PPDI5039 Project Placement Design and Implementation

Introduction:

This report explores the case of Hydro Con which is planning to establish a hydroelectric power plant to be constructed over Nam Kading river located in the central Laos. The report explores the associated models and theories on stakeholder management and presents the stakeholder analysis for the chosen case of project. Further, it identifies major project phases and explores initiation and planning phases as they are in the scope of this assignment. Lastly, the report presents the learning received by the student after working on this project. The report also identifies the need for acquiring skills for a project manager and describes how the project activities can be useful in achieving certain skills required for long term professional development.

Project background and context

Hydro Con is a project based organization that is an in-charge of a hydroelectric power plant that must be built over Nam Kading river located in the central Laos. Before getting into the real development process, a detailed construction plan must be formulated for which some discussions with stakeholders are required in order to finalize the requirements. The site development plan must be finalized after these stakeholder discussions in 12 weeks. The plan is required to use strategies that build business value for the project which may be measured by exploring profitability on project. The project must also score high on the sustainability aspect as measured by the opinions of the project stakeholders.

Models and Theories

A few of the theories and models related to project management and stakeholder management would be useful to discuss here such as:

Stakeholder Analysis: It is the process that involves identification of stakeholders that are the people or groups that can get affected by the project outcomes and understanding the impacts of decisions taken.

In order to identify stakeholders, certain questions may be asked about the project such as:

• Who would be the potential beneficiaries?
• Who could be affected negatively?
• Who have the rights on project?
• Who can cause resistance to project?
• Who would be responsible for executing the project plan?
• Who would be providing funds or information required for the project?
• Whose behaviour would affect the success of the project?(Griffiths, et al., 2007)

Stakeholders include the individuals, groups and organizations who can be international actors like donors, national actors like legislators, public sector agencies, interest groups, society members, employees, and consumers. While performing an analysis on stakeholders, certain attributes are required to be considered such as level of influence stakeholder has, level of interest they have on specific project, and the groups they are associated with. The type of resources, their quantity and the power stakeholder has on project promotion affect the level of influence. Degree of control can vary in stakeholders from no control to total control. Those with total control are involved in requirement gathering while those influential are take opinion of.

When performing stakeholder analysis, their characteristics, interests, circumstances, and representation on project can be explored. The representation would be reflected by their identity with respect to project and their accountability for actions on project. Characteristics of stakeholders include basic personal information, location, ownership, functions, scale, and time commitment. This information about stakeholders can be collected using various methods such as brainstorming between project team members, semi-structured interviews with identified stakeholders, and analysis of existing data about stakeholders (Mayers, 2005).

Stakeholders can be communicated about the project in different ways using different modes of communication such as emails, phone calls, personal meetings, or through events like press releases. The purpose of communication would either understand the requirements and expectations for stakeholders related to the project or to inform them about the planning or progress of the project (Golder, 2005).

Project phases

The project would be executed in five key phases including initiation, planning, execution, performance monitoring, and project closure. As this project is about using a simulation for the final selection of the site development approach, the stages of initiation and planning would be covered.

Initiation: At this stage the project requirements would be gathered and stakeholder analysis would be done in order to better understand the project requirements and stakeholder specifications (BIS, 2010)

Planning: In this phase, the requirements gathered would be converted into specific project specifications and planned activities for the project execution. This would involve exploration of various site development options that would be analysed using simulation software that would assess the outcome of the project so that decisions can be taken on which approach to be taken for site development (Bright Hub Media, 2015).

Skill development

In order to complete to project successfully as well as advance in the field professionally, it is necessary that some skills are acquired. These skills can be job-specific such as technical know-how gained through experience, life skills, and non-job specific transferable skills (Team FME, 2014). Skills that are emphasis on by the Oil & Gas industry in their potential employees include team work, understanding and working in global environment, networking skills, innovation capability, ability to perform information synthesis, and capability to distinguish with competition. The simulation exercise can enhance some of these skills in the students such as problem solving, decision making, analysis skills, creativity, team work, communication with stakeholders, and stakeholder satisfaction. By the way of this project, the theories learnt would be practiced and these skills would be gained through activities (Helyer, 2015).

Communication skills are practiced while working with teams. While taking the course, participating in group activities, and giving presentations, skills of being able to speak to large groups has been learnt. However, there is still a need to learn on how to make presentations that can be well understood by audience (Project Management Institute , 2000).

Besides these skills, stakeholder analysis would also help in developing certain skills such as ability to be an active part of a two-way communication, facilitation skills, commitment, patience, general project awareness, consensus building, and conflict management (Verma, 1993).

Analysis and evaluation

Various drives of stakeholders can be explored in an analysis including regional, social, emotional, and personal factors. Refer to table in Appendix. Besides this general classification of project stakeholders, individual stakeholders may be viewed in order to understand their personal perspectives about the project. These stakeholders include (WPIC, 2013):

Sharon Brown: She is the Executive Director for Hydro Con for its Asia region. She has the responsibility to maintain the final profit and loss accounts.

