Project Management

Project Management
Section 1: Understanding Organization Factors that Influence Project Success
Singapore is a small island nation with high population density. To keep the economy going, it is essential to restrict the number of vehicles on the road. Efficient public transport is important for the movement of population across the country and to lower the needs for car ownership. As a measure, the government has announced the “Contracting Model for Bus Services”. The local bus service operators will be facing increased competition in the coming years. It is important for them to improve their service offerings and quality.
Integrated Transport Services (ITS) is a local company providing bus, train and taxi services. It intends to bid for the contracting model in the future. Assume that you are the Operations Manager, reporting to Mr John Tan, the Senior Vice President of bus services. John requested your department to propose potential next year projects for him to present to headquarters for approval and funding. Your department worked out the following tentative list:
1. (a) Inspect and service all bus engines to comply with emission standards laid out by Traffic Police (TP) by next year.
2. (b) Implement new software apps that allow chartering and payment for ITS’s private bus services.
3. (c) Provide Interactive Bus Information System at bus interchanges for customers to find information on bus routes, fares, timings, etc. The system will help increase ITS revenue through advertisements.
4. (d) Implement a Bus Simulator to train new drivers. This will reduce the number of instructors and buses for training purposes.
5. (e) Implement wheelchair-accessible system on 25% of its buses as required by Land Transport Board (LTB).
6. (f) Upgrade its Bus Driver Scheduling System from Windows XP to Windows 8 Operating System.
Section 2: Understanding Project Management Structure & Organization Culture
Due to the government’s vision for Singapore to be an Intelligent Island, the Land Transport Board (LTB) will provide part of funding to ITS to carry out Project (c): to implement the Interactive Bus Information System (IBIS). Hence ITS has decided to go ahead with this project. The management has appointed you as the Project Manager.
ITS has obtained approval from LTB to implement the system at Tengah Bus Interchange. (Similar system as shown in Fig 1 can be found at: https://publictransportsg.wordpress.com/category/smrt-buses/)

Section 3: Defining a Project Plan

As the main stakeholder, ITS holds the ultimate responsibility of this project. The management has assigned the following internal staff to form a project team for the IBIS project.

1. Yourself: Project Manager. Beside overall project management, you are also in charge of liaising with government agencies to obtain the approval and permit. You will also be responsible for all project items procurement, with support from Purchasing Department.

2. Susan Sim: Software Manager: She is in charge of working with customers on user requirements studies, liaising with external software company on design and development of customised application software, overall system testing and performance monitoring.

3. Patrick Wong: Hardware and Network Manager: He is in charge of IT hardware, network and infrastructure installation and testing, with the help of subcontractor.

Your team drafted the initial list of activities in Table 3.

Table 3: Activity List for Interactive Bus Information System (IBIS) Project
Activity Number Description Prede-cessors Duration (days)
1 IBIS Project
2 Assemble project team and subcontractor 3
3 Study user requirement 2 15
4 Design application software 3 18
5 Purchase Panel 3 15
6 Purchase network equipment 3 10
7 Site survey 2 3
8 Apply permit 7 10
9 Flooring work 8 5
10 Electrical cabling work 9 5
11 Lay Network Cables 10 3
12 Install network equipment 6,11 2
13 Install panel 5,12 2
14 Install Application software 4,13 2
15 Application software testing 14 3
16 Overall System Testing 15 5
17 Performance monitoring 16 5
18 Prepare system documentation 16 3
19 Launch IBIS 17,18 1

Note:
1. The management wants the project to start on 1st April 2015.
2. The table shows activities before grouping them according to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and the schedule before levelling.
3. As the project members are managers, they have staff/contractors to carry out the work; hence there is no need to resolve role resource conflicts (i.e. person A can be working on task x and y simultaneously) in the schedule. You may want to leave the Resource Names in MS Project blank.
4. All the activities are originally intended to be carried out only on weekdays which are non-public holidays.
5. The public holidays (PHs) to be marked as Non-Working Day for the project period are Good Friday on 3rd April 2015, Labour Day on 1st May 2015 and Vesak Day on 1st June 2015. ITS has adopted a standard HR policy that there will be no leave-in-lieu if the Public Holiday falls on Saturday.

Section 4: Managing Project Risk
Question:

Note: For ease of presentation, use landscape mode for your answer

(a) Evaluatethree (3) potential risks, one from each category of: External, Organisational and Project Management, by designing a Risk Assessment Matrix. You shall present your answer in the format of Table 4 shown below.

Use rating of 0 to 5 for Likelihood, Impact and Detection Difficulty.
Likelihood: 0 – Not likely to happen at all; 5 – very likely to happen
Impact: 0- No impact on project; 5 – very high impact on project
Detection Difficulty – 0 – very easy to be detected; 5 – impossible to be detected.

Table 4: Risk Assessment Matrix
Risk (Category stated. You have to describe the risk) Con-sequence Like-lihood (L) Impact (I) Detect
-tion
Difficulty (D) Risk Value, R=LxIxD Comment on the risk and its risk value
External:
Organisational:
Project Management:

(b) For each risk identified in Q7 (a), develop a response plan.
You shall present your answer in the format of Table 5

Table 5: Risk Response Plan Risk identified in Q 7(a) Response Contingency Plan Tigger Who is responsible
External: Risk 1
Organisational: Risk 2
Project Management: Risk 3

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