Project Managment

Project Management –Organic Food Promotion

Bruce McClaflin

Grantham University

The lifestyle changes experienced over the past few years has resulted to a variety of diseases due to poor food diets and lack of education for healthy food and better eating habits. This project will focus on promoting organic food through engaging the schools in a move to help students and teacher practice organic food production in the school farms. It will help student extend the skills of organic food production to their homes as well. In addition, the project will increase the awareness of the benefits of organic foods and encourages the consumption of these types of food in school and at home (Thrupp, 2000). The project’s title will be “School Farming for Healthy Food.” Therefore, the main target of the project will be the young children in schools. School Farming for Healthy Food is an educational project for the students that aims at creating the desired attitude, knowledge, and skills for the production and consumption of organic foods. This executive summary presents a project charter, stakeholders, a Work Breakdown Structure, risk analysis, project schedule and estimated budget.

Stakeholders involve both the project team members and the involved parties in the implementation of the project. The following is a list of the project stakeholders:

The section provides the project scope, objectives, constraints and assumptions, and other project description.

The project will contain the following in-scope items:

• Introduction of healthy meals: the project involves creating awareness to all the involved stakeholders about the need to introduce healthy meals. Through the training and creation of this awareness, the project will help the students, school administration and local farmers to produce foods sustainably in their local farms.

• Student friendly meal: the project will also ensure that the school nutritionist is equipped with the desired knowledge and skills to help prepare a meal that is healthy to the student.

• In house production: the project will ensure implementation of best and sustainable production of food in the school farms and local farmers who are majorly the family members of the students is relation to best practices (Dorward, 2012).

The following items will be out of scope:

• National consumer production: the project does not involve large-scale or nation-wide production in terms of food. The project is for the local farmers surrounding the students of the school and their families.

The general project objective is to help the students and surrounding societies have awareness of the benefits of producing food sustainably for better and healthier living. The project will ensure that the community adopts sustainable food production through the knowledge gathered. On the other hand, the project will help in inculcating the right attitudes towards farming and producing healthy foods. It will provide the resources needed for the practical work needed to ensure the right skills are given to the intended audience. Furthermore, the project will give schools the opportunity to connect with local farms to serve healthy meals in school cafeterias to improve student’s health and offer food and gardening education.

The following items are the deliverables of the project that the project manager will base the project success on before the project closure:

• Proposed program for sustainable food production

• Approved organizational chart

• Food production activities

• Budget for the sustainable production

• Awareness of the program for sustainable food production.

The table below shows the work breakdown structure for the project:

The project involves several risks that might lead to low or no success to the project objectives. These risks are of different levels and categories in relation to the implementation and phases of the project (Kutsch & Hall, 2010). Three top risks include Stakeholder conflict, poor cost management, and inadequate technical skills.

Conflict: The project will require the input of different stakeholders including school administrators, parents, local farmers, school nutritionist, and state representatives. There is a real risk that conflict is likely to arise among these stakeholders due to conflicting motivations and agendas.

Poor Cost Management: estimation of costs is not an easy task as it may lead to under-allocation of resource costs. Managing costs has been a common concern during the implementation of projects. A project like this one will take up various resources, and be implemented over an extended time. It is important to ensure that costs are managed for the attainment of the anticipated outcomes.

Inadequate technical skills: the local farmers, nutritionists and other stakeholders may not have the required skills to implement some best practices in farming to yield the desired outcomes.

