Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis

Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis Case Study business case, the project charter, and an initial stakeholder analysis. Case Background:
Ms. Sally Jones, the CEO of Acme Company, recently was given a report published by the Project Management Institute called the Pulse of the Profession.

Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis
Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis

In the report, she learned a startling statistic. PMI® reported that when projects are poorly managed, approximately $122 million is wasted for every $1 billion spent (12.2%). Now, her company’s annual project spend is much smaller (approximately $3 million expected in the next 12 months), but if she could experience even a partial amount of that savings, she could reinvest those savings for future growth.
In order to accomplish this, she believes that she needs to adopt a more formal or mature approach to managing projects, and she needs to professionalize the project management teams and, specifically, the project managers. She has a colleague (Owu Jourdain) from a previous company who was the internal project management expert in the company who she believes might be able to help, so she gives him a call to get his take.

Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis

Ms. Jones just finished a long conference call with Mr. Jourdain, and she now has a better idea of what this might take to move forward. In short, in Mr. Jourdain’s opinion, there is a way to experience the savings that Ms. Jones hopes for, but it will take some time and investment, so she thinks they should move forward with maturing their team and management approach, but, as noted, it will take an investment, so Ms. Jones needs to be certain that the savings will deliver sufficient business value. In short, is there a solid, defensible business case for such a project?
Present Situation:
Ms. Jones emailed you the Pulse of the Profession report over the weekend, and you are now sitting in her office at 9:00 am on Monday morning. She wants you to develop a business case for implementing a training program that will lead to maturing the organization’s project management practices. Based on her work over the weekend to see where some monies may be available for the unexpected project and her conversation with Mr. Jourdain, she provides you with the following information:
• The company expects to spend approximately $3,000,000 on project related work over the next 12 months (year 1) and $3,500,000 over the following 12 months (year 2)
• Based on her conversations with Mr. Jourdain, she believes the cost of training and implementing a more mature model will be approximately $175,000 as an initial investment
• Conservatively, she believes that the company will experience a savings of 3 percent in the first year and 4.5 percent in the second year
• Although the company will experience these savings for many more years in her opinion, she wants to show that the company will receive a sufficient savings within the first 2 years to justify this investment within the business case
• On most investments, the company would expect to see a return of 11½ – 12 percent (internal rate of return), and the cost of money (discount rate) is 6 percent.

Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis Part 1: Business Case Assignment Instructions & Considerations

You have been tasked by Ms. Jones with drafting a business case for this potential initiative, and she has provided you with a template to use (see template attached to assignment instructions). She provides you with the following comments related to each section of the template, but she tells you that you will need to sharpen and expand on the ideas that she has provided. She expects your final draft to be ready to take to the company’s Board of Directors for review and approval by week’s end.
• Background and Business Problem
o She believes this has been covered in the contents of your initial conversation, where she provided you with background information (see above case study material)
• Strategic Case
o She states that this is strategically tied to the company’s goal of becoming more project oriented, as they believe this will allow for more efficient and effective work, leading to the company being able to grow in a more scalable manner.
• Project Overview
o In addition to what she has stated above, if the business case is approved, then she believes the basic project would be an 8 – 10 week training program for all project managers and team members that would train them in the adoption of a more mature project management model, and it would include some mentorships by the trainer. She believes this would cost a total of $175,000.
• Expected Benefits
o The expected benefits would be increased efficiencies and effectiveness, as noted above.
• Financial Considerations
o She has provided you with the investment amount to provide financial support for the investment
• Risks
o She has asked you to look at primarily risks associated with the overall initiative, not necessarily those focused on the training aspect of the project.
• Timeline
o Based on her conversations with Mr. Jourdain, she believes the project execution could begin within 60 – 90 days, depending on the path chosen for moving forward
• Recommendations and Next Steps
o She has asked you to consider all the relevant data you collect and put into the business case, and then provide a succinctly stated and well-supported recommendation and concrete next steps if the proposal is accepted

• General Case Considerations for Business Case:
o It is expected that you will need to make reasonable assumptions in completing the business case, so rely on the case study as guide. This is similar to how projects are conceived in the real world. We have a basic set of factors, and then we must make reasonable assumptions as we progress forward.

