Project Management Assignment: Case Analysis Of Licola Wilderness Village

Question

Task: Please read case study on Licola Wilderness Village. You are a consultant to Mr Wallaby, the project manager of an Australian Not-for-Profit Organisation that wants to replicate the idea and success of the Licola Village in a town in Fiji.

Assume you are at the start of a new project in Fiji and have been appointed by the project manager (Mr Wallaby) to assist in planning the various sub-plans of this project. Your task is to put together a Risk Management Plan and Project Governance Plan so that the project manager can discuss his approach with the CEO before proceeding with further work. These Plans Case will be among the main documents on which the NGO's board bases its approval decision. Also, the NGO is planning to approach the Fiji government for funding support and will require the inclusion of competent Risk Management and Governance Plans.

The scope of theproject management assignment task
Risk Management Plan: Mr Wallaby needs to know what kind of risks are dealt with in a Risk Management Plan and how are different elements prioritised. Your write-up should include the justifications of why certain risks need planning and other issues that you believe are important to address, with reference to academic and/or professional publications.

Project Governance Plan: Mr Wallaby needs to know how the project’s progress will be tracked without imposing a complex process on a relatively low-value project (as important to the Fijian society as it is) and overloading his limited resources. In particular, he wants to know how his finance is tracking, how well the project is adhering to the schedule, how well his risk plan is working and whether there are any emerging risk and anything else you deem necessary for project reporting and governance purposes. More importantly, how will all this data be reported and presented, and how frequently? The CEO needs a regular project summary so that he can keep the Board up to date on the project achievements.

Answer

Introduction
Accomplishment of a project takes place in various phases and are influenced by a number of factors. In order to achieve the pre-set goals with regards to the present case of project management assignment, the team members and managers should approach the job in the most effective way, taking into consideration of all aspects of the project and determining long-term success that can be attained. These mentioned objectives require proper supervision and meticulous hard-work by every individual, especially managers related to the work. This is called project governance. Efforts should be made to identify probable risks and eliminate them as early as possible with appropriate risk management methods that are discussed below. The Licola Wilderness Case study concerning the project implemented for decreasing energy demands at the Licola Village in Fiji has been taken into account. A grant of $12900 was provided by Sustainability Victoria in order to identify the annual savings opportunities in terms of energy at the Licola Village which showed around $45000 annual savings in energy can be achieved with proper implementation of operational processes via a well-defined project. This can provide insights on ways to manage risks and ensure proper project governance in similar projects.

Risk Management Plan
Types of risks
Strategies or methods that are used for the identification, assessment and control of potential threats or risks concerning any project that has been issued by an organization are known as risk management. Proper risk management allows the companies to attempt a calculative approach and prepare for unexpected consequences. They help in minimizing the effect of the probable risks and avert them without any form of compromise to the project execution. A risk manager should be in charge of finance, safety and security adjustments for the organization. The risk management plan encompasses various steps starting from the identification of the risks to their analysis and finally reaching towards an appropriate response or solution in order to eliminate those risks (Okonofua and Rahman, 2018, August). For effective risk management, controlling every phase of the project and predicting future outcomes. If not acted upon immediately, there could be drastic results that can affect the project and company reputation. In order to create a similar town like Licola Wilderness Village in Fiji, the type of risks that can be encountered are technology risk, communication risk, scope creeps, cost risk, operational risk, health and safety risk and skill resources risk. Ensuring proper communication is extremely essential coupled with technological advancement.

Risk Assessment and prioritization
Assessment and prioritization of the risks is the most important part of risk management. This is the part where the impacts of the identified risks are measured. For instance, assessment of how a particular risk can affect the cost, schedule or technical performance objectives is analysed in this step. In order to mitigate the risks, they should be ranked in order of their overall impact on the accomplishment of the project. The priorities of every individual project are quite different from one another. With the help of three simple steps prioritization of risks can be done by creating a risk matrix. The first step involves listing every possible outcome of the identified risks. In the second step, their effects should be measured and assessment should be conducted in the third and final step (Green, 2017). Only then can the entire calculative risk be identified and worked upon for its elimination. The degree of harm caused by these risks should be taken into consideration. For example, in order to build a similar Licola Wilderness Village in Fiji, assessment of legal aspects, technology and skill resources risks should be the first priorities followed by guaranteeing proper communication. This is how they should be prioritized.

