International Project Management: ATA Case Study on East Timor Project

This report analyzes the ATA case study on international project management, focusing on a solar electrification project in East Timor. The report examines the problems encountered during planning and execution, highlighting cultural differences and stakeholder engagement challenges. It discusses the need for an initial project plan, emphasizing risk analysis and mitigation strategies. The report details the importance of a structured project management plan, including team formation, documentation, and analysis of project constraints. It also addresses the prioritization of risks related to health hazards, time management, and communication. The case study emphasizes the critical role of proactive planning and risk management in the success of international projects, particularly in developing countries where cultural and logistical challenges can significantly impact project outcomes. The report underscores the necessity of adapting project management strategies to local contexts and proactively addressing potential risks to ensure project success and sustainability.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
International Project Management
Topic: The ATA Case Study on Kate Greenwood's Experience
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Part A: Planning Execution Plan............................................................................................2
Statement of the problem...................................................................................................2
Analysis..............................................................................................................................3
Discussion of Possible Options..........................................................................................4
Recommendation................................................................................................................4
Details of your Chosen Option...........................................................................................5
Part B: Risk Management Plan..............................................................................................6
Structured brief project management plan.........................................................................6
Analysis and prioritization of risk......................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
East Timor is a rural area with regard and mountaineers places and it is also
considered as a mountainous developing country. An Australian non-profit organisation,
Alternative Technology Association or ATA, has been developing the rural area by
establishing a work that is still ongoing within the organisation including the followings of
houses and electrification in the area (Girardeau 2017). The organisation also wants to
address all the challenges that the area has been facing and include the solar systems as a
solution to all the electrification challenges. Kate Greenwood is the international project
manager for ATA is trying to implement various management plans that would also be cost
effective during the execution for the project. For this there are also several problems related
to the areas where the organisation can be susceptible to several problems related to the
planning and execution of the plan and also the possibility for managing the risks. Therefore
based on to two of the above mentioned problems that the organisation might face, following
would be a report that would clarify what the organisation could possibly done instead of
what was actually done and how would it have been helpful to managing the risk occurring
within the organisation.
Part A: Planning Execution Plan
Statement of the problem
The primary execution problem that the East Timor solar electrification project had
was with the differences in the culture and the working procedure of Australia and the rural
area of East Timor. It was found in abundance from the example that Kate Greenwood had
spoken in the interview about the experiences that she had during the project and this was
about the execution of the plan. The initial planning did not considered how working would
be challenging enough if the entire setup was based upon rural area where people are not

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adjusted to the standardized policy even if they are being employed by bigger organisations
(Dhillion 2019). There were several consequences of not following standardized code of
conduct which the people in East Timor did not understand. The proper way of making them
aware would have been the primary work of the people to make these workers understand
how Australian organisation works feasibility considering all the project constraints and code
of conduct to analyse feasible use of resources and utilising them into a project.
Analysis
Since ATA is known profit non-government organisation and has already started the
project for initiating solutions for the electricity problems with implemented solar panels East
Timor, they tried to reduce the over excessive use of smoke and kerosene with
implementation of the project. Not just that, they also included a team of 6 members with
technicians for installation, maintenance and repairing of the solar power system during the
process of installation, monitoring and repairing for the project. They also selected several
workers that included the village population of East Timor and their almost 600 people that
they are employed in their project taken from the village. The installation and maintenance
was to be completed within two consecutive dry seasons and they had to exclude the weight
season in between. The total planning of the project was assigned with the brand of 250,000
AUD that was taken for the initiative of lighting the village with solar panels. Initial Idea was
based upon all the analysis that led to the construction of the project.
However, the only problem that was about to occur within the project was the
evaluation of the program and its execution plan that included the working with local
partners. Stakeholder engagement was problematic as the people taken from the rural areas
for working in the project needed excessive training and upskilling. The amount of time that
they would invest within the project was also taking up much of the time for training and
upskilling the local employees. Maintenance of the health and safety hazard was also a

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problematic issue as the people who are selected from the rural areas for working within the
project were not accustomed to the standards and policies for maintenance of a proper
balance between the health and safety of themselves and other employees including their
own. The partners selected from the local areas and from Australia with the migration of the
equipment from one place to another reaching the location of the project on the site of the
project from different time frames and areas was also a problematic situation that required
proper maintenance and planning.
Discussion of Possible Options
The problem that the organisation faced in the first place was the different issues that
were slowly creeping above during the execution phase of the project. The primary problem
was with the initial planning that did not understand the difference between the culture and
working style between East Timor and the cities in Australia. There could be various possible
options that would mitigate the problem (Prăvălie, Patriche and Bandoc 2019). The primary
one would be analysing the fact that there was a requirement of an initial problem and risk
analysis plan that would help how the project would execute in a different setup which was
absolutely different from how the projects where being conducted in the cities and how it be
different if the local people were involved within the project. In addition to that, there were
limited possibilities that the project could fare well without a time adjustment are located
within the initial project plan. The contractors hired to transfer several electronic goods
related to the project to East Timor had to abide by the time difference as well which initially
was not understood at the project plan. Therefore the possible option only realise into making
the initial project plan.
Recommendation
Therefore it is very essential that the primary plan included the initial project plan
including the constants that the project had from moving from one place to another, the

