Analysis of Core Planning Process and Prince 2 Methodology

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of project management, focusing on the application of the Prince 2 methodology and the core planning process in the context of the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau (HZM) Bridge restoration project. The report begins by defining a project and then details the scope, time, cost, and stakeholder considerations involved in the bridge restoration, emphasizing the importance of managing environmental and public impact. The report also identifies potential challenges, such as environmental degradation and public inconvenience, and proposes solutions. Furthermore, it highlights the drivers of the project, including economic, efficiency, and financial aspects. The second part of the report critically evaluates the Prince 2 methodology, outlining its seven stages and how they were applied to the bridge restoration project, from project initiation to closure. The report concludes with a reflection on the project's execution and key learnings, including the importance of stakeholder management and effective planning. The report serves as a practical guide to project management, demonstrating the application of theoretical concepts to a real-world scenario and providing valuable insights for successful project completion.

MANAGING
PROGRAMMES AND
PROJECTS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of Core Planning Process..............................................................................................3
Critical Evaluation of the Prince 2 Methodology........................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................8
Relection......................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
A project can be defined as the unique set of activities which has fixed starting or
finishing points and can be undertaken by a particular individual or an organization of people so
that the specific objectives can be achieved within the designated time, cost and performance
measures (GAO, and et.al., 2017). The Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge i.e. the HZM Bridge
was first inaugurated in the year 2018 and then subsequently, it required a number of
modifications. The current project is related to the restoration of the bridge from the normal wear
and tear that might have occurred in the due time. However, the current project will be carried
out for a total of 30 kilometres from the starting point of the bridge. This entire project of
restoring the bridge up to the 30 kilometres has been funded or sponsored by the three
government parties i.e. China's Central Government, Government of Guangdong, Honk-Kong
and Macau (Li, Li and Fan, 2016). By implementing the Prince 2 Methodology and by analysing
the core planning process, the following section will guide about how the project of restoring the
bridge can be successfully completed. At the end, a reflective writing on how the entire project
was undertaken along with an adequate conclusion will be presented so that key learning form
this project can be summarised.
TASK 1
Analysis of Core Planning Process
The entire project will be conducted under the leadership of the company and there are various
factors that are associated with this project and can be discussed in detail in following manner:
Scope: The scope of the project helps in determining the outputs and the benefits that can be
generated within a specific boundary or limit i.e. it includes all the activities that are required to
be performed in order to complete the tasks of the project successfully. The scope of the current
project extends to the 30 kilometres for which the restoration work will be carried out. In this
restoration activity that will be conducted in the project that has been undertaken, this project of
restoration of the HMZ Bridge will involve restoring the bridge by addressing the normal wear
and tear that might have taken place of the bridge since it was first opened for the public (Jiao,
2019). The scope will involve formulation of a project charter and this consists of the leader or
the project manager, the entire team which will work on the project and the time, cost etc. that
will be required to complete the project.

Time: The time that will be involved in the entire restoration project of 30 kilometres will help in
addressing the current task of restoring the HMZ Bridge up to the 30 kilometres will be done in
the time frame of 3 months and the activities that will be carried out under this restoration task
would be to rectify the normal wear and tear such as the broken links, loose screws, paint of the
railings of the bridge etc. (Zhang and Qiu, 2018). All these activities need to be addressed
minutely and therefore the time required to restore the 30 kilometres would be approximately 3
months.
Cost: This aspect helps in detailing what will be the average cost of the completing the entire
restoration project that is being undertaken of the HMZ Bridge and developing an approximate
budget so that the approximate expenditure that will take place can be ascertained and the
resources that will be required can be ascertained before hand. The cost that will be incurred in
the current project of rectifying the wear and tear of the bridge will be approximately £ 150000 .
The entire cost can be broken down into following sub headings or categories of the expenditure:
Particulars Amount (in £)
Salaries £ 50000
Tools and equipment £ 51000
Resources £ 17500
Others £ 30000
Stationery £ 1500
Total £ 150000
Therefore, it is estimated that within the above budget of £ 150000, the entire task of
restoring the HMZ bridge will be completed and the project will be successfully completed after
utilizing all the resources that might be required in the completion of the project and the above
budget also documents for the over incurring of the cost that might be incurred in the completion
of the project. This will ensure that in case the actual cost exceeds the budgeted cost than there is
enough availability of the resources that will assist in meeting these extra costs and expenses in
the restoration project of the HMZ Bridge (Hu, Deng and Ren, 2017).
Stakeholders: The major stakeholders of the entire project that is being sponsored by the
government can be categorized into internal stakeholders and external stakeholders (Heldman,

