FInest Future Internet enabled optimisation of transport and logistics networks

Transcription

1 FInest Future Internet enabled optimisation of transport and logistics networks D11.1 Project Management Plan Project Acronym Project Title FInest Project Number Workpackage Lead Beneficiary Future Internet enabled optimisation of transport and logistics networks #WP11 Project Management Kuehne + Nagel Management AG Editor(s) Dr. J. Rod Franklin KN Contributors(s) Dr. Michael Stollberg SAP Dr. Andreas Metzger UDE Reviewer Dr. Fabiana Fournier IBM Reviewer <name> <organisation> Dissemination Level Public Contractual Delivery Date 30 June 2011 Actual Delivery Date Version 1.0 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/ ] under grant agreement no

2 THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/ ] under grant agreement no

3 Abstract This document provides an overview of the methodologies and tools that the FInest team is employing to manage the project. The document is being submitted as specified in the FInest Description of Work (DoW) as part of deliverable D11.1, Project Management Plan. The focus of this document is to describe the approaches being taken in the project to manage the various work packages, share and store documents, communicate amongst consortium members, control the quality of project deliverables and mitigate risks associated with the project deliverables. Examples, screen shots and other aids are included to assist the reader in better understanding the approaches being used by the project team to ensure that it complies with the work documented in its DoW and that it delivers the project outcomes described in that document. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 3 of 26

4 Document History Version Date Comments V First draft V Second draft after first comment V Third draft after comments V Fourth draft after comments V1.0 dd-mm-yyyy Final version D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 4 of 26

5 Table of Contents Abstract... 3 Document History... 4 Table of Contents... 5 List of Figures... 7 List of Tables... 7 Acronyms Introduction Project Management Plan Project organization Project Coordinator (PC) Technical Coordinator (TC) FI PPP Alignment Coordinator (AC) Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator (LSC) Work Package Leaders (WPL) Deliverable Leader (DL) Project collaboration tool Project reporting processes Project communications Project website Project newsletters Project templates Project quality control Project risk management D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 5 of 26

6 8. Summary D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 6 of 26

7 List of Figures Figure 1 High level overview of FInest project Figure 2 - FInest project management structure Figure 3 - FInest eroom dashboard Figure 4 FInest contact list Figure 5 FInest project calendar Figure 6 Example work package team calendar Figure 7 Example work package team contact list Figure 8 Example work package project task plan Figure 9 Project deliverable reporting template Figure 10 Project effort reporting template Figure 11 Mock-up of project website Figure 13 Risk Management Process List of Tables Table 1 FInest coordination call/meeting list Table 2 Project risk register D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 7 of 26

8 Acronyms Acronym AC AFKL ARC DoW DL FI PPP IBM KN LSC MRTK PC PMB SAP TC UDE WPL Explanation FI PPP Alignment Coordinator Koninkluke Luchtvaart Maatschappijnv Arcelik AS Description of Work Deliverable Lead Future Internet Public Private Partnership IBM Israel Science and Technology Ltd Kuehne + Nagel Management AG Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator Norsk Marinteknisk Forskningsinstitutt AS Project Coordinator Project Management Board SAP AG Technical Coordinator Universität Duisburg-Essen Work Package Leader D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 8 of 26

9 1. Introduction Deliverable D11.1, Project Management Plan, focuses on providing the European Commission with an initial overview of how the FInest team proposes to manage and control the execution of the FInest project. Included in this deliverable are overviews of: The initial project management plan, Tools employed to manage the project, Procedures utilized to manage the project, Communications processes for the consortium, Quality control process for the project, and Risk management process. The FInest team is employing a standard project management approach based on documented timelines, regular communications, active follow up, and formal quality control and risk mitigation processes. To support its project management approach, the FInest team has elected to use EMC s eroom, hosted by SINTEF/MARINTEK. This collaboration platform provides the team with facilities for sharing and managing of documents, managing work package tasks, tracking progress against task deliverables, scheduling meetings and discussions, managing lists and generally ensuring that the distributed project team can pro-actively collaborate to meet project requirements as stated in the FInest DoW. This collaboration environment is private to FInest team. Procedures and templates have been created by the team to ensure that regular progress reports are made by deliverable leads, that actual resource consumption is tracked against plan and that any deviations from plan are quickly surfaced and appropriate risk mitigation actions taken. To facilitate on-going reporting activities and project team work, lists have been created and conference calling facilities established. In addition, a project website is being developed to provide not only internal communications capabilities for the FInest team, but to support the team s dissemination and exploitation activities. Finally, formal quality control and risk management processes have been established so that project deliverables meet the operational criteria established for them and so that any deviations from plan are properly addressed. The FInest team believes that by employing project management approach summarized above and discussed in more detail in the following sections, it will be able to successfully deliver to the European Commission those deliverables described in its DoW. 2. Project Management Plan The FInest project has been developed and planned as a set of integrated work packages coordinated to deliver progressive results in four six month cycles. The first six month cycle focuses on the delivery of initial domain requirements for the project s collaboration services. The second six month cycle refines these requirements and uses D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 9 of 26