Part 2: Project Charter for an Initial Stakeholder Analysis Instructions

As noted above, Acme Company, your employer, has made delivering projects more efficiently and effectively one of its strategic priorities over the past couple of years. Prior to a couple of years ago, they talked about projects, but no one had the project manager title; they were accountants, IT developers, product managers, research managers, and a range of other functionally oriented titles, but they realized that most of the company’s work was really project work, and they have sought to become a more project-oriented organization by assigning project managers to lead these projects.
Realizing the importance of becoming a more mature project oriented organization, your CEO, Ms. Jones, charged you with creating a business case for whether or not your company should invest in the expertise and training necessary to adopt a more mature project management approach. Your company’s Board of Directors has approved the project, and you are now charged by Ms. Jones with creating a Project Charter and initial Stakeholder Analysis.
Upon doing a little research about current project management practices in the organization, you discover that your company already has two really standout project professionals: Stephanie Smith and Marcus Lopez. Ms. Smith recently completed a Master’s degree in Project Management, which greatly enhanced her ability to perform, while Mr. Lopez, who only joined the company last year, is veteran project manager who is certified as a project management professional (PMP®). Individually, they have outperformed their counterparts in the organization by an average of 8 percent in terms of efficiency and use of resources.
Initially, you thought the best route would be to hire Mr. Jourdain to perform the training and implementation consulting, but now you think you may have the internal talent that could be used. So in chartering the project, you want to perform an analysis and offer Ms. Jones two options for moving forward with the training and implementation project.
Present Situation:
As the Board of Directors has approved the business case and you have a project management model that your company will adopt, your focus will be on chartering a training program to facilitate the adoption. Based on a conversation with the CEO, you will provide one day of classroom training each week for eight weeks, which is a total of eight days of classroom instruction. You will use space and resources (technology, classroom space, etc.), so there is direct cost associated with the location where the training will be held.
This is the charge of your project: to implement a training program for project based workers (initially 40 persons) within your organization at a direct cost of $40,000 for the training portion of the project. This is the section that you are currently chartering.
Your first order of business is to develop the project charter and within the proposal provide a recommendation about whether to use internal or external resources for training. You have two options to consider: an internal or an outsourced trainer. Here are the details for each option:
Internal Option:
Stephanie and Marcus would act as co-instructors, as they have the most project management experience. During the eight weeks that the class is running, they will be devoting no more than 50% of their time teaching the class, preparing for instruction, as well as, providing coaching to various colleagues. In order to be prepared to deliver the instruction, they will need to spend one week at a ‘training the trainer’ seminar. Please review footnote 2 – 3 for additional information on costing.
Outsource Option:
Alternatively, your team can recommend to hire an external trainer who is very experienced with the PM model that your company is adopting. As part of your contract with her, she will provide the one day a week classroom instruction for the eight weeks, and she will also provide an additional day of coaching each week on-site. Her fee is priced at $17,500. Even though you would be using an external trainer, Marcus and Stephanie would still need to devote roughly 25% of their time over the eight weeks to support the trainer and the project, so there is also cost associated with them in this model, as well, which you will need to account for (see footnote 2-3 for information needed to calculate this cost).
These are the two options for you to consider and provide a recommendation on which option to select. Regardless of the option selected, you have been charged with having the training completed prior to the end of this year, so that the new processes can have a fresh implementation in the coming year.
Part 3: Case Consideration for Project Charter:
In considering a case such as this, there are the obvious quantitative considerations that are provided within the information above, and you will need to perform an analysis of those options and justify your recommendation. But there are also qualitative factors to consider, such as whether or not there are intrinsic benefits to developing in-house talent to using outside talent, or whether or not the benefits provided by someone with an outside perspective and a broader understanding of the industry is more important than cost alone.
As with any case, not all questions are directly answered, which is very similar to the realities of real world projects, therefore, you will need to use good judgment and make reasonable assumptions, reading between the lines to find those logical connections.
Finally, a special note about the stakeholder analysis. You will complete the stakeholder register taking into account the stakeholders listed throughout the entirety of this case study document (project business case and project charter). You will have to make certain assumptions to complete this, as you will not have complete information for all stakeholders, and this is often true for projects at this point. You would continue to refine and sharpen this analysis throughout the project, so make reasonable assumptions when you don’t have complete information.

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