a lack of cohesiveness impacting the outcome of some, if not all, of their efforts. All of the points you raise are absolutely valid considerations however, is it worthwhile focusing on maybe one or two of the considerations and then using the others to help strengthen your business case to achieve support for your project? Just my 2 cents.

For my project, I am thinking about basing it on an organisational enabler, administration and personnel support, and look at is as a strategic opportunity. Admin and pers support is my background. 

Specifically, I am looking at the centralisation of administration support across an Air Force group consisting of 1000+ personnel spread across several states. The intended outcome of centralised admin being to provide efficiency gains, standardisation of processes and increased effectiveness of the administration function to enable the non-admin/personnel support personnel employed within the group to achieve its core mission. I know that government departments have started to head in this direction (also within Defence this is also starting to occur) and feel it could be beneficial to the organisation as a whole.

I would be keen to hear people’s thoughts on whether they think this is a suitable project for the purposes of this subject.

Wishing everyone the best of luck for this semester. Nicole

 

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Iain

 

Hi Nicole and gents,

I currently work within Defence and am specifically employed within communications. I note Matt VB’s point regarding a lack of a collegial and collaborative approach to projects in Defence and agree this is a great opportunity for Defence and the wider ADF to refine its project development and subsequently system engineering processes for development and integration of separate projects.

In deliberation of the strategic considerations for the introduction of a new project and the above comment, I have chosen to focus on the opportunity for Defence to exploit new technological advances.

Specifically, my project will seek to introduce a deployable wireless system to provide rapidly deployable, secure and efficient tactical communications. This project would be supported by associated ancillaries in the form of ruggedized tablets and or wireless adapters for legacy equipment. Additionally, power supply to these tablet devices would be supported through resonant wireless charging.

I’d appreciate any input you all may have.

Cheers, Iain.

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Matthew Van B

 

Evening Iain,

 

With regards to your proposed project would you seek to have the boffins develop new capability to provide the capacity, or would you seek COTS/MOTS access of existing tech (eg Bluetooth/wireless systems) and then seek to package together with your above mentioned ancillaries to deliver a finalised “grab and go” deployable solution?

I only ask because I was having a similar conversation with some of my guys about a similar system and the acknowledgement that while defence is largely risk adverse in their approach, for anyone to affect access to such a system they would need to be “inside the wire” (or embassy) for that matter due to radiating distances and so none of us could understand why it hadn’t been approached as yet.

Regardless of COTS or re-engineering, I’m all for it And think the diversity in working parts could give you good substance for your follow on assessment pieces.

(will endeavour to not get too wrapped up in Defence themes, as that’s always an endless rabbit hole).

 Cheers, Matt vB

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Iain

 

Thanks for the feedback Matt.

To answer your questions, my proposal would seek to exploit a pre-existing technology as the verification and validation liability for an existing MOTS/ COTS capability to be rolled out to another organisation would be greatly reduced (if the quality objectives weren’t too dissimilar).

This is my opinion and I’m more than willing to leverage off the wealth of experience and knowledge within this forum.

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Allyson

 

Hi Iain,

That’s a very interesting project idea – and I think you’ll find that there’s a lot of information on this sort of thing already. If you have a look at the CIOG ITP (infrastructure transformation program) TC/CP/EUC projects you can see what sort of underlying infrastructure is being developed right now and how your project might slot into it. Happy to discuss in depth off line, if you like.

I am still undecided as to my project. I’m hoping to firm up my ideas in the next week. I’ve only ever been involved in mega scale ICT projects and would like to look at a smaller scale ‘normal’ project.

Ally

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by William

Hello All,

Guess what? Another defence member here. I was operating in the Collins Submarine maintenance space for the last 2.5 yrs and have used this as the material of previous study. I recently moved to Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) which is a complicated Tri-service environment where defence members work closely with a civilian contractor to meet recruiting targets. Therefore, in order to expand my knowledge in this area I would like to take on a project related to the business of recruiting ADF members.

Strategically DFR’s Mission is ‘To recruit the right people, in the right numbers and at the right time by focusing on the needs of the ADF and our candidates’.

I’ve noticed that there is a huge focus on early identification and targeting the right candidates in order to best utilise resources. There is currently a website called defence jobs which is the primary interface between the public and DFR. After discussions with some experienced DFR recruiting officers I believe there is room to develop a DFR smart phone application to open up another avenue to potential candidates and streamline the recruiting process.

I really like the diverse range of stakeholders and the large scale/audience this type of project will encompass. I look forward to working with you all.

