Risk management project | Business & Finance homework help

Week 1: Selecting a Project

During Week 1, you will select a project for your risk management plan Course Project. The project can be one that you are working on as part of your regular job, a case study you have completed in the past, or a project that you want to plan, either business or personal. You will choose your project so that you will be very familiar with it and understand its various elements. The project request will be submitted as a graded assignment.

Week 2: Project Sizing and Stakeholder Analysis

Your Course Project milestone for Week 2 will be to develop your project sizing and stakeholder analysis.

Guide Week 1-

Risk Management Plan for the (                      ) Project

Prepared By:

Approved By:

Project Description and Objectives: This section will briefly describe the project, its background, and its purpose. It should include the scope of the project and its objectives. It will also describe where its priority stands in relation to the company or the individual. Is it high priority or a nice-to-have project?

Guidance

Many students who are unfamiliar with project management, or experienced PMs, will find some portions of the course project difficult to understand or will be used to using different forms and templates.  I will try whenever possible to provide some guidance to set your expectations.  Do not take the guidance verbatim, instead build upon it.  I have provided an example below for you to review.  Please, when you select a project select something that you know from either your personal and professional life.  Be sure that it is complex enough to contain multiple items of work and multiple team members. 

Bruce’s Deck Project will build a deck before his wife’s family reunion (description of the project not the product of the project, i.e. the deck (but you should provide more)).  The purpose of the deck is to provide enough space for Bruce’s wife to host the family reunion (purpose, but more).  Bruce’s wife has never had enough space in the home to have her entire family over for an event, with the upcoming family reunion she would like to have the space to invite the entire family (background, but you will need more).  The deck will be 12’ X 16’ and will be built off the kitchen door.  It will have a 3’ railing all around along with steps to the back yard.  The deck will have lights along the railings and will be decorated prior to the reunion.  The deck will be constructed of pressure treated lumber.  The proposed cost of the deck is $5,000 and it must be completed two weeks prior to the family reunion to allow for alternate arrangement.  (This is a description of the scope and includes cost and time).  Since Mrs. Hurst is very excited to host this event for the first time, it is a high priority project for her husband (priority but more). THIS IS KNOWN AS SPOUSAL FEAR AND TREMBLING.

NOTE THAT ABOVE I DECONSTRUCTED THE SENTENCE AND ADDRESSED EACH PART

Objectives of the Risk Process: This section will describe the goals of the project. What level of risk is tolerable, and how will that level affect this project and the goals that are set? 

The goals of this project are to build a 12’ X 16’ deck at the Hurst home.  The deck will be built using pressure treated lumber, will be sturdy in construction with poured concrete footers, and will meet all local building codes. (Goals but again you may need more).  Since the date has been set and the invitations sent, the level of risk (particularly for the husband) is very high.  So all of the above goals need to be met.  A partially complete deck will not meet the goals of the project.  The deck must be complete two weeks prior to the reunion to allow time to make alternate arrangements. 

After this, please add a brief conclusion.  Remember when writing to deconstruct the questions and attempt to answer each section and where possible discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and the hows such as how much, how many, how often.   Below, I have created a grading rubric for this 40 point assignment.  Structurally, the assignment should use 10 point Times New Roman font, have 1” margins, and all paragraphs should be double spaced with a first line indent.  Left click on any paragraph to see the setup. 

Week 2 Assignment Guidance

Ladies and Gentlemen,  

This week’s assignment asks you to complete two standard forms, included in the same template.  I have had a number of questions about the assignment for week two on how to complete the templates and whether to just complete the template or to supplement with text.

Keep in mind that the objectives of this course are two-fold.  First, is to make you familiar with the structure and use of some common project artifacts.  Second, is to show that you understand why you are using them.  Keep in mind that most of these documents will be presented to both members of the project team and executives outside the project, who may not be familiar with project management, and will be used to create parts of the final project risk management report.

There are instruction  for each template below.  Please read them carefully.  The rubric is at the end.

The Stakeholder Analysis

The first column is the name of an individual or type of stakeholder. The second column is the Area of Interest.  For me at least, the area of interest is really how you view the individual stakeholders or stakeholder groups interest in the project.  For example, let us look at a CFO.  This CFO’s interest in the project might be to manage the costs to meet budget.  But, he or she might also be interested in radically restructuring the chart of accounts.  Or, the CFO might feel threatened by the project and will be interested in ensuring that all of his or her employees are protected from layoff.  Or, again the CFO might be interested in all three and be both an ally and an enemy to the project.  There may be more than one area of interest for each stakeholder.  Columns three through five are self-explanatory.  Use 0 for neutral.  Use +1 through +3 for positive and -1 through – three for negative.  The stakeholder types are in the text.  That is what you must use to get credit. 

Keep in mind that what we are focusing on is identifying how stakeholders can be used as resources, what their attitude is toward various aspects of the project, how influential they can be on the project, and if the stakeholder can pose a risk to the project or can be used to open opportunities.  Discuss at least two examples of a stakeholder and explain why those stakeholders are of a certain type. 

The Sizing Tool

The sizing tool can be a bit confusing so I have provided an example below.  The objective is to numerically define both the individual elements and the overall project.  Notes also help to clarify items.  So look at the notes provided as examples.

Project title: Server room build-out

Notes:

1 Requirement are finalized and locked.

2 Everything has to come together in sequence or the go live gets rescheduled..

3 Total project size 84

4. We have not done a project this complex before and are unfamiliar with the development language.