Pm 595 Course Project Part 1

TCO A:

* What process would you use for identifying project risks for a second Oresund Bridge project? What risks would you raise for each alternative? An effective risk identification process would typically include the following.

* Identify the significant risks to the achievement of the objectives. In this case, a variety of aspects would be assessed based on the first project including social, economic and environmental aspects. This can be accomplished using techniques such as brainstorming, interviewing of key stakeholders and previous members of the first project team, the Delphi technique, a SWOT analysis, and diagramming techniques.

* Identify all types of risks, associated major components and controls that were utilized during the first project. Did they work? If not, why? What other lessons learned could you utilize from the first project?

* Assess the root causes and influencing factors of risk, both internal and external, as well as its effects and outcomes based on not only the previous project, but any current changes or influences that are now a factor such as political and technical.

* As quantification was used with success during the first project, it would make sense to apply this same process in identifying and modeling uncertainties that would be a factor in this project.

* Additional factors involved in identifying risks include a risk management plan that allows for a review of every task for that tasks potential of failure.

* What process would you use for categorizing project risks for a second Oresund Bridge project? How would you actually categorize them? I would utilize quantitative risk analysis to categorize identified risks. Inputs to the quantitative plan would come from the outputs of the identification phase. These would include the risk management plan, all identified risks, scales of probability, and any assumptions. Each risk would be evaluated and designated as high, medium, or low, depending on two criteria, the severity of impact and the probability of the event occurring. To further aid in this process, we would again call upon the previous risks and mitigation strategies used in the first project to capitalize on past experiences, successes, and failures. These identified risks would further be broken down into specific categories such as Technical, project management risks, organizational, external, and historical. I would utilize the quantitative method in lieu of the qualitative method due to the quantitative method utilizes expert judgments from technical experts which would pay great dividends in this type of project.

* What process would you use for ranking project risks for a second Oresund Bridge project? How would you actually rank them? Once the quantitative process is completed, two ranking are produced. The first one is how this projects risk is compared to others like the first project and second, how individual risk are ranked within the project. Once complete, I would utilize a risk matrix to rank the risks in terms of severity and impact so that we would know which risks to address first.

TCO C:

* How would you identify the key decision paths and options that can be anticipated in the project? What are these key decision paths and options in your opinion? Many tools exist to aid in identifying and clarifying the decision path. The Gantt chart is very useful as a planning and control tool. Unfortunately, some decisions are made that involve cost, risk, procurement, and contracting, which may not be very visible in just a Gantt chart alone. The Gantt chart combined with Expected value and Decision tree analysis can all aid in the decision making process and provide tangible options for the project.

* How might you use a decision tree analysis to evaluate the alternatives? What numbers would you use in this analysis? The decision tree analysis would be applicable and beneficial when assessing the need for whether or not the building of a second bridge is a cost effective and required evolution. Different legs on this decision tree could be for building the second bridge, not building the second bridge, and building the second bridge with the aid of consultants. Additionally, we could also add branches that would analyze if we built the bridge now or later. As for numbers, the original 2.5 billion dollar price tag could be a great reference as long as inflation was factored in. Additionally, this would be an input into the build now or build later branch as the longer we wait, the more inflation occurs which would increase prices. Additionally, we would need to assess the percentage that over the next several years, traffic would increase on the first bridge, which would justify the building of the bridge. We could say that there is a 60% chance that traffic will increase necessitating the need for a second bridge and that there is a 20% chance that traffic will not increase for 5 additional years. By inputting these numbers, we could analyze the benefits of building no or building later, or even if we should not build at all.

* How might