Risk Management Planning Exercise (100 points)

Read the following scenario:

Dr. Bili Mattes, the Provost for Harrisburg University (HU), is hosting a campus event and she wants to ensure it is a complete success. Your group has been asked to manage risks associated with the planning for the event.  The project team leader, Virat Kohli, is new to project management and has about 6 months to plan and execute the project.  The budget for the entire project is $20,000.

An outdoor site venue will be used for the event, which includes a live band for the entertainment.  The finance department has allocated funds, additional funding is needed (through sponsorship of the event and by selling tickets) to meet the total cost burden of the event.  Promoting the event will be important to raising funds. 

The outdoor event site used must be returned in the condition it was found.  Security is also important as alcohol will be served.  Neighbors are already concerned about noise and vandalism.   

Dr. Mattes has a risk neutral personality.  She is the project sponsor and has asked that $500 be used from the project budget to manage risks.  The university has a culture of risk seeking (as evidenced by their recent decision to pursue e-Sports).

For this event, the senior management at HU has no tolerance (or appetite) for risks that can impact the project schedule.  “The schedule must be protected”, Dr. Mattes stated, “because we can’t hold an event any later than the planned weekend.”  Senior management has high tolerance for risks that can impact the project budget.  “We’ve come through the challenging times of the early years and are now in great shape, particularly with the high enrollment numbers of foreign students”, said Joe Dokes, Chief Financial Officer at HU. 

For this 6-month long project, Dr. Mattes has asked for risk and other project status reports each month.  These are low-key meetings using the relevant elements of the risk register. Dr. Mattes is not familiar with the risk register, so it will be important for your group to spend some time explaining in the RMP how to use it, and to provide examples of how to write a proper risk statement.

Based upon this scenario, complete the following tasks:

1.    Part 1 – 25 points.  Write a Risk Management Plan (RMP) using the content found in the PMBOK 6e (Section 11.1.3.1).  At a minimum, the plan should address all elements of a RMP found in the PMBOK.  The plan should include the following figures and tables:

• Risk breakdown structure (RBS) to level 2. 
• Probability and Impact scale definitions for time, cost and quality.
• Probability-Impact matrix with scoring scheme

The scale definitions and scoring scheme should be based upon 5 levels for probability (very low, low, medium, high and very high) and 5 levels for impact.

The methodology must also include a sample risk statement for threat and opportunity that demonstrates an understanding of how to capture the necessary information for each type of risk.

The risk register provided in this unit will be an attachment to your plan.

Your group can create additional characters in the scenario in order to fulfill roles needed to manage risk. 

2.    Part 2 – 25 points.  Using the techniques described in Chapter 11, CPM 4e and Chapter 11, PMBOK 6e, identify five threats and five opportunities (a total of 10 risks), one each for the different types of risk responses (e.g., accept, enhance, mitigate, share, transfer, exploit, avoid escalate).

3.    Part 3 – 15 points.  Prepare a 400-word paper discussing the process used to identify threats and opportunities, why it was chosen, and how it worked for your group. Hint: Risk Identification is addressed in the PMBOK and CPM texts. At a minimum, groups should discuss and amplify upon the tools and techniques included in Figure 11-6.

4.    Part 4 – 25 points. Using the risk register template provided in this unit, document the 10 risks.  Complete the register in its entirety including using properly formatted risk statements (risk descriptions), determining the appropriate response strategy/technique, writing a risk response description that is consistent with the chosen response strategy/technique, identifying the risk trigger(s) and assigning a risk owner.  Risks should be sorted & presented in priority order.

Mechanics (10 points) It is expected that the risk management plan will have excellent mechanics (presentation, grammar and spelling) exhibit the quality of work capable of a group of graduate students and working professionals. All sections of the plan must be readable at 100% magnification.  The plan should not exceed 4 pages.

Your Instructor will use Turn-it-in to ensure your paper is authentic work.  To avoid plagiarism, see the course home page for more information and use the Purdue Online Writing Lab to learn how to paraphrase, summarize and cite the references you use in all academic writing assignments.

Submit your group materials (plan, paper and risk register) to the group drop box in Moodle