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Brief Scenario Overview

Genesol Corporation Biotech Research and Development Inc. is rewriting its Emergency Plan. As a result, all of Genesol’s 1485 employees need training on the safety topics and the new emergency plan. The VP of Training initiated a project to get it done in a timely manner. Sally Jones was the initial project manager. She created the entire project plan including the budget and schedule. She knows the plan “inside-out”. However, she was “laid-off” for falsifying travel expense sheets. She has left the project with a plan and bunch of notes etc… As a result, you have been assigned to takeover as the project manager in charge of training all of Genesol’s 1485 employees on the five new sections of the Emergency Plan. Your project plan, budget and schedule are established and detailed below. Some of your project tasks include:

· Hiring and overseeing contract ID’s.

· Maintaining the budget

· Coordinating the training schedule and trainers

· Working with SME’s

· Ensuring that the new Emergency Plan is developed in a timely manner, so that the ID’s can developed the training (Development of the new Emergency Plan is another (parallel) project. With it’s own PM)

· Dealing with any unforeseen hurdles

Introduction

Genesol Corporation Biotech Research and Development Inc. Emergency Plan and Training Project demonstrate Genesol’s commitment to safety and our employees. Genesol Corporation Biotech Research and Development Inc. Emergency Plan and Training Project will go beyond the required governmental regulations and provide the highest level of safety now and into the future. The primary component of realizing our safety goals lies within the training of current and future employees.

Genesol Corporation Biotech Research and Development Inc. Emergency Plan and Training Project will deliver the following results:

· All current employees will be trained and assessed in the following safety related subjects in accordance with the newly developed Genesol Emergency Plan:

a. Natural Disasters

b. Chemical Leaks & Bio-hazardous material

c. Acts of Violence and Terrorism

d. Fire Safety

e. CPR (selected employees)

On average, each safety topic requires two hours of training. The CPR Training for selected employees will take longer than two hours. In an attempt to not overburden the employees and amortize lost work, the training process will carry on for five months, with one topic per month. The topic will be “rolled-out” as a safety theme of the month. Results of the training will be electronically monitored and recorded in the new computer-based training record system. Additionally, employees will receive certificates of completion for their own records.

Obviously, the instructor led training sessions require additional planning and cooperation from managers and supervisors. Instructor led training will be coordinated throughout the month and will be scheduled to best accommodate the various schedules.

Project Context

Preliminary Info About Client

Genesol Corporation, founded in 1978, is located in La Jolla, California. This company is a world leader in Biotechnology research. The company does have somewhat of a checkered past, but has an interesting product, a drug called “Reedbellopher,” which has become very profitable for the company, and has tremendous potential. It’s a stimulant, with an amphetamine-like effect, but without the side effects. Therefore, it’s far easier for doctors to prescribe since the FDA so tightly controls amphetamines.

Additionally, Genesol is participating in the sequencing of the [human] genome, allowing their scientists to basically combine biology with the powers of computation, a very powerful combination. This company has tremendous growth potential, but rumor has it, that the company is involved with confidential top-secret government projects involving their genome work, cloning, etc. The company has had several protests and threats taken against it recently, and the company has had to take measures to train its staff in emergency measures.

Working Environment

All employees are locally based. The four facilities, listed below, are all on the same 50-acre Genesol compound along the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla. Tight security exists with barbwire fenced perimeter, armed security, gate guards, etc. Outside resources will need temporary working badges, parking passes, etc.

· Office: 350 employees

· Lab Facility: 250 administrators, 500 technicians

· Clinic: 110 administrators, 275 technicians

· Training Facility (1) 30 seat, (1) 50 seat

Availability of Resources

The following outlines the available resources:

· Training facilities (50 and 30 seat cap.), laptops (2), Proxima projectors (2), VAP boards (2), TV/VCR (2), overhead projectors (2), slide projectors (2), turn charts (2) have already been reserved for a five month period from Training Department. Point of contact is Mr. A. Visual at 721-1234. No additional costs.

· Genesol Safety Officer creating a binder for all staff that covers natural disasters, chemical leaks, violence/terrorism, and HAZMAT issues. He wants to utilize Kinko’s for binding and copying services at a cost of $9,200 dollars.