Thongsavath Boupha: He is an energy Minister in Laotian Government. The government has 35% stakes in the project through Lao PDR Holding which in under control of Ministry of Energy. He would be interested in understanding the sustainability aspects of project.

Tanipat Thinnakorn: He is the project head for a Thai Energy Corporation PTE who is responsible for managing and controlling al energy supply within Thailand. He would have an important say in approval of project and can also be involved in understanding the requirements of project.

Birgitt Hanssen: She is a fund manager with a Norway based Investment funds organization and would be responsible for securing funds for the hydro power project. Thus, she should be involved since the beginning while a plan is made the construction and the cost elements are properly identified ( Changefirst Limited, 2009).

Michele Chow: She is the Project Director with World Bank and can get the funds for the projects. She can be taken help for understanding requirements as well as for securing funds by providing sufficient information for decision making.

Mr. Soulivong: He is the Director with Provincial Agriculture and Forestry Office who implements and enforces government policies and regulatory laws on projects involving natural environment. He can be approached for understanding the needs for sustainable construction.

Keo Xayavong: He is the leader with the village near Kading river and has been providing assistance for project governance. He could be involved in gathering requirements of governance on project.

François Delors: he is the construction contractor with DEVELA SA which is a French construction company. He would be given the full contract for construction of the hydro-power project.

Buk Phongvonsa: He is the union leader with the local construction workers’ union and can be communicated for gathering requirements specific to local workers as well as can be taken assistance of for hiring and managing contract workers.

Josephine Candor: She is the professor of Archaeology who has investigated the region for long and thus, can be approached for gathering requirements specific to location of the project.

Kai Chareonkul: He is an environmental impact expert who can help in identify sustainability requirement of project and developing strategies for achieving sustainability.

Gert Offerbach: He is an activist with EcoAction who is responsible for raising awareness about sustainability aspects and thus, can be involved in requirement gathering for achieving project sustainability.

Daniel Fairbanks: He is the Chief at International News Agency that delivers news worldwide. He can involve in communicating the project information to the public through the use of media (Asser, 2016).

Discussions with stakeholders suggest that every stakeholder can have a different need for information and this information must be sufficient for the stakeholder to take certain decisions about the project. Moreover, the interest or purpose of stakeholders can also differ which would affect the information, frequency of communication and way of presentation. For instance, Sharon Brown being an executive director would need to take financial decisions and thus, must be communicated about the impacts of project activities on profits from the project and may be communicated before the start of the project and in case major variations are encountered from set budget (PSI, 2013).

Learning

From the exploration of the project and the portfolio of evidences presented, certain learning was achieved including:

• A project can be considered as successfully delivering its results only when all the important stakeholder requirements and expectations are fulfilled and thus, stakeholders must be involved at every stage of the project and especially during the requirement gathering stage so that it can be ensured that all the stakeholder requirements are sufficiently fulfilled while executing the project.
• Construction projects require huge amounts of funds and thus, if anything goes wrong in the planning or execution, it can lead to a huge loss or additional funds for construction. Thus, using simulation software to assess the impacts of different construction and design approaches on project elements could be a very useful way to identify best option such that such difficulties are not faced at later stages of development.
• It is very important that the core team members have the right skills for managing any development project including the project manager who would be responsible for coordinating and managing all the activities. Most valued skills of a project manager include team work, communication skills, problem solving, and decision making skills. The project activities help in developing these skills by proving practice to learner.

Conclusions:

This report explored the project of development of hydro power plant using the case of a company. It explored the concept of stakeholder analyses and performed an actual analysis on the case. It also identified the need for using simulation for the selection of site development approach which was found useful for assessment before the final construction begins such that the mistakes can be avoided that could lead to conflicts at the later stages of development.

References:

Changefirst Limited, 2009. Change and project management , s.l.: ChangeFirst.

Asser, M., 2016. Hydroelectric Dam Laos - The Intercultural: Stakeholder Engagement Simulation, s.l.: Ososim Limited .

BIS, 2010. How to organise, plan and control Projects, s.l.: BIS.

Bright Hub Media, 2015. Constructing Powerful Scope Statements. [Online]
Available at: http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/57950-example-and-evaluation-of-project-scope-statements/

Golder, B., 2005. Cross-Cutting Tool : Stakeholder Analysis , s.l.: WWF.

Griffiths, J., Maggs, H. & George, E., 2007. ‘Stakeholder Involvement’ , s.l.: WHO.

Helyer, R., 2015. The Work-Based Learning Student Handbook. 2nd ed. s.l.:Palgrave MacMillan.

Mayers, J., 2005. Stakeholder power analysis, s.l.: IIED.

Project Management Institute , 2000. A guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge , s.l.: Project Management Institute .

PSI, 2013. Effective Communications : Rasiing the profile of your archive service, s.l.: Crown.

Team FME, 2014. Human Resource Management: Project Skill, s.l.: FME.

Verma, V. K., 1993. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT, s.l.: IEI.

WPIC, 2013. STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT TOOLS for ACTION, s.l.: Western and Pacific Child Welfare Implementatio Center.