manage operational plan

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Assessment Task 2: Develop operational plan project

To do this task, the student needs to have access to and use the following documents.

• Strategic Plan

• Operational Plan Template

• Contingency Plan Template

All the above materials can be found and downloaded from the student portal-Moodle.

Timing Your assessor will advise you of the due date of these submissions.

Submit • Email with draft operational plan and contingency plan attached

• Email with revised operational plan and contingency plan attached

Carefully read the following scenario before starting the assessment.

King Edward VII College has been operating for 5 years. The College is based in the Melbourne CBD and offers a range of courses in management, marketing, human resources and international business and currently has around 500 students enrolled across all of its courses. Courses are offered at all levels from Certificate II to Graduate Diploma. The College is very popular due to its competitive pricing structure, innovative teaching methods and state of the art facilities.

The College currently employs 24 staff members that include the CEO, a Marketing Manager and Marketing Assistant, Human Resources Manager, Operations and Finance Manager, Administration Manager, Office Assistant, Receptionist, Academic Manager, Student Services Officer and approximately 14 trainers.

Due to its success, the College plans to establish two additional campuses, one in Brisbane and one in Sydney. The plan is for the Brisbane campus to commence operating in January 2020 and Sydney in April 2020. Ideally campuses will be located close to the CBD. A maximum rental budget of $500,000 per annum in Sydney and $400,000 in Brisbane has been allocated. The desired floor area for each campus is at least 500 square metres.

With regard to staffing at each campus, the following should be noted. It is anticipated that initially each campus will require a receptionist and a student services officer. The receptionist and student services officer positions will be permanent, full-time staff. It is anticipated that maximum student numbers at the new campuses will be up to 60 students per campus in the first 12 months of operations. The College’s requirements for trainers is that there must be at least 1 trainer per 20 students.

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Existing staff at the Melbourne campus will complete all other staff functions until such time as student numbers increase substantially. It is expected that this would occur after the first two years.

The College will also need to purchase a range of office equipment, as well as furniture for at least 100 students, at each campus.

Complete the following activities as if you are the Operations and Finance Manager of King Edward VII College.

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1. Develop a draft Operational Plan.

Review the scenario information and the Strategic Plan to identify all the actions that will need to be completed to achieve the College’s objectives and be documented in an Operational Plan.

Use the Operational Plan Template to guide your work.

As a minimum, your Operational Plan must address:

1) Renting of suitable commercial properties

2) Staffing requirements

3) Fitting out of the campus

4) Equipment requirements

5) Marketing requirements Student needs to work out at least a strategy for each issue mentioned-above. Therefore, you need to come up with a minimum of 5 strategies and other matching elements. The actions are the concrete steps that aim to make the strategies into practice. How many steps needed is dependent on the nature of the strategy and student only records the major steps in sequence. Following the steps can lead through to the realisation of the strategy. Please see below a sample response to the issue of renting of suitable commercial properties

2. Develop a draft Contingency Plan.

As set out in the company’s organisational processes, you are also required to develop contingency plans to ensure that any risks to the success of goals of the operational plan are identified and contingencies are in place should things not go according to plan.

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You must identify risks with the College’s establishment of the new campuses and plan for contingencies that are specific to the operational plan strategies and actions that you have developed.

Use the Contingency Plan Template to guide your work.

Student needs to identify at least one risk for each strategy implementation. Therefore, you need to locate at least 5 risks and ensued evaluation.

Use the Risk Legend to assess the Risk Rate:

Please see below a sample response of the risk plan:

3. Send an email to the senior Management Team (your assessor).

The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

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It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachments and request a meeting to discuss and gain approval for the plans.

Attach your draft operational plan and contingency plan to the email.

4. Consult on draft Plans.

This part of the assessment requires you to meet with the senior management team and discuss the operational plan and contingency plan that you have developed. The team will be roleplayed by your assessor and two classmates acting as colleagues.

Go through each part of your operational plan, explaining the activities to be completed, resource requirements, timelines and key performance indicators.

Then outline King Edward VII College’s policies and procedures that directly relate to your operational plan.

During the meeting, you will need to demonstrate effective communication skills including:

• Speaking clearly and concisely using appropriate level of formality and vocabulary

• Speaking to suit the audience

• Using effective non-verbal communication skills to encourage audience interest

• Responding to questions

• Asking questions to seek feedback

• Use of active listening techniques to confirm and clarify understanding.

Review your contingency plan with the senior management team too.

You will receive feedback from the team, which you must incorporate into your draft plans. Make notes on these suggested changes.

5. Update your operational plan and contingency plan.

Update both of your draft plans to incorporate the suggestions you received at the meeting.

Save these new documents as Revised Operational Plan and Revised Contingency Plan.

6. Send an email to the senior Management Team (your assessor).

The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

It should summarise what was discussed at the meeting, then introduce and summarise the contents of the attachments.

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The email text should then request approval of the plans and permission to move forward with the project.

Attach your Revised Operational Plan and Revised Contingency Plan to the email.