Project Governance Plan
How will you track progress on this project? Prepare a proposal for a Project Governance Plan.
Scenario
Kate now needs to know how The ATA should be tracking the project's progress without imposing a complex process on a relative low value project (as important to the East Timor society as it is) and overloading her limited resources. In particular, she wants to know how her finance is tracking, how well the project is adhering to the schedule, how well her risk plan is working and whether there is any emerging risk and anything else you deem necessary for project reporting and governance purposes. More importantly, how will all this data be reported and presented, and how frequently? The CEO needs a regular project summary so that she can keep the Board up to date on the project achievements.
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 5: Leadership in Managing the East Timor Project
Script of the video:
Allen: What leadership style did you use when you started your role at the ATA?
Kate: Well initially, as I explained, I came into the project after the pilot had already been done and things were underway, so the last thing I wanted to do is come into the organisation and start telling people what to do and making big decisions. So, the first thing I probably did was really just to gather information. I'm the kind of person that really likes to really understand where things are at, what are the strengths, what are the challenges, where are the opportunities? And so I spent a lot of time basically talking to everybody. So, I really used that group of stakeholders. So, I'd say my approach is quite inclusive, I really believe that the people who are actually on the ground particularly and who are implementing the project, they usually have the best information about how the project's going and what needs to be done to improve it.
So, one of the first things I did was actually go on trip to East Timor and spend a lot of time with our partner organisation *[00:01:17 Senith Kay], talking to that team about what they felt was working well, where some of the issues lay in their eyes about what needed to be improved.And obviously the team of ATA volunteers here in Australia that had been over to East Timor many times and worked on these projects for many years, I spent a lot of time talking to them about what they thought were the strengths and where some of the issues lay. And so, I basically did a lot of information gathering and sorting in my head about where everything was at before I took any decisions really. And I just listened a lot to people and took on board all those opinions.
Of course, ultimately as the Project Manager, you do have to make the final decisions and you have to make some difficult decisions sometimes, not always popular ones. And so, I'm happy to do that when necessary, to make those difficult judgement calls about delaying or doing something differently. And I think probably how I differed a little bit from the style of the previous Project Manager as well, was that - because I come from a very different background, I come from a background of international development and I didn't come from the technical side. So learning about renewable energy and these solar projects, the technical side of that was new for me. So, I probably had more input and concern around some of the areas to do with the community engagement side and the monitoring evaluation that I felt really needed to be developed more in terms of the project. So,I put more emphasis on those sides of the project because I felt quite comfortable that the technical side was very well covered, I felt very confident in our capacity in that area. But I felt where we needed to do a lot more work in the area of the community side and so that's where I invested a lot of my time and effort as the new manager.
Allen: So, did you experience any push-back when you had to make unpopular call or changes?
Kate: Yes. The most challenging group, in some ways, to get on board with a new idea or a new approach is the group of volunteers who have volunteered for the ATA for a long time and, as I said, have been to East Timor many times. And they're a fantastic group, extremely dedicated; they've done some amazing work. But I guess, what comes with that is being, after a while, quite invested in the way you've always done things and wanting to kind of stick with the way you've always done things because that's the way you've done it.
And so, it's probably a little bit threatening when someone new comes on board who might have a slightly different perspective about how we should do things. And so, probably bringing them on board to a slightly new way of thinking was probably the most challenging, particularly as a younger woman as well, dealing with a team of predominately older men. And there's that interesting dynamic anyway, which has to be overcome. And I'm very sensitive to that, particularly me being a non-technical person and they're all technical people. So, you've also got that interesting dynamic as well, which has to be overcome. So, that was probably the hardest group to convince that there were maybe some slightly different ways we could do things.
But I feel really pleased that that's all happened in a way that where everybody's still on board, those same people are still volunteering, they're still very much engaged in the project. And I feel like we've gone a bit of a journey together of taking the best bits from the past and using all that skill and that experience, particularly in the technical side. And just I guess, enhancing things with more, as I said, monitoring and evaluation, with more focus on the community and the community mobilisation and that transfer of skills and responsibility to our East Timorese partners.
That was probably the biggest mindset change that I felt the team had to go on was actually saying, instead of us as ATA going on a plane, going over there and doing things ourselves, the important thing that we need to do now is really empower our local partners to lead this process. You know, we will work with them to mentor them, to provide them with skills and training, but it's important that they lead and that we enable them to lead in a way that's we're not nit-picking in the small ways they do things.
Obviously we had some non-negotiables, that these things have to be delivered and things have to be done safely and in a way that's not going to create a financial risk for us. But at the same time, it's important that we enable them to work in the way that is suitable in East Timor because they're the experts in East Timor. And our local partners will do things in slightly different ways to how we will do them, but that's okay. You know, that's important that we support them to lead. And so, that was probably the biggest change.
Background
Now the planning for the project has largely been completed and you have most of your plans formalised, i.e., risk management plans, your project schedule baselined, budget and resource plan. The questions are:
1. How would Kate monitor and control the project, and
2. What type of information/data should Kate be providing the stakeholders and the CEO so that they can be assured that the project is proceeding as planned?
The latter is an area that requires a degree of ingenuity from the project manager and the team. Once you have decided what monitoring and controlling processes should be implemented, the challenge is how to present this to an international audience and to a busy CEO? Keep in mind that English is not the international stakeholders' language in many instances and certainly is not the national language of East Timor. This particular activity is critical to project governance.
Scope of the task
Submit a proposal detailing:
1. The methodology that you would recommend for cost and schedule tracking and the reason why you have chosen them over other methods. Outline the advantages and risks of using the monitoring and controlling methods that you have chosen and also the ones that you have rejected.
2. The format and structure of these project reports. For example: what kind of data should be presented? Do you just present the actual hours used or dollars spent for the reporting period? What about explanation and commentary? Provide explanations as to why you prefer the recommended structure and your decision on reporting this data over others. Please note that these are reports for the project manager/team and the Governance Board, NOT for the CEO and the Board.
3. The frequency of the project Governance Board meeting and who should attend? Explain why you have selected those attendees.
4. The format and structure for the CEO and Board project report. Similarly, explain the reasons why you have chosen this reporting format and structure.
Your proposal should be presented in an essay format. It needs to look and sound professional and to be suitable for tabling in an official meeting.