Risk impact matrix or assessment is a vital tool that helps in visualize the risk and develop probable mitigation measures to deal with them. It provides a distinctive aspect for the business and may offer a needed perspective to move ahead. It provides brainstorming with the teamconcerning the varieties of events or unresolved business situations that may occur as a risk, a budget, cost/price interdependencies, and fluctuation within the concerned environment in the meantime (Tufail, Ibrahim and Melan, 2019). It provides a technical maturity, cost estimate confidence, capability in ascertaining technical performance, complexity, integration and interoperability, andoperational deploy ability. The Licola Wilderness Project risks such as legal aspects and possible backlashes, technological requirements and skill or resource availability were also evaluated and planned based on the risk impact matrix.

Similarly, the Pestle tool takes into account various political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. These political factors may include political pressure due to selection of the location or support from the government towards project development. Similarly, economic factors involve the financial conditions affecting project development such as the decrease in financial availability of various organisations and government bodies due to the recent COVID 19 pandemic which is affecting businesses negatively. Social and technological factors take into account population in the location, chance of project success due to visibility towards the local population and the need for technological implementations (Sarwar, Ramachandran and Hosseinian-Far, 2017, January). Additionally, environmental and legal factors involve the impacts of the project on the environment such as possible carbon emissions, pollution and more along with compliance with legal factors such as equality, non-discrimination and environmental sustainability.

Justification of plans
Certain risks require proper planning in order to reach towards efficient solutions with which those risks can be eliminated permanently resulting in secured services or execution of the concerned projects. Justification of risk planning lies in the fact that management of risks allow safer workplace where new ideas and suggestions can be welcomed. They assure project success rates which can help in gaining confidence. With improved communication, the people involved in the project can remain updated about every aspect of it which enables them to achieve massive performance growth (Othman, Ghafar and Choon, 2021, June). Fewer unexpected events will be confronted via proper risk management planning.

The risk matrix will help in guide the project by dealing with the project problems and challenges to reach to the final and effective conclusion. It helps in providing an effective performance of the project so that the aims, objectives andexpectations of the stakeholderscan be met purposively. It will provide an opportunity for creating an action plans for the probable unexpected events. An appropriate planning concerning the risks enhances s the likelihood of project delivery and success. It will help in ascertaining the cost budget accordingly and neutralize the irrelevant expenditures by picking up important expenditures to complete the project.

Other important issues
Other important issues related to risk management that requires special mention are abrupt decision-making procedures. Every member in the team should be aware of the important decisions that need to be made. Without prior knowledge of the consequences, there can be various problems in future which can further delay the accomplishment of the project and diminish its importance. Establishments should develop tactics that can help in deriving risk-based decisions determining the present conditions and market value and choose the right people to make important project-related decisions which can be beneficial not only to the company but also its employees.

Project Governance Plan
The project governance plan has been designed in a specific way by including the opinions of the stakeholders to ensure that the tourism project in Fiji can be conducted with great success. Licola Wilderness Village had found out numerous opportunities to reduce the demand of energy and enhance the efficiency that would help to establish an eco-friendly system within the environment (Camilletti and Lanzi 2018). The reduction in energy to 22% and the reduction of greenhouse energy emissions would also be the aim of the project. The objectives of the project would be laid down by aligning with the basic aim. The plan for project governance would help to develop the scope of the project that would include the high quality and efficient steps that are relevant. The project governance plan had to be framed in a smooth way so that Mr. Wallaby got the appropriate guidance to conduct the wide range of functional tasks with greater success and proficiency in the market of Fiji. The project would be designed in a well-planned way by including the appropriate budget.

According to Ul Musawir et al. (2017), the project governance plan would also include a proper work breakdown structure and the duration of the project has to be chosen effectively so that the relevant tasks could be executed with success. The steps and the processes that are adopted to improve the activities would help to make the plan stronger. The eco-friendly measures also can be designed and handled well so that the energy efficiency can be enhanced within the social surroundings. The plan for project governance is as follows:

Table 1: Project Governance Plan
(Source: Created by learner)

The plan for project governance would also include the involvement of the community and groups that exist within the different regions of Fiji. The town of Nadi would be able to incorporate the sustainable practices and trends that proved to be effective and relevant for achievement of the goals that are laid down. The eco-system of the town of Nadi would be set right by improving the surroundings and adopt the relevant strategies to enhance the energy efficiency in the market. The emergent risks have to be encountered by the project manager in a planned way so that the overall tasks could be accomplished in a smooth way for making the project successful. The stakeholder analysis would be conducted to discuss about the different scheduled tasks that had to be incorporated for establishing the eco-system of the Town Nadi in Fiji. A quality plan for risk management has to be framed to make sure that the overall goals for handling the project are achieved with efficiency. The strategic and operational risks could be encountered by the project manager in a smooth way by adhering to the wide range of marketing trends and policies that exist.

