RESPONSE

Change History

Table of Contents

Building a community garden on empty plots of land will enhance the beauty of the city and benefit its’ residents. Apartment dwellers do not have the space to grow gardens in the city, and the shared plots of land will be available for prospective gardeners to turn unused land into a greenspace producing a variety of crops of vegetables and fruit.

The garden will serve as a place to meet new neighbors, develop relationships, share gardening tips, and provide fresh fruits and vegetables that are essential for a healthy lifestyle. Community gardens will reduce food deserts in neighborhoods for families who are unable to afford fresh produce. The garden will also help to reduce pollutants in the air and water runoff after rainfalls

Business Needs

Scope

· To deliver a community garden to provide fresh produce.

· The land where the garden will be needs to be tested for soils and sunlight to ensure the best possibility of growth. 

· Gather gardening experts to inspect the ground and provide recommendations for soil types and seeds to plant. 

· Know the cost of supplies such as seeds, garden tools, and fertilizer. 

Analysis of Situation

The organization’s objective is to provide an additional resource for a community through the building of a garden. The completion of the garden will yield multiple benefits for residents of the community and fulfill a disparity within the neighborhood. The building of the community garden was identified as an opportunity due to limited accessibility to garden resources within this neighborhood. A contributor to this problem is the infrastructure of the community; there is a lack of garden space in inner cities that disenfranchises residents of resources. A critical success factor of this project is the positive impact it can have on the community. This project will be deemed successful if the residents of the community utilize the garden and benefit from its resources.

The organization is adept to develop a strategic project management plan that identifies deliverables and requirements to meet the goal. Gaps in the organization’s capabilities include the resources to build the garden; contractors will be employed to account for this gap. Throughout the project, the team will use cost and qualitative return on investment (ROI) as decision criteria. All decisions will be based on the cost and community benefit associated with the development activities.

Risks for the building the garden include budget, time, and community impact. Unforeseen issues could impact the allocated budget and can cause the organization to spend additional capital. Additionally, all project management activities will be scheduled and time-sensitive. Potential hurdles in development could cause delays and affect the timeline of the project. Lastly, community impact could be a potential risk as the development of the garden could disrupt residents.

This respective project will require many parties to be involved. The parties involved shall encompass community outreach representatives on behalf of the city, Environmental scientists that can support in a role of advisors with regards to environmental regulations and water laws, and botanists that can advise to which vegetation can work long term. Gathering these individuals with their respective expertise, will require a plan that will allow each individual to work on the project while not getting in each other's way. A few constraints that will inevitably be crossed, will be that of sticking to allotted budget and time schedule. Due to the ongoing pandemic, these constraints may be exasperated. It is no mystery that this project will have many risks involved ranging from weather/environment issues, contractor quotes/work, and budgetary issues. To combat budgetary concerns, a budget will be composed and proposed with full transparency so that the community will have full knowledge of the project’s financials. The budget will include quotes from independent contractors to fill the roles needed to successfully get this project going.  An open forum discussion with the community of what we are trying to accomplish with the community garden and the positive outcomes will be held.

The organization’s objective is to provide an additional resource for a community through the building of a garden. The completion of the garden will yield multiple benefits for residents of the community and fulfill a disparity within the neighborhood. The building of the community garden was identified as an opportunity due to limited accessibility to garden resources within this neighborhood. A contributor to this problem is the infrastructure of the community; there is a lack of garden space in inner cities that disenfranchises residents of resources. A critical success factor of this project is the positive impact it can have on the community. This project will be deemed successful if the residents of the community utilize the garden and benefit from its resources.

Palcic, I., & Lalic, B. (2009). Analytical hierarchy process as a tool for selecting and evaluating projects. International Journal of Simulation Modelling, 1, 16-26. DOI:10.2507/IJSIMM08(1)2.112

Appendix

Simplified Scoring Model

Our firm was presented with three project options. Those options were to supply technology such as tablets or laptops to grade school children, to undertake the installation of a new internet grid in a rural community, or to build a city community garden. These projects were compared using a set of criteria that were assigned a weighted importance value which were then compared between projects (Palcic & Lalic, 2009).

Each criterion was compared individually to the other criteria, so that only two criteria were being compared at a time. Each comparison was given a value between 1 and 9, 1 being equally important and 9 being the highest possible superiority of the criteria over the compared criteria (Palcic & Lalic, 2009). These values were then averaged for each criterion giving the final weighted importance for each. Each criterion was then evaluated between projects and a score was given. For these scores between 1 and 9, 1 represents the least beneficial outcome for the firm, while 9 represents the most beneficial. For example, a high project cost would be given a lower score, as this would be less beneficial for the firm. Finally, the scores were multiplied with the importance weight, giving the total scores for each project, allowing the team to make its decision. Using this simple scoring model, shown below, the project team has decided to take on the community garden project.