2018). The internal stakeholders of the current restoration project involve the project manager,
the team members working on the project, the manager of the company and the Board of
Directors of the company who is doing the restoration project. The entire company will get
affected by the work that is carried out under this project and then decision will be taken
accordingly (Verzuh, 2015). The external stakeholders of the project involve those parties that
are linked indirectly to the project and can influence the activities that might take place in the
project. In the current project of restoring he HMZ bridge, the external stakeholders are the
government who is sponsoring the project, the community or people of the affected areas, the
locals around the areas of construction and the environmentalist who will closely monitor the
entire project and their satisfaction should always be a priority so that no barriers from the
stakeholders arise in the completion of the project. This has helped in successful completion of
the entire restoration project of the HMZ Bridge.
Challenges: There are many challenges that might be incurred in the completion of the current
restoration project and there are a variety of factors that pose as potential challenges for the
project team in the entire project (Lock, 2019). The major challenge is to minimize the
environmental degradation and the impact on the natural life that might get affected due to such
restoration project that is being carried out because the entire project will involve use of
machinery and equipments that might again impact the natural life and the case of reduced
dolphins and the protest that was held can be reminded. Additionally, it will cause inconvenience
to the public who wanted to visit the entire bridge or the tourism department that might incur
significant losses. These are the major challenges that the project is likely to encounter and
therefore the project must be protected at all costs and appropriate solutions should be developed
for the above possible challenges that might arise in the implementation of the restoration project
of the HMZ Bridge.
Solution: The possible solutions for the challenges that have been identified above include the
use of those machineries that will not create and additional waste or damage the natural
ecosystem (Fewings and Henjewele, 2019). Since the restoration work is only limited to
addressing the normal defects or corrosion that might have occurred, it does not require use of
extensively heavy machines. This will ensure that the life beneath the water does not gets
impacted and there is not too much disturbance because the revolt of environmentalist for
depleting dolphins was extensive and therefore the project manager can avoid the risk of project

getting closed. Additionally, the work can be done lane by lane so that when one lane is being
restored, the other two lanes can be used by the visitors which will rectify the problem of
inconvenience to people. This will help the team workers in completing their project and not
cause problem to the visitors and general public as well. These aspects will keep the stakeholders
of the project extremely satisfied and since the government is the sponsor of the project, the
political party will support the project which will benefit both the government and the project
manager i.e. the company (Binder, 2016).
Drivers: The drivers of the project involve those elements that assist in ensuring that the project
succeeds and it gets successfully completed. The drivers can be classified in to three broad
categories for the current project of the restoration of the HMZ Bridge as the growth drivers, the
efficiency drivers and the financial drivers. In the growth drivers for this project, there are
economical concerns since successful completion of this project will lead to the additional profits
for the economy of the associated countries as well as for the project manager or the company as
well and these are those factors that can be categorised as the growth drivers of the project. The
efficiency drivers are the project manager and the team members that are associated with the
project ensuring that the restoration work is carried out in an effective manner so that the benefits
can be drawn from this project and there are many favourable factors in the project such as
support form the political parties, skilled staff etc. (Eskerod, and Jepsen, 2016). The last driver is
the financial driver and since the project is being funded by the three governments, it is
necessary that all the minute details are addressed while carrying out the restoration project so
that the entire project can be completed effectively and the this will be immensely beneficial for
the government who is the major stakeholder and for the company as well.
Critical Evaluation of the Prince 2 Methodology
In the completion of the entire project, the Prince 2 methodology will be used effectively
where the different activities will be planned out and each activity will be categorised according
to the stages of the Prince 2 methodology (Turner, 2016). There were seven stages in the prince 2
methodology and accordingly, these have been utilised to develop and completed the entire
restoration project. The first 30 kilometres of the HZM Bridge are to be restored and each stage
involves a specific activity. The first stage of starting up a project involved getting approval for
conducting the project of restoration of the bridge for the initial 30 kilometres and the second
stage of directing a project involved development of a project charter containing all the details

