Please be sure to read the Team Contribution Assessment and Grading of Team Assignments and the Project Documentation Requirements sections of this ITP Master Document.

This assignment is an INDIVIDUAL assignment.  Review your previous deliverable assignments and the assignments that other teams have posted in the Shared Learning Environment Discussions.

This assignment has two parts.

Using your team's ITP WBS, develop and submit a project risk register in MS Excel:

•      A project risk register, from the textbook, from the classroom material, from www.pmi.org, or from other valid research, that meets the following requirements. 

•      In MS Excel, the risk register should be populated with the risks for at least 3 tasks of different types and categories at EACH level of the decomposition in the WBS (no fewer than 12 tasks must have risks identified -- 3 major tasks, 3 sub-tasks, 3 lowest level leaf node tasks or sub-sub tasks, and also at least 3 risks at the overall project level (Level 0)).  (Note that this is minimum required, along with the other things below, to earn a satisfactory score.  To earn a better score, you would want to include more risks at each level, and some of the additional things mentioned below.)  

•              Risks may include, for example, technical IT risks, external risks that impact the project but which are outside the PM's control, project management risks, risks of project changes, and so forth. 

•      Please note that a task could have more than one risk!  The risk register must include MITIGATION strategies to avoid/eliminate or minimize the risk and contingency plans (what you will do if the risk happens).  If the format you are using does not include these columns, please add them, then be clear on the difference between mitigation and contingency.  Address what aspect of the project will be affected by each mitigation action - cost, schedule, or scope.  Provide a recommendation for whether or not the mitigation action should be implemented, remembering that EACH mitigation will impact the project's scope, cost or schedule. 

•      The risk register should also include:

o    Title or description of item or TASK at risk.  (This is the WBS task in which the risk occurs, not the risk itself.)

o    Also include the WBS ID and a designation of which WBS level the task is at.  Each risk in the Risk Register should show the WBS level of the task that it refers to.  I urge you to let the computer do this for you, since doing it by hand seems error prone for some reason.  Either import the field from MS Project or use an Excel formula to calculate the level for you. 

o    Description of the RISK (What is the risk? What is at risk of happening?) (This identifies the nature of the risk itself, not the task.)

o    Risk category or type (e.g., technical risks, quality risks, financial risks, external risks, organization risks, project risks, quality risks, other risks, etc)

o    Consequences, impact, or cost at risk (adjectival or numeric)

o    Likelihood or probability (adjectival or numeric)

o    Initial risk score (or "risk product", consequence times likelihood)

o    Risk handling category (avoidance, mitigation, transfer, acceptance, etc.)

o    The mitigation action that, if taken, would avoid the risk or the impact of the risk.

o    Cost and time required for the mitigation action. 

o    Contingency plan - what the team will do if the risk actually happens

o    Designation of risk "owner" or risk manager (best designated by title or role rather than by individual's name)

o    For additional points, you may include such things as:

§  Additional risks

§  Risks for additional tasks

§  Results of handling each risk after controls are implemented:

§  Consequences or cost at risk

§  Likelihood or probability

§  Final risk score or product (consequence times likelihood)

§  Quantitative numerical consequences, probabilities, and risk scores (rather than subjective, qualitative, or adjectival assessments)

§  Additional narrative discussion of each risk, handling method, etc.

§  Total of all the risk scores (risk products) for the entire project after risk controls are implemented, in dollars.

•      Also include some risks associated with the general ability to complete the project successfully.  (You might consider these risks at Level 0, the root level, of the WBS, affecting the entire project.)

•      Finally, if you quantitatively calculated the risk product in those terms, then what is the total of all the initial risk scores (risk products) for the entire project, in dollars.

Please include the Executive Summary with appropriate changes

Questions:  In an accompanying Word doc or text submission, answer the following questions: 

1.    Which risks (and associated tasks) would be the most threatening to the success of the project and why? This discussion should be very specific to tasks and their associated risks.