I have a degree of insight into the stovepipe issue raised above. This is certainly evident in large scale defence projects such as Collins Submarines. There is no doubt that the strategic picture is hard to see when you are down in the weeds. This is when those higher level managers need to be diligent in facilitating communication within their organisations and groups to ensure everyone has their eye on the organisational objectives.

Cheers Thomo

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Robert

 

Hi All,

Another Defence member here (sigh) and one with very limited background in projects at that. While I have spent the majority of my time at the tactical (coal face) level, I certainly have a lot of interest in the higher strategic level planning.

I like the comment by Matt vB about the stovepipes of excellence and I definitely see, at my level, how that impacts on outcomes.

Nicole, I am interested in your idea for a centralised admin support system and what aspects you are focussing on. There are a lot of admin systems in place already (in Navy at least) which seem to be capturing the same data so I can see the need for a centralised system to cut down on duplication.

Thomo raises a good point in creating a simplified system to help meet the greater aims of the organisation while also cutting down on resources required and costs required (I can imagine).

The main theme of these posts seems to me to be communication and the need for higher level, or Top Down communication to allow a collective vision at all levels. I see this at my level within Navy when this isn’t always possible but I can also see it relating to projects and having all levels focussed on the same outcomes at all times.

I am still unsure of the topic for my assessments but I am looking at the possible procurement and implementation of a training platform/process in a specific area of Navy which will aid in meeting the Fundamental Inputs to Capability which in turn will meet the wider requirements of the Government. 

I do like the diverse range of topics floating around in this forum though so I will definitely be looking into other areas in wider industries that will put me outside of my comfort zone but I can see time being my enemy there.

Looking forward to the rest of the course.

Robbie

Re: Projects and strategic planning

by Robert

 

G’day guys

Great to see the dialogue developing in this group.  I wouldn’t be unduly self conscious about having a defence background and using defence project case studies in this course.  Defence project management inevitably attracts a degree of public scrutiny that I suspect Matt’s BHP Billiton is largely (but not wholly) spared.  As a consequence, Defence has made commendable effort to codify project management practice.  There is ample scope for members of this group to learn by comparing and contrasting project management practice in the public and private sectors.  I look forward to your future dialogue.

Week 2 – Without prejudice to other dialogue underway, the group might discuss Zwikael & Smyrk’s proposition that a project output is always a tangible artefact while a project outcome is always a measurable effect. (text book page 17).

Week 3 – In thinking about what constitutes project success I often ponder the Sydney Opera House.  This is widely held up as the quintessential project management disaster but also hailed -belatedly – as a public policy success.  Without prejudice to any other topics the group wishes to pursue, I’d be interested in member’s views.

Re: The Sydney Opera House

by Matthew

 

I find it interesting that many of the large high profile public works projects have been project management basket cases but have returned exceptional results over the years and have gained public praise.

A few that have been focussed on specifically in my studies to date include:

Federation Square in Melbourne

The Hubble Telescope

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Euro Tunnel Project

Each of the above examples are widely used a reference material for ‘What not to do’ however the social benefits they have returned over time have far outweighed the negative press and publicity during their respective deliveries

In my opinion the above examples highlight the exact reason that definition of project success shouldn’t be completely reliant  on the project being delivered on time, on budget and to the correct specifications – surely it must also be graded on how it meets the stakeholder needs and how it delivers against goals over time.

Re: The Sydney Opera House

by Robert

 

G’day Mathew

Your thoughtful post struck a chord with me.  I too have pondered the prevalence of high profile public works projects in project management disasters turning into project investment successes.  I have just completed a PhD using the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) as a case study.  Like the projects you mentioned, JORN was, at least initially, a project management disaster but ultimately constituted a resounding project investment success.  Your post and my own research prompts me to consider the connection between market failure (the reason why governments do projects like the Sydney Opera House and JORN) and judgments about social value (which, in democracies,  is tends to be determined via the political process).  In democracies, judgments about social value will, almost inevitably, be contested and will often take decades or more to emerge.  In these circumstances, it is perhaps understandable that the commentariat focuses on project management success defined in terms of project outputs which are tangible and short term.  So I tend to think that developing a methodology for judging project investment success is one of the frontiers of the project management   discipline.

I will be interested in the views of others.  Bob.

Re: The Sydney Opera House

by Nicole

 

Matthew raises a really good point. And, as a result of needing to do some research before answering this question, I came across the opposite situation.