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problems that would have in a rural setup and also the problems that the project would have
in managing the stakeholders once the local people were involved. Initial project plan is such
important for a project that it could help a project analyse the implementing risk that are
about to occur and also handle them in such finesse that the occurrence of risk and their
mitigation planning made beforehand can save an entire project from an impending issue.
This would just not only save time for the project but also it would be a lot more cost
efficient when the project would not have to think about a problem that has already occurred
and delayed the project in some way due to the risks. This is why it is extremely important
that the project had initial project plan.
Details of your Chosen Option
The primary Idea behind choosing project and making the initial project plan is
extremely essential for every project irrespective of the project type. The proper
establishment of the writing of any project plan comes from the idea of very simple steps of a
project formulating the entire outcome of the project or the goals that the project wants to
achieve. The solar energy implementation project for East Timor also so we not facing any
issues if the project initial documentation plan was being followed (Lemaire 2018). For this,
it is essential that the project understand the scope and value of the project plan, and
extensive research gets conducted not including the project but also about the project site if it
is an outsourced project, the reconstruction of complex plants through tough questions asked
at every step of the project implementation, creation of an outline of the project plan before
any implementation plan been added to you, have excessive meetings with the team of the
project so that there is no knowledge that is left unshared between each and every member of
the project, documentation of the detailed project plan, estimating the budget and the risk that
could occur with their mitigation plans, execution of the entire plan for its scheduling

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including the risk and their mitigation and the publication of the entire plan for taking
feedback from the other team members as well.
Part B: Risk Management Plan
Structured brief project management plan
Google has accepted to found the entire project since ATA is a non-profit non-
governmental organisation. However there is no understanding of the proper problem that the
east river project is initially facing according to Kate Greenwood's interview. She had
essentially told how the risk management plan for the entire project needs to be understood as
these have made several problems resurfaced within the project (Cruz and Maria 2017). The
initial Idea was to understand how the project could be solved and for this the local people
were also included within the program. However, Kate has already mention how difficult it is
to make the people within the project hired from the local area what according to the
professional codes of conduct. There was a primary idea about the project to be extremely e
problematic while there transporting different equipment for the project from other areas in
Australia. This was time consuming and also made several problems with the project
(Bovensiepen 2018). For this there should be a structure project management plan that would
have been something different then the initial project. This is because, it is easier to
understand that there are several places where the project went wrong and the primary idea
was suffering a lot because of the implementation plans. The structured project management
plan would have been somewhat different than what was initially proposed. This would
include the steps as follows:
 The creation of the project management plan would input the project team and
the key stakeholders.

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 The project management would be documented formerly to understand how
the project is executed, monitored, control under all the circumstances in
which the project has been ideated.
 The analysis of all the project constraints and the structural project look out an
outline based on the structuring, funding and the communication established
within the organisation and the other members (Shepherd 2018).
 The idea behind time and time management and its reciprocal effect to the
amount of money invested in the project also needs to be understood.
 The risk management and risk mitigation plan should be initiated to
understand how much of the time constraints is costing the project more
money.
Analysis and prioritization of risk
The prioritisation of the risk is the procedure that helps the project to analyse how the
different project constraints is initiated due to the risk that the project has. The primary
problem behind the risk mitigation plants and their prioritization according to the occurrences
of the risk can be described as below:
 most problems were faced as there was no analyzation of the health hazard
problems within the initial project plan as the people were taken from the local
area who had no idea about the basic code of conduct that included the
outlining of the health hazard problems to save themselves from any kind of
potential health risk for their fellow co-workers as well (Gajic and Greenwood
2017).
 The time management problem that often occurred when there were
outsourcing of equipment required for the project.

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 The problem with communication that often happened due to the involvement
of the local people within the project.
 The understanding of the budget and time constants with respect to all the
basic ideas that were probably causing a lot of risk to the entire project making
it a potential risk for not only the people in the local area but also for the
people who are working for ATA.
Conclusion
Therefore in conclusion it can be said that all the problems that were occurring as per
the interview provided by Kate Greenwood could have a possible solution as per the
recommendation made in the above mentioned report. the problems would have a solution
and this is why the planning execution of the entire project was understood with providing
statement to the problem, analysing it, mentioning all the possible options, recommending a
simple option and describing the reason behind choosing it followed by a risk management
plan with the structured and brief project management plan and analysis of the privatisation
of the risks that could have occurred.

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References
Bovensiepen, J. ed., 2018. The Promise of Prosperity: Visions of the Future in Timor-Leste.
ANU Press.
Da Cruz, S.L. and Maria, N., 2017. Analysis of Current Conditions and Future Needs of the
Public Water Supply System in Dili, East Timor (Doctoral dissertation, North Dakota State
University).
Dhillion, S.S., 2019. 11 Benefit sharing for project risk–-conflict reduction and fostering
sustainable development: Current understanding and mechanisms. Natural Resource
Conflicts and Sustainable Development, p.147.
Gajic, M. and Greenwood, K., 2017, December. Solar home system program in rural east
timor putting communities first. In 2017 IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology
Conference (R10-HTC) (pp. 30-33). IEEE.
Girardeau, H., 2017. Household Solar Adoption: A Systematic Review (Doctoral dissertation,
Thesis (MSc), Duke University).
Lemaire, X., 2018. Solar home systems and solar lanterns in rural areas of the Global South:
What impact?. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, 7(5), p.e301.
Prăvălie, R., Patriche, C. and Bandoc, G., 2019. Spatial assessment of solar energy potential
at global scale. A geographical approach. Journal of cleaner production, 209, pp.692-721.
Shepherd, C., 2018. Misreading the night: The shadows and light of a solar
technology1. THE PROMISE OF PROSPERITY, p.205.