The first step to mitigating risk in the project will be through recognition. Identifying potential risks allows project managers to plan, and develop approaches to mitigate their consequences (Heinz, 2010). However, without proper quantification of these risks, the project manager may not be able to prioritize the risks effectively and develop a risk response plan. Therefore, this section provides a risk quantification based on probability of occurrence and impact of the risk in case it occurred. The following is the risk quantification scale:

1: 1-20% probability of occurring, insignificant impact

2: 21-40% probability of occurring, low impact

3: 41-60% probability of occurring, moderate impact

4: 61-80% probability of occurring, high impact

5: 81-99% probability of occurring, catastrophic impact

The scale above does not involve a 0% and 100% probability because risks are unseen events that cannot be determined with a precise certainty. Therefore, 0% implies that the event cannot occur and 100% implies that the event will indeed occur. These percentages assures one of the occurrence of the events hence making them not to be risks. The table below shows quantification of these three top risks:

Conflict among stakeholders is the risk likely to bring about the most extensive adverse outcomes. This is especially so as the relationship between stakeholders will be crucial to the success of the project, and that these relationships will last the entire length of the project. Cost management will follow as the second most significant risk. Managing costs based on available resources will guarantee project success. Project managers will ensure that stakeholders are adequately skilled to cope with the requirements of the scheme.

It is important to respond adequately to risk. The response has to identify the risks that exist, and develop ways to counter their influence in the completion of the project (Krysiak, 2009). There will be three main responses based on the three main risks identified.

The initial response will be aimed at overcoming conflict among project stakeholders. Project managers will be required to be adept at conflict resolution. Further, these managers will exhibit appropriate leadership skills to facilitate the accomplishment of tasks assigned to all stakeholders.

Project managers also have to exhibit exceptional cost management skills. Resources will be essential in planning, implementation, and assessment of the project. Cost management ensures that all steps of the projects are adequately funded, and are completed as initially anticipated.

Lastly, the planning phase of the project will assess the preparedness of stakeholders in performing their respective tasks. Besides accounting for all the resources that will be required for the project, skills will be assessed. The project managers will offer training where they deem necessary.

In order for the project promoting organic foods to be successful, there has to be a risk analysis that takes account of all the possible challenges project managers will face. In this unique project, managers are likely to face issues of conflict, cost management, and lack of technical skills. This section of the project proposes ways to respond to these risks with the aim of mitigating the overall negative impact on the success of the project.

The estimated time for the project is 45 days after the start date. The table below shows the project’s duration for the major milestones with the estimated time:

The diagram below shows a Gantt chart for the project as developed in MS Project software (also attached as a separate file .mpp):

The communication plan outlined below is part of the components that will ensure successful implementation of the project, “School Farming for healthy food” which aims at promoting the production and consumption of organic foods among school going children. This plan aims at targeting the collaboration of not only the students but other stakeholders such as the school administration, teachers, parents and the surrounding community. It also has the potential of attracting and mobilizing support from other stakeholders such as social activists, government institutions and healthcare decision makers to this campaign. The plan is presented as below:

The above communication plan covers the basic communication needs for the overall project, however, its effectiveness needs to be regularly reviewed through conduct surveys and interviews of the stakeholders. This will help to test their knowledge and understand of the core objective and outcomes of the project. It will also determine their level of commitment hence predetermining the longevity and growth of the project.

This project has the tenets of ensuring a productive and healthy future for the school going children by addressing the most critical aspects of their growth and development, which is their diet. According to World Bank,” malnutrition is one of the world’s most serious but least-addressed development challenges” (The World Bank, 2017, par. 1). Therefore, this project acts as a basis for other communities and nations to adopt in their own settings. The collaboration with a state representative is a good strategic move by the project sponsors because it help to mobilize support from larger stakeholders. This will also ensure that the credibility of the project is not comprised if it does not adhere to government approvals and procedures.

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Heinz, P.-B. (2010). Risk Management: Procedures, Methods and Experiences. RT&A, 2(17),

75-95.

Krysiak, F. C. (2009). Risk Management as a Tool for Sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics,

85(3), 475-483.

Kutsch, E., & Hall, M. (2010). Deliberate ignorance in project risk management. International Journal of Project Management, 28(3), 245–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2009.05.003

The World Bank. (2017). The World Bank and Nutrition. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/nutrition/overview

Thrupp, L. A. (2000). Linking Agricultural Biodiversity and Food Security: The Valuable Role of Sustainable Agriculture. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 76(2), 265–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.00133

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