The Millenium Dome in London was deemed a project ‘success’ as it met the criteria of the project in terms of time, cost and scope. However, this successful project has been described as a ‘white elephant’ and ‘a solution in search of an application’. So, is this actually a successful project?

Between the Opera House and the Millenium Dome projects which is preferable? I would have to say the Sydney Opera house. While a project ‘disaster’ as it did not meet the project criteria established for it (there is discussion that this was always going to be the case as apparently proponents intentionally deceived lawmakers, the public and the media when they lowballed the budget to get the project started), however these days the Opera House injects $775 million each year into the Australian economy.

With large scale projects such as these I agree with Matthew that it is important to look at the longer term gains (or losses) that arise from undertaking the project. While the project may succeed or fail based on the project scope, in the longer term the opposite may indeed end up being true as is highlighted in the above two examples.

 http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/why-sydneys-opera-house-was-the-worlds-biggest-planning-disaster/story-e6freon6-1226744769556 http://w.mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P046_Successful_Failure.pdf 

Re: The Sydney Opera House

by Robert

 

Nicole

Thanks for bringing the Millennium Dome to my attention.  I was unaware of it!  But, as you suggest, it does – on the face of it – seem to provide a nice example of a project management success but a project investment failure.  Much depends on what utilisation and what target outcomes were envisaged by the project funder (I guess the British Government?) when it approved the business case. Bob

Week 4 – According to Zwikael & Smyrk, a potential project funder will decide whether or not to invest in a project by trading off potential project worth and assessed project riskiness (see text book section 3.3, page 53 and section 5.4.2 pp179-180). When resources are constrained, such trade-offs will inform project selection and prioritisation.  The tradeoffs can be informed by financial and scoring models (see extract from Kloppenborg provided in the set readings for Week 4).   Students might discuss how, if at all, their organisation uses financial and/or scoring models in deciding whether and when to proceed with a project.

Re: Week 4 Judging project worth

by Matthew Van B

 

Evening all,

 After looking through the Zwikael and Smyrk readings, I would also like to explore and suggest that in certain industries (specifically public sector), it is not restricted to a trade off between potential project worth and project risk. Rather there is an inverse relationship where the risk of not pursuing a project may outweigh any possible negative outcomes from pursuing the project.

I refer to my personal experience within the Special Forces community, where there is a disproportionate level of funding for the size of our organization. The reason for this is that the cost of government officials not being able to answer to the public, who’s expectation is that we can fix any situation as a force of last resort, far outweighs the cost / benefit model of taking funding away from other sectors.

For the most part, the result means that we can look forwards to a scenario where provided we can justify the unit requirement (UR) to provide a capability, funding is largely available through project funders to allow us to explore all possibilities to resolve the perceived problem.

Notably the negative aspect of this in a Project Management framework is that there is not always due diligence given to project acquisition or through life support, because the immediacy of a solution takes primacy over test and evaluation and thorough tender process.

Just food for though.

Cheers,vB

Re: Week 4 Judging project worth

by Robert

 

Hi Matthew (and all),

I can definitely see your point and being a public servant myself can understand where you are coming from.

Although I haven’t seen the inner workings of projects from where I am, I can certainly comment on my observations (whether they be correct or not) from the coal face.

It seems to me that a lot of emphasis is placed on the disbenifits side of the worth of a project when trying to obtain funding. We obviously all don’t have the endless bucket of money that the special forces have so there is a lot of competition for funding when the funder for Defence is  the government. Therefore it would seem that when putting forward a case for funding of a project it is important to emphasise what aspects of Defences’ mission will not be able to be achieved without the funding for the project rather than focusing on the cost of the project. Obviously there are different levels of approval required for different amounts; however, the relationship of riskiness to disbenifits is of big concern when talking about whether or not Defence can meet the strategic aims of government.

I hope this makes sense to anyone other than me.

Rob

 

Re: Week 4 Judging project worth

by Nicole

 

I think that the Department of Defence is in quite a unique situation because we do does not provide any (or very little) monetary return to the government. How do you put a dollar value against a project where, ultimately, our aim is to “defend Australia and its interests”. I do not recall having been involved in a project where the financial savings were listed as a target outcome. Projects I have been involved in during recent years have been about efficiencies and process improvements which, ultimately, will save dollars in terms of manpower, hours etc but dollars have not been specified as a target outcome.