10 them to create initial solution designs. The third six month cycle refines the solution designs and delivers initial technical specifications for the realization of these designs. The final six month cycle ends in the delivery of detailed technical specifications and Phase II project plans for the realization of these technical specifications. All project management activities for the FInest project are built around these six month cycles. A high level overview of the iterative nature of the project is shown in Figure 1 below. Figure 1 High level overview of FInest project 2.1. Project organization The FInest project is managed based on the principle that decision making should be made as close as possible to actual development activities. This means that the FInest project management organization is flat with a focus on rapid decision making. This organization, shown in Figure 2 below, allows the FInest team to react quickly to issues and ensures that problems are quickly resolved. The roles of each of the primary internal project stakeholders are described following Figure 2. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 10 of 26

11 FI PPP Boards and Working Groups FP ICT-FI Finest European Commission Project Coordinator Communications with European Commission General Assembly Decisions to be Executed Proposals for Decision Making Project Management Board FI PPP Alignment Coordinator Finest Technical Coordinator Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator Work Package Leaders Deliverable Lead Deliverable Lead Deliverable Lead Deliverable Lead Figure 2 - FInest project management structure Project Coordinator (PC) The Project Coordinator is a senior representative of the coordinating partner of the project. He acts as the intermediary between the project consortium and the European Commission, serving as the interaction point between the project consortium and the Project Officer / Commission. Within the project, the PC has the main responsibility in terms of project execution including, but not limited to, administrative and financial management. The PC thus conducts, in cooperation with the other coordinators and work package leaders, the daily management of the project and handles operational procedures and controls. The PC reports to and is accountable to the General Assembly. The Project Coordinator of the FInest project is Dr. J. Rod Franklin (Kuehne + Nagel) Technical Coordinator (TC) The Technical Coordinator is a senior researcher with a strong scientific-technical background and project management experience. The TC is responsible for coordinating the progress and consistency of the project s technical work, and for the quality control of all deliverables. The TC will monitor the technical progress on a day-to-day basis, supervising and closely collaborating with the leaders of the technical work packages. For the FInest project, the Technical Coordinator is Dr. Andreas Metzger (UDE) FI PPP Alignment Coordinator (AC) The FI PPP Alignment Coordinator is a senior representative of a consortium partner that is deeply involved with the Future Internet PPP. The AC is responsible for the D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 11 of 26

12 coordination of the project within the Future Internet PPP, i.e. the alignment with the core platform project as well as the other use case projects and support actions. He, along with other senior project members, represents the project within the relevant FI PPP committees and events. For the FInest project, the Alignment Coordinator is Dr. Michael Stollberg (SAP) Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator (LSC) The Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator is a senior project member with a very strong background in industry and with well-established business networks in the transport and logistics and commercial shipper domains. The LSC is responsible for all activities related to the preparation for broad industrial adoption and user community building, including the investigation of business opportunities, the definition and implementation of a strategy for propagation to external stakeholders, and standardization activities. The scope of this role is not restricted to the consortium, but is explicitly concerned with the awareness generation and propagation of the project results to external stakeholders (commercial companies [within the transport and logistics domain and outside this domain] as well as public authorities and industry-relevant bodies) in order to ensure a broad adoption. The Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator for the project is Mr. Jan Vreeburg (AFKL) Work Package Leaders (WPL) The Work Package Leaders are responsible for the timely and effective execution of the work packages in accordance to the Description of Work. On a case-by-case basis, such responsibilities can be delegated to parties responsible for a given task. The WPLs are accountable for the day-to-day management of the work packages. They report to the Technical Coordinator, and closely interact with the FI PPP Alignment Coordinator and the Logistics Stakeholder Coordinator. The Work Package Leaders for the FInest project are: Work package 1 Michael Zahlmann (KN) Work package 2 Dr. Lone Sletbakk Ramstad (MRTK) Work package 3 Dr. Michael Stollberg (SAP) Work package 4 Dr. Fabiana Fournier (IBM) Work package 5 Dr. Michael Stollberg (SAP) Work package 6 Dr. Yagil Engel (IBM) Work package 7 Dr. Lone Sletbakk Ramstad (MRTK) Work package 8 Clarissa Marquezan (UDE) Work package 9 Dr. Michael Stollberg (SAP) Work package 10 H. Haluk Gökman (ARC) Work package 11 Dr. J. Rod Franklin (KN) D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 12 of 26