and getting approval from the board of the company that whether restoration can be done or not
(Marchewka, 2016). In the third stage, the project initiation document is developed that
contained all the details regarding the time, cost, scope and other aspects that were associated
with the bridge and their approval was taken. In the fourth stage, the entire task of restoration
was divided into smaller tasks and these are assigned to specific individuals who are responsible
for completing their task. Here all the activities and work done was recorded on a daily basis and
evaluation was done whether the project was moving in right direction or not (Walker, 2015).
The fifth stage involved ensures that the deliverables of the project that is being undertaken are
being met, i.e. the restoration work that is being done of the HMZ Bridge re actually brining out
the results that were expected to be brought out through this project. In the sixth stage, every
stage’s or activities’ completion is thoroughly viewed by the board and this was done to ensure
that whether the restoration task could be continued further or whether any changes ha to
incorporated etc. (Heagney, 2016). And finally, the last stage involved the closure of the project
where all the loose ends were wrapped up and the entire restoration project of the HMZ Bridge
for the 30 kilometres was winded up and the evaluation took place.
It was concluded that the time frame of the entire project had extended by 1 month when
it should not have because already the time allotted by the government was adequate and only 30
kilometres had to be restored. Additionally, the budget was also stretched which was mainly due
to the documentation and paperwork that the implementation of the Prince 2 Project
Management Methodology required to be followed (Harrison and Lock, 2017). All these were
those costs that could have been avoided or rather minimised b using a simpler technique since
the restoration project was not very extensive and was mainly being performed in a limited
employee force. Therefore, use of Prince 2 although ensured that the project could be completed
in an efficient and successful manner where the work was done in the desired manner with
superior quality and yet the fact that it overran the cost and became delayed can state that the
project has been affected by the Prince 2 methodology. All these led to slowing down the entire
project and making it unnecessarily complex and complicated when the tasks were really simple
that is to restore the bridge and assign each member task according to the skill and expertise that
they possessed (Schwalbe, 2015). However, this is the very area or problem that was effectively
addressed by the use of this methodology because its extensive planning helped in identifying
and eliminating the possible risk factors for the entire project. Also, this project helped in

planning each task in depth so that the insights regarding how the activities are to be performed
was developed and used accordingly (Kerzner, 2017). Overall, it can be concluded that the
Prince 2 methodology was an effective and yet time-consuming and expensive methodology for
this project which could have been completed in a much more cost efficient manner if certain
other simpler technique could have been used for the HMZ Bridge restoration task.
TASK 2
Relection
This is a project under which the whole restoration process of the Hong Kong Zhuhai
Macau Bridge in short HZM has been described. This bridge that is the HZM bridge was
initiated in the year 2018 but it further required that to have some modifications. These
modifications were required due to the normal wear and tear of the bridge which might have
been made due to normal course of time (Duffield and Whitty, 2015). Thus, with this project I
learnt that with the passage of time the anything whether be it even a bridge needs to be rectified.
Now the rectification of the bridge requires a lot of time and for the restoration of the 30
kilometres of the HZM bridge and this need to be completed within the 3 months of time frame.
With the research I learnt that the fund of this project is being provided by the three
different government that is China's Central Government, Government of Guangdong, Honk-
Kong and Macau. In addition to this I learnt that for initiating any of the project it is essential for
the management team to do an effective planning so that the project is successfully completed.
Thus, this preplanning will help the company in outlining the work which needs to be brought in
practice for the completion of the project. With this I learnt that for the planning of the project
includes deciding for many of the factors which are important for the development and
completion of the project. These stages are like time, scope, stakeholder, challenges faced at time
of implementing the project and many other factors.
In addition to this I learnt that this planning and the project will help in outlining the
possible and expected outcomes of the activity. The current plan is of restoring the bridge till 30
kilometres and this is taking place since it was inaugurated. Also, I learnt that the time
management is very necessary for this and to complete the work on time. Thus, for this it has to
be completed in the time frame of 3 months. Also, there are many of the stakeholder involved in
the project. The stakeholders are the one which are involved and interested in the project