Of course there are many projects within Defence where financial analysis is undertaken in order to determine “bang for buck” while allowing Defence to meet its government mandated directives. Any major platform acquisition would involve financial analysis to determine if the financial outlay on one particular platform would provide a greater benefit or outcome versus investing in another platform. I don’t believe that this is something Defence, as a whole, does particularly well. There are a number of platforms coming on line in the not too distant future that have cost the government a significant amount more than they ever intended and I think 20/20 hindsight on some acquisitions would have resulted in a very different decision on platform choice at the outset of the project.

In recent years Defence spending has become very constricted and there is a much higher level of scrutiny, accountability and transparency in what our funding is spent on across the board (not just projects). This has resulted in there being a much greater need to undertake financial analysis and improved project management to ensure the public dollar is being spent wisely and appropriately. Having said that though, there do still seem to be inequities within the Defence Organisation and some areas (such as SF mentioned by Matt vB) are not as constrained as others.  

Re: Week 4 Judging project worth

by Robert

 

I have enjoyed reading the thoughtful comments posted by members of this group.  I will pick up two themes that have emerged in the discussion to date.  

The first theme relates to the availability of resources for the special forces community.  This prompted me to reflect on why that might be the case and what it tells us about the business of managing projects. It seems to me that Australian governments and, specifically, the Minister for Defence, are the ultimate project funder of defence projects.  In Australia’s current strategic environment, Australian governments, the Minister for Defence and those responsible for providing military advice to the Minister for Defence accord high value to military capabilities maintained by the special forces.  Put another way, in an uncertain strategic environment, the government wants a broad range of military options available to it in order to manage that strategic uncertainty.  Special forces capacity for, eg surveillance and the precise application of force are outputs generated by a range of projects (see our discussion of projects, programs and portfolios in week 1).  The target outcomes generated by utilisation of those special forces outputs include specialist capabilities for intelligence gathering, strike etc.  Capabilities for intelligence, strike etc etc give the government of the day a range of options for the use of military force to protect and advance Australian strategic interests in an uncertain strategic environment.

The second theme relates to the applicability of the IPO model to non-commercial projects like defence.  I see no difference in principle between commercial and non-commercial projects in the application of the ITO model.  In practice, however, I recognise that gauging the worth of project in the public and private sectors success will entail different metrics, as will judgments about the success of projects in the public and private sectors.  With this in mind, I commend to you Zwikael & Smyrk’s discussion of the limitation of financial units in judging project worth (see text book section 3.3.2 pages 54-58). 

I look forward to reading the views of other members of the group.

 

Week 5 – In their discussion of the principles of project governance (text book section 4.3.2, pp 96-99) Zwikael & Smyrk advocate:

  • the project funderholding the project owner accountable for the eventual realisation of target project outcomes;
  • the project ownerholding the  project manager accountable for the production, delivery and implementation of the project’s outputs.

In your judgement and/or experience, is this cascading model of project accountability reasonable in principle and workable in practice? I encourage you to use a practical example to illustrate your response.

Re: Week 5: Project governance & accountabilities

by Matthew 

In my experience this cascading model of accountability does not work however this is largely influenced by the way my organisation delivers large projects.

Within BHP Billiton we have a group function that is responsible for the development and delivery of major projects to meet corporate objectives (Project Development Group).  The problem we regularly encounter is that the trade of competing priorities at the corporate level regularly results in a sub-standard product that requires significant operational resources and time to rectify before any real benefits are generated.

A way we have recently proposed to prevent this from occurring is to source senior project team members from the operations where projects are being delivered.  The rationale is that if you will eventually be the end user of the project deliverables that you will be particularly vigilant in ensuring all  acceptance criteria are met as it will your own job to rectify any issues once the project has finished and operations take ownership.

Hope I didn’t get off track here??

Week 6 – Zwikael & Smyrk (text book Section 4.5.1, Box 4.5, page 113) boil stakeholder management down to:

  1. Increasing the support provided by those who are favourably disposed to a given project;
  2. Decreasing the resistance generated by those who are not favourably disposed to that project;
  3. Reducing any risks associated with active opposition.

Discuss how this might work in practice.  Illustrate your posts by referring to a project you know about or in which you are interested.

Week 7 – The ITO model leads Zwikael & Smyrk to advocate (text book section 5.2.2) defining project scope via (1) an explanation of why the project is being proposed (project objective); (2) a list of target outcomes, realisation of which would indicate achievement of that objective; (3) a list of project outputs that are fit for the purpose of generating those target outcomes.  How, if at all, do you think this would enable project managers to avoid scope creep (defined as the gradual expansion of a project, typically without adjustment of target outcomes, budget or schedule)?  Illustrate your posts by reference to one or more practical examples.

