As a government consultant, you are required to compile a PROJECT INITIATION DOCUMENT (PID) for the £431million Mersey Gateway project. The purpose of the PID is to define the project, to form the basis for its management and the assessment of the overall success. The Project Initiation Document has two primary uses: to ensure that the project has a sound basis before asking the Project Board to commit to make any major commitment to the project; to act as a base document, against which the Government, Project Board and Project Manager can assess progress, risks, issues, change and ongoing viability questions. Your Project Initiation Document should contain the following:
? Project definition
? Project approach
? Contingency plans
? Project organisation structure
? Communication and stakeholders
? Reporting cycle
? Risk assessment
Areas for further improvement: Individual Report
In your individual report make sure that your assignment answers the following questions:
• What you will be aiming to achieve in the project;
• Why it is important to come up with a project definition, project approach, contingency plans, project organisation structure, communication plan, stakeholders, reporting cycle and risk assessment matrix;
• How the project will be undertaken.
You will be expected to produce a well-researched original PID. Originality means that you have:
1. Fully incorporated key elements of the project and given concrete explanation;
2. Integrated both theory and practice;
3. Presented all your arguments in a concise, well-reasoned way.
Assignment objectives
1. To identify the underpinning principles and concepts of project management.
2. To analyse and evaluate the value of these in proposing a project initiation report.
3. To undertake some creative analysis and thinking.
A brief overview of the project The Mersey Gateway is a new road bridge across the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal in north-west England, which began construction in May 2014. The bridge will be located approximately 1.5 km (0.93 mi) to the east of the existing Silver Jubilee Bridge that connects the towns of Widnes and Runcorn. It will connect the Central Expressway in Runcorn with the Eastern Bypass and Speke Road in Widnes. The £540m Mersey Gateway described as an impressive and desperately needed solution improving mobility and economic growth throughout the Liverpool city region, north Cheshire and north-west. It is envisaged that the new bridge will be a toll bridge, with three lanes in each direction. The Halton Borough Council has also stated that the current bridge will also become a toll bridge, making Halton the only borough in England separated by only toll bridges. It was also put forward that the current bridge may be reduced to one lane in each direction for vehicles, with the other two lanes being converted into cycle lanes and/or pedestrian lanes. The scheme was put on hold in June 2010 awaiting the outcome of the Treasury’s Spending Review, but on 17 October 2010 it was confirmed by Chancellor George Osborne that the £431m plan would go ahead. During the 2014 Budget, Osborne announced a £270m guarantee for the project. For more information, please log into the following website: http://www.merseygateway.co.uk/
PLAGIARISM
‘Plagiarism is the practice of presenting thoughts, writings or other output of another or others as original, without acknowledgement of their source(s). All material used to support a piece of work, whether a printed publication or from electronic media, should be appropriately identified and referenced and should not normally be copied directly unless as an acknowledged quote. Text translated into the words of the individual student should in all cases acknowledge the source.’
Before submitting the work, you should check through it to ensure that:
? all material that has been identified as originally from a previously published source has been properly attributed by the inclusion of an appropriate reference in the text
? direct quotations are marked as such (using ‘quotation marks’ at the beginning and end of the selected text)
? a citation has been included in the list of references.
Assignment Marking Criteria
The report itself should demonstrate analytical and evaluation skills in discussion of the topic and a clear understanding of project management issues. Please do not overuse bullet points as you are required to evaluate for the purpose of this report. You are expected to USE SECONDARY REFERENCES to validate your work and create synthesis. All references should be clearly cited within the text and summarised in a Reference and Bibliography section. You may find that the “Case” does not answer all your questions and you would like more information – which is not adequately covered, make intelligent but realistic assumptions. I)
STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT
All reports should contain: Title page: giving the following information: ? The full title of the work ? The full name of the author ? The award for which the project is submitted in partial fulfilment of its requirements ? The year of submission ? The word count (excluding acknowledgements, diagrams, references, bibliography and appendices)
Confidentiality statement: If there are genuine reasons why your work could be considered confidential then you should discuss this matter with your Module Co-ordinator.
Executive summary: a brief summary of the aim, methodology, contents, and conclusions of the team project.
Acknowledgements: a list of people who provided help to the author during the research and writing of the project.
List of contents: showing the breakdown of the project into its constituent parts and locating them by page number. It is good practice to also include a list of figures, tables and appendices.
Introduction: presenting and justifying the research and/or consultancy problem/issue and introducing the approach taken to investigating and presenting the problem.
Glossary: a list of abbreviations and technical terms used and their definitions.
Body of the report: should be arranged in a way appropriate to the topic, presenting a review of relevant literature, results and discussions and a synthesis of findings, critical analysis of facts and/or ideas, using chapter headings, with paragraphs and spacing for ease of reading and cross-reference.
Conclusions and recommendations: an assessment of the findings along with any recommendations; this section should, explicitly or implicitly, establish the validity of the work in relation to its field. References: reference citations should be placed either at the bottom of the relevant page or grouped together at the end of each chapter of the project.
Bibliography: a separate list of the other relevant and useful works in the field that you have consulted.
Appendices: optional; useful for relevant but supplementary information.
Useful sources
1. http://www.merseygateway.co.uk/
2. http://www.merseygateway.co.uk/about-the-mersey-gateway-project/a-new-andimproved-route-over-the-mersey/
3. http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/roads-nowhere/current-campaigns/mersey-gatewaybridge