Reporting
Methods of reporting and data presentation
Process in which the management team or board of directors are informed about the various steps of project accomplishment can be termed as reporting. The management team should be kept updated regularly regarding the project status and the potential risks that can affect its success. After deriving sufficient information or data from risk management and project governance, the delivery of the proposals must be done in a way in which they seem convincing to the supervisors. Only the can the board of directs take and interest into the problem and approve for needful solutions (O'Dwyer and Unerman, 2020). The managers should be very specific about the problem and clarify important aspects of it. They can relate their proposal to previous case studies for better understanding. For example, the case study based on Licola Wilderness Village might come in handy during identification and assessment of the risks. They can use similar solutions to deal with similar problems faced during Licola project. This can provide a clear picture of the scenario thereby helping the board of directors to the degree of importance of the reports.

Importance of reporting
Ideas or suggestions by other employees should be taken into consideration before taking any action in order to eliminate the risks. Emphasis on the outcomes can help in building stronger plans regarding the future of the company (Saltaji, et al, 2017). With the help of all the important research and findings the board of directs can judge the effectiveness of issued solutions and approve them to exclude the risks and provide a long-term solution for the establishment. Their decisions are directly responsible in securing the jobs of the employees. With the help of visual aids like a power-point presentation or video journals, the reporting procedure can be further effective. This is how good reporting can enable proper risk assessment and allow a smooth project execution.

Recommendations
Recommendations for tracking cost and schedule
Cost tracking entails examining every phase along with the necessary resources to be used in the project. The CPM (Critical Path Method) is a project management process that allows the development of a schedule on the basis of essential activities and prioritizing them for stepwise development of project. Additionally, focusing specifically on the most essential activities can also contribute to savings in costs by excluding to decreasing focus towards non-essential activities.

Recommendations on reporting to project team
A project manager must involve every labour cost to provide an adequate rounded idea for the anticipated budget. As soon as the budget estimate is officially signed off on by stakeholders, the investment is done as the initial money as per approval by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The project manager needs to focus on conducting meetings with the project team members after the approval of the project plan in order to present them with information on factors such as time and budget availability for the progress of the project. This can allow the discussions with the board of directors to be reported to the project manager who then reports it to the project team. Integrated project management (IPM) is revered as an integration of procedure, resources nada techniques, knowledge, methodology, skills, for attaining the objectives depicted in the project in the meantime. It provides the initiation, planning, monitoring or tracking the project and then reaching to the project delivery.

Recommendations on reporting to CEO and the board
The project schedule is a tool that links the project elements of work to the resources needed to accomplish that work and there will be 2-3 meetings conducted within the month to meet the expectations of the stakeholders and review the process. After the evaluation of the targeted customers for a project, a report must be drawn to with significant specifications in order to keep the CEO and the board informed on the whereabouts of the project and its requirements. The meetings can be conducted via video conferences or other means in order to include foreign clients. They should be kept updated about any changes that need to be implemented. Important decisions based on finance and costing are made by the CEO and the board therefore reporting to the CEO and the board is an important step in management and requires meticulous preparation and comprehensive knowledge of the job.

Conclusion
The project being undertaken for reduction of the energy demand and for enhancing the efficiency would help a town in Fiji to reduce the demand of energy and ensure that the efficiency of energy is kept at a standard level within the market. The reporting and its elements could be addressed in a well-planned way within the conduction of the project. The different risks that were posed to the project such as the emergent risks and operational risks were verified and addressed. The plan for project governance was specified and effective steps were taken to ensure that the project was successful. The risks could be tackled in a proper way by adopting the quality mitigation measures and by planning the relevant practices with clarity and precision.

Reference List
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Green, C., 2017. Competent authorities for the flood risk management plan–reflections on flood and spatial planning in E ngland. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 10(2), pp.195-204.
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Okonofua, H. and Rahman, S., 2018, August. Evaluating the risk management plan and addressing factors for successes in government agencies. In 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE) (pp. 1589-1592). IEEE.
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