Week 8 – Simon has argued that “Most human decision making, whether individual or organisational, is concerned with the discovery and solution of satisfactory alternatives; only in exceptional cases is it concerned with the discovery and selection of optimal alternatives.” (Extract from set reading for Week 8: March, J. and H. Simon: Organizations, Wiley, 1958, New York, pp140-141).  In an implicit recognition of Simon’s argument,  Zwikael and Smyrk  propose a spiral approach to gathering the information required in preparing a plausible project business case (text book section 5.1.5 pp140-143) and a robust project plan (text book section 6.1.4 pp188-189). Students might discuss, having regard to Simon’s satisficing hypothesis, how their respective organisations assemble the information required to formulate a project business case and a project plan. 

Week 9 – A common cause of project failure is project scope creep (defined as the gradual expansion of a project, typically without any adjustment of endorsed project outcomes, increased budget or extended schedule).[1] But our discussion of bounded rationality in week 8 suggests that some deviation from that plan is probably inevitable.  If this is the case, then the efficacy of arrangements for identifying and controlling such deviation are critical to project success.[2] The notes for week 9 suggest that action by:

  • the project manager to control deviation from the project plan could take the form of a control loop comprising monitoring, assessment, judgement and intervention;[3]
  • the project owner to control deviation from organisational objectives could take the form of, for example, phase gate reviews.[4]

I invite students to discuss, with examples:

  • Whether or not their respective organisations have instituted recognised, understood and accepted arrangements for identifying and controlling deviation from the project plan;
  • The effectiveness of otherwise of those arrangements in managing such deviations.

[1] See text book section 5.2, page 145.

[2] See text book section 7.1.1.2, page 227.

[3] See text book section 7.1.1, pages 226-228.

[4] See Meredith & Mantel, set readings, page 484.

Week 10 – The notes for week ten addressed the notion of delegated risk management and canvassed the idea of including in project governance arrangements risk management “trigger points”.  The latter are agreed levels of risk appetite beyond which hierarchically organised project actors (team members, project managers, project owners etc) can escalate risk management action to the next management level.  Students might discuss the extent to which they have been involved in such delegated risk appetite arrangements and how well they worked. 

Week 11 – It would be hard to overstate the role of the project funder in the management of projects in accordance with the Input-Transform- Outcome model upon which the ZBUS8147 is based.  Zwikael & Smyrk define the project funder as the person or entity who approves the commitment of resources to the project (text book section 2.4.4, page 28).  How this deceptively simple proposition operates in practice can have profound implications for project governance, the production of project outputs and the generation of project outcomes. Students might discuss who in their business is the project funder, the process by which the project funder approves the commitment of resources and the implications (if any) of that process for project outcomes.

Week 12 – In 2009 Jason Potts argued [1] that the concerted drive in the public sector to eliminate waste through efficiency, accountability and transparency could preclude the experimentation required for effective and worthwhile policy innovation.  I have since pondered the implications of Potts’ argument for project management-related learning in public sector agencies like Defence.  Are such agencies able to experiment with new approaches to project management and are they able to learn from the inevitable failures?  Are such agencies confined to copying project management innovations pioneered by less inhibited practitioners in the private sector? Are such agencies confined analysing their project management disasters in an attempt to avoid repeating the same mistakes in future?  I would welcome students’ views on these and related questions.

[1] Potts, Jason: The innovation deficit in public services: The curious problem of too much efficiency and not enough waste and failure in Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice, Volume 11, Issue 1, April 2009, pp34-43.

 

Week 13 – In preparing assessment item 4 (Project plan) students need to weave the various project management themes (for example, governance, risk, stakeholders etc) into a coherent narrative.  That narrative needs to recognise the particular characteristics of their chosen project and of the outcomes it is intended to achieve.  Differences in, for example, targeted outcomes, scope, stakeholders and governance, will give each student’s project a different risk profile.  In principle, these idiosyncratic risk profiles will reflect the outcome of trade-offs undertaken during the iterative development of the project business case.  Strategies for mitigating the risks identified on acceptance of the business case will be developed during the subsequent – but still iterative – development of the project plan.  Students might contribute to the week 13 forum by:

  • identifying a particular risk to which their project is exposed;
  • indicating what impact that risk has had on trade offs undertaken in the course of preparing the business case for their project;
  • discussing the risk mitigation action they propose and the implications of that action for project outputs envisaged and for project outcomes targeted. 

 

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