Student Fund-Raising Project
In September at its initial meeting of the academic year, the Student Council at a university decided to organize a project to raise funds to help upgrade the paediatric intensive care unit at the local hospital. The Student Council consists of representatives from each of the clubs and societies at the university. There were fifteen (15) of the twenty two (22) representatives at the meeting.
Although the council members who were at the meeting expressed enthusiasm for such an endeavour, they also raised some concerns, including:
• What kind of project should we do?
• When would be the best time of the year to do it?
• Do we have a goal for how much money we should try to raise?
• How should we assign responsibilities to all the clubs and societies?
• What about the council members who are not at the meeting? What if they do not support the idea?
• Are we going to need any money at the beginning to get things going and pay for things like advertising and other necessities?
• Do we need any kind of approvals?
Hannah said, "This is getting complicated. There are a lot of questions and unknowns."
Marcus added, "What if we don't raise a lot of money? That will be embarrassing, especially if we have to do a lot of work."
Teresa responded, "Sure it may be a lot of work, but we have a lot of people in our clubs and societies who we can get to help."
Cathy said, "Maybe we should try to identify what the risks may be, then see if we still think we can do it?"
Meghan said, "I'm not going to stand on corners with a can collecting money."
Wendy added, "Me either, but there are a lot of other things we can do to raise money that could be fun for all the students."
"Maybe even get the community to come, too. That will help us raise more money than just from students," added Sophie.
Suli spoke up, "I'm willing to chair a planning committee. Who else wants to be on it? We'll meet here tomorrow at 5:00. I'll send an e-mail to the clubs and society members who aren't here, inviting them to come. We are going big time and are going to raise a lot of money. Hey, there are risks in anything we do, but they'll work out. We have got to have a can-do attitude."
Based on a case study from “Effective Project Management by Clements and Gido, Thomson, 2012
Questions
Imagine that you are Suli and that you are chairing the first schedule meeting at 5.00pm the next day. Clearly the student council want to do something good for the local hospital but at the same time they do not want to be embarrassed by a poorly developed project that raises little funds.
i. What would you recommend for the next possible steps in the project? Provide five (5) steps giving reasons for your answer.
Identify a potential project to raise funds for the hospital paediatric intensive care unit. I am not concerned about your choice however it should be sophisticated enough that it meets the objectives of the Student Council (that is, to raise sufficient funds for the local hospital) and that it enables you to provide quality responses to the following question.
ii. Identify six (6) risks that may impact on the success of the project. Remember, in modern project management theory, risks can be negative (threat) or positive (an opportunity). Identify at least one risk that is an opportunity.
Develop a risk register for the six risks you have identified. Your risk register should include the following columns:
Name: - the name or area of risk
Type - the type of risk (threat or opportunity – or even both)
Assessment - an assessment of the its impact and likelihood (high, medium or low) and an overall rating
Response Plan - a detailed response plan for each risk (including if it is to be avoided, accepted, exploited and so on [see the lecture for details on the categories])