Assessment 2 (Risk Management Plan) instructions

Scenario

Google has agreed to fund ATA’s East Timor Solar project, but has requested a copy of the Project Risk Management Plan as part of their due diligence before final ‘sign-off’. Since you are a diligent international project manager assistant, you have already discussed the need for a risk management plan with Kate. In light of Google’s request, Kate has asked you to put together a risk management brief for consideration.

We recommend you watch *all* of the ATA videos before you begin your assessment activities. You may need to review these specific videos for this assessment task:

  • Video 3: Stakeholder Engagement and Management
  • Video 4: Project Risks
Background

In Module 3, we discussed project planning and explored the impact of cultural diversity on planning. We examined issues relating to scheduling, resource planning and cost estimation that are peculiar to international projects. In Module 4 we discussed risk management from an international project management perspective. Since international projects are by nature characterised by their high uncertainty, risk management is an important element of international project management.

Scope of the task

You are expected to use the risk management cycle as a guide and describe how the ATA should proceed with each stage of the cycle in order to come up with a sound project risk management plan for this project. You are expected to use the information provided to you on Kate’s video(s) and information from a credible source in relation to East Timor’s environment. For example, who would you include in risk workshop during the risk identification stage to find out more about importing licencing requirements? After ascertaining the requirements, and assuming there may be potential delays, how would you analyse and prioritise the risk? You are allowed to make some assumptions, provided you can justify how and why you make those assumptions. Using the fictitious import licencing example again, you may wish to mandate that any risks that cause a delay in the activity completion date greater than five working days is identified as critical, and structure the risk matrix accordingly. The reason could be you have assumed the Australian installation expert could only be in East Timor for a fixed period of time, therefore there is no ‘float’ for the installation activity on the schedule. There is room for some assumptions since you don’t have all the facts at hand but they need to be sensible, logical and based on certain facts (which require referencing) – don’t just make things up!

Again, it must be stressed that the aim of this task is for you to demonstrate how well you understand the concepts and well you can apply them in this semi-realistic case study. Simply repeating the generic processes taught in the Modules would earn you very little marks.

Please note this is a brief on what you believe should contain in the Project Risk Management Plan. You are not expected to draft a comprehensive Risk Management Plan, there isn't sufficient word allowance for you to do that. Similar to the PEP, there should be an introduction and the outline of the sections/sub-sections accompanied by an explanation and justification, and also the potential risk exposure.

Present your brief in an essay format, but as if you are actually working for Kate. It should look and sound professional and to be suitable for tabling in an official meeting.

Preparing your submission:

Prepare your submission as a Word document, up to 1000 words (excluding references). Make sure you include at least three references to academic and/or professional body publications, using theAcademy of Managementreferencing style.

Refer to theAssessment 2 marking rubricbefore starting work on your submission.