2.    Which top THREE mitigations (and associated tasks) and risk handling plans should be implemented, and why?  Remember that mitigation actions will affect cost, schedule and/or scope – so discuss what can you AFFORD to do based on the likelihood and impact of the risk?

3.    What are the TOTAL impacts on cost, schedule and scope for the project if the recommended risk controls and mitigation actions are taken?  If you use costs, how did you calculate the cost? Will the risk handling improve things or make them worse?  That is, will the project cost more and/or be less successful because of risk handling, or will it cost less and/or be more successful because of risk handling?  How so?  Explain.

4.    How did you determine those costs and impacts?  Please describe. What is the benefit of mitigating risks that are identified for mitigation?

5.    If your project could only afford $20,000 for mitigation actions, which risks (identify associated tasks) would be implemented?

6.    If your project could only tolerate a 5 day delay related to mitigation actions, which risks  and mitigations (identify associated tasks) would be implemented?

7.    What would be the most expensive (time and or schedule) contingency action/plan?  Identify the associated task and explain why this contingency would be the most expensive in terms of time or schedule.

8.    How did you determine those costs and impacts?  Please describe. 

Submit the Excel and the Word document(s) to the Assignment Area.

Approximate breakdown by areas include:

o    General: Structure, Format, Mechanics, Style (~5%)

o    Risk register (~84%)

o    Questions (~10%)

Your team has been asked to prepare a project plan to install an IT system in a local bakery.   Mamma Mia has been the primary baker and bakery owner since its opening 15 years ago.  The bakery is one of a dozen shops in a strip mall in an up-and-coming part of town. The bakery is a walk-up-and-order configuration with no seating space. Because the bakery has become more successful over the years, Mamma Mia has decided that the time is right to expand the bakery into the next store, which is now vacant, and she has signed a contract for the two stores to be connected and remodeled.  This space will more than double the size of the current bakery. With this added-on/extra space, Mamma Mia would like to offer her customers sandwiches and bakery items, as well as café-type seating.  At the moment, the bakery employs 1 other baker and 2 persons who wait on the customers at the counter. All paperwork, bookkeeping, ordering supplies, hiring and firing, and keeping track of inventory is done by Mamma.   When the expansion construction is complete, Mamma Mia anticipates hiring 4 additional people full time – 2 food-service certified sandwich makers, 1 more baker, and 1 more counter server.  She also intends to hire 1 person to track inventory and order supplies, and 1 person to manage the bookkeeping, bill paying, and finance parts of the business.   

Because the bakery is now a small operation, all business is done by telephone and with paper documents.  There is one cash register and all bakery goods are purchased with cash or check. To coincide with the construction/expansion effort, Mamma would like to have an IT system installed for point-of-sale, inventory, bookkeeping, purposes.  Mamma would like the system to “connect” to her suppliers, the health department for food services, and other business relationships.  She would also like a website so that she has an Internet presence and so her customers can make advance orders for pick-up.  Related to that, she would like the system to be able to process debit and credit cards. 

Mamma Mia has identified $100,000 to provide an IT system that will be modern, easy to use/employee and customer friendly, and will make her bakery and sandwich shop more efficient. The cost estimate is just that – an estimate. 

Mamma has very little experience working with computers and IT systems.  She feels a bit “old fashioned” but she is willing to learn and wants to be sure that her employees learn, too, how to work with the IT system.  Mamma is your point of contact and the person yu will be working with as you “fill-in” and finalize the requirements for the IT system, and then move to the design and implementation of the IT system.  This means you will have a need to define and explain terms as you work with her.  

As you begin to plan the ITP project, keep in mind that until now the client has had little or no IT system and has had no IT staff.  In addition, there is no networking, LAN, or Internet installed, and no productivity software or other applications.  You may assume that Internet connectivity is available in the area, however (whether via ISP or satellite or whatever).  Mamma Mia is the major stakeholder and your point of contact for this proposal.  Your instructor will fill the role of Mamma and the major stakeholder.  So all questions for the client should be directed to your class instructor.  Your team may consider clarifying the requirements, including the available funding, through Private Message email interviews with Mamma Mia.