completion. These are the people who are involved in the decision-making process relating to the
project and its completion (d'Herbemont and César, 2018).
The stakeholder is of two different types that is internal and external wherein the internal
are the one which is directly interested in the working of the project. On the other hand, the
external stakeholders are the one which are indirectly related to the growth of the project. But
also, the project faced many of the challenges at time of the completion of the project. With the
study I learnt that the major challenge faced at time of the project implementation was to
minimize the degradation of the environment. This is a challenge because of the reason that the
process of construction will include many substances which will degrade the environment and
the surrounding of the bridge. Another challenge which I noticed in implementing the project is
the inconvenience which is caused to the general public because of the restoration of the bridge.
This will also cause inconvenience to the tourism sector as the tourist will not like the time
consuming as the duration of three month is very high and in this duration many consumers will
not come to the place (Liu, Zhao and Yan, 2016).
But with this analysis I learnt that the use of management skill and coordination is very
crucial and important for the management of the project. This is a solution to all the problems
and challenges encountered at time of completion of the project. This is majorly due to the fact
that if all the activities of the project are done well before the estimated time then the project will
be completed on time. Also, if there is proper coordination among all the different activities and
the different phases of the project then the work will go smoothly and effectively. This is majorly
because of the reason that if every department of the project knows that what are the requirement
of the other department then the work will take place in coordinated manner. This will lead to the
increase in the profitability and the productivity of project.
However, one of the most significant learning in my entire restoration project of the
HZM Bridge, the major learning was that I learnt how to effectively implement the Prince 2
Methodology in completion of a project successfully (Fleming and Koppelman, 2016). Although
there are many project management methodologies that we could have used for our project but
since this is the most approved methodology by many of the governments like for the UK’s
government, this is the only methodology they use for all o f their government projects, this
favourable aspect and the insisting of the stakeholders made use select this technique as our
methodology as well. This was a very crucial task since the entire project was developed on the

basis of this methodology and each activity was thoroughly planned, checked and re-checked
based on this methodology. When it came to actual implementation, I found that while some of
the activities were very thoroughly planned, we lacked in some aspects. The extensive
documentation and planning helped us in taking into consideration all the possible risks, threats,
opportunities and various other aspects into consideration but this also led to an unnecessary
wastage of resources (Meredith, Mantel Jr and Shafer, 2017). I found that this technique was
very through but it was more suitable for those projects which were complex and long term i.e.
who involved a lot of activities simultaneously and was for a long time period. For instance, the
construction of this entire bridge could have been managed using a Prince 2 technology, but this
was only a restoration project that too for 30 kilometres only amongst the entire HMZ Bridge of
55 kilometres. The project could have been completed within the deadline that we had developed
earlier of three months but due to this extraneous controls and checks the entire project got
delayed. However, the entire project was indeed completed successfully even if the budget was
stretched a little and the timeline got delayed, the work done o the bridge was satisfactory and
the bridge was restored in a manner that was beneficial for all i.e. it did not cause damage to the
life and environment and neither was it a trouble for the visitors of the bridge and the work got
completed fluently.
CONCLUSION
The above project management report helps in concluding that there are many aspects to the
successful completion of the project and all these aspects require extensive planning and regular
monitoring, in the restoration project of the HMZ Bridge, it was identified that the use of Prince
2 methodology helped in achieving the targets and there were different challenges that were met
adequately. The report also helped in critically evaluating the factors such as cost, time,
stakeholders, drivers etc. that influenced the project and their impact was determined beforehand
so that appropriate precautions could be developed. Lastly, a reflective writing helped in
evaluating what were the major challenges that were encountered and the key learning for the
entire team managing the project of restoring the first 30 kilometres of the Hong Kong Zhuhai
Macau Bridge and what was the result of the project that was undertaken i.e. to what degree was
it successful thus summing up the entre report in a meaningful manner.

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