· Catering Services, coffee, muffins, bagels, fresh fruit, etc is $4800 for time period.

· Office supplies, paper, pens, tape, etc have been requisitioned internally. No additional costs.

· Employee in Human Resources Department, (Mr. J. Johnson), used to be a fireman/paramedic for five years in L. A. County before changing careers and coming to Genesol. Available for advisory role for this project?

Project Team

Job Title	Job Description	New Hire?
Project Manager (1)	Manage Project	No
Genesol Safety Officers (Bill Jones and Liz McCarson)	SME and assigned as the trainers. Although not normally trainers, 35% of their time over the next 6 months will be working directly for the PM as trainers.	No
Contract Instructional Designer (Mark Hanson)	Design Instruction	Yes
Admin Asst. (Julie Mendoza)	General clerical	Yes

Project Affiliates

(These are people who are not on your project team, but people that you will have to deal with throughout the project)

Department Managers – The various department managers will be consulted for the purpose of scheduling. Additionally, their support for this project is very important to the overall success (some of them have already voiced displeasure with losing their people for training every month). Therefore, they will be kept informed as to the status of this project.

Fun CPR Inc.–This organization will be hired to conduct certified CPR training. This organization is by far the least expensive, but we question their ability to complete the job.

Craig Gregg – As the Emergency Plan developer, interaction with him is vital for our success. Our project is dependent on his deliverables. We will work closely with his team with regard to training content and scheduling. Additionally, we will facilitate the coordination between his team and our contract Instructional Design team. In other words, as his team develops the new policy and Emergency Plan, he will hand it off to our team to use for our training design and development.

V.P. of the Corporate Training Dept. – Bridget Dunn is your direct supervisor for this project. She initiated the project and assigned you as the PM. Requests outside the approved plan (e.g. additional funding or time) must be approved by her. She wants periodic updates but does not want to be bothered with your problems.

Sally Jones – The initial project manager. She created the entire project plan including the budget and schedule. She knows the plan “inside-out”. However, she was “laid-off” for falsifying travel expense sheets. She has left the project wit a plan and bunch of notes etc…

Budget

The total project budget is $134K. However, only $53K represents “hard” or actual costs. The remainder is “soft” or internal costs. Of the hard costs, the majority is a result of hiring a contract instructional designer and admin assistant. The remainder of the hard costs are for services and materials. Refer to Excel spreadsheet for a complete breakdown of the budget.

Our budget estimates are all based on talking to actual vendors, the San Diego Union Tribune Classified Ads, and numerous Internet safety training web sites. Information and quotes were then averaged to get a feel of the market value for that item or service. We are least concerned with the costs of the pre-made safety videos and the budgeted cost of the CPR training. These costs were quoted by more than one source.

Finally, the Admin/Technology section of the budget may our least certain estimate. These costs, particularly a data base software program and general office supplies, are difficult to estimate this far in advance and require further time and research to be more certain. Fortunately, these cost are only a small percentage of the total budget and they may even be switched to the “soft” cost column if available internally.

Schedule

Upon receiving a rollout deadline of no later than six months, we began to work back from that date to establish timelines and milestones. We have devised a work plan that provides five sequenced training tasks from the beginning to end of a nine month period. Refer to the schedule for the complete project schedule.

Presently, two hours per training topic has been deemed sufficient per dialogue with local safety experts. We are also happy to report we are now rolling out in only two months (CPR training first). Each consecutive month will be devoted to only one training topic for the entire month long period.

The thought process behind a quicker rollout was based on the realization that each training topic is basically independent of the others. In other words, if the CPR training is developed, it can begin while other topics may still be in development. Finally, our proposed schedule presupposes that development of the Genesol Emergency Plan will be complete and available from Craig Gregg’s Emergency Plan Development Project.

Allowing for design delays and to prevent training delays, we have scheduled for development of each session be complete at least one month prior to its scheduled implementation. For example, if Natural Disaster training is scheduled for the month of September, development of the training will be complete by the 1st of August.

Although we have scheduled an entire month for each training session, we feel that each session can be completed in three weeks. The fourth week of each training month is devoted to “make-ups”, holidays and unforeseen obstacles.