13 2.1.6 Deliverable Leader (DL) The responsibilities of the Deliverable Leader include: (1) The technical and operational coordination and supervision of the work related to producing the deliverable; (2) Consolidating the contributions and assessing the quality of the deliverable. DLs directly report to the WPLs and are appointed by their organizations based on technical capabilities to carry out the work related to the deliverable. 3. Project collaboration tool The FInest team has elected to use EMC s eroom collaboration application as its internal knowledge management and collaboration tool. The eroom is hosted by SINTEF/MARINTEK, one of the FInest consortium partners, and provides services for storing project documents, document versioning, communicating among team members, managing project tasks, and scheduling project events. The eroom is organized around project dashboards that allow project managers to create virtual workspaces that facilitate project team collaboration and management. The top level project dashboard for the FInest project appears below. Figure 3 - FInest eroom dashboard The eroom dashboard provides both a file folder (center) and hierarchical relationship map (left side) structure for navigation. In the file folder section one can quickly access information concerning project members from the Contact List (see Figure 4) D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 13 of 26

14 Figure 4 FInest contact list or information critical project related events from the FInest Calendar, as can be seen in Figure 5 below. Figure 5 FInest project calendar Work package leaders manage their work packages by setting up separate calendars and contact lists for their work packages, creating task lists and assigning responsibilities or creating detailed project plans with responsibilities and expected delivery dates through the services of the eroom. Examples of each of these management tools appear below. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 14 of 26

15 Figure 6 Example work package team calendar Figure 7 Example work package team contact list D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 15 of 26

16 Figure 8 Example work package project task plan In addition to its management tools, the eroom provides the team with facilities for controlled document storage, tracking versions of documents and managing document checkout and controlling access. Facilities for various notifications are also included in the eroom so that document owners can be notified if a document has been changed, automated s sent out to notify individuals or groups that an action is required, etc. 4. Project reporting processes To facilitate communicating progress on each deliverable, a process has been established whereby each work package leader reports progress on their deliverables at regular intervals. This process requires each work package leader to comment on progress and issues during bi-weekly project management conference calls and formally document progress on a quarterly basis. The template that is filled out by each work package lead for the quarterly progress report is shown below. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 16 of 26

17 Figure 9 Project deliverable reporting template The responsibility for reporting person month effort against deliverables has been assigned to each of the partners in the FInest project. Each partner must report all of their personnel efforts against the various deliverables worked on by each person on a quarterly basis. These reports are collected by the Project Manager and consolidated for redistribution back to the work package leads for comparison of planned versus actual effort against deliverable. In addition, these reports are used as the basis for all reporting back to the European Commission on effort expended on project tasks. A copy of the reporting template for each of the partners is included below. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 17 of 26

18 Figure 10 Project effort reporting template 5. Project communications The FInest project uses several mechanisms for ensuring open and frequent communications amongst its members. Besides the eroom, which is the primary collaboration vehicle for the project, the FInest team uses conference and web presentation facilities from SAP and IBM, conference call facilities from Kuehne + Nagel, lists and a soon to be deployed web site. Regularly scheduled conference calls are the primary means of detailed communication between the work package leads, work package members and deliverable teams. Overall project management leadership calls are held on a bi-weekly basis to ensure that all work package leads are informed of any upcoming events, issues that may have arisen since the last call or new factors that may have a bearing on the project. Work package leaders are responsible for coordinating their work package teams and hold conference calls and meetings based on schedules that they establish. Formal discussions between work package leaders are held on a regular basis to ensure that each work package is being developed in a manner that ensures that it will support the other work packages. Technical work package leaders use these formal calls to ensure that the work being performed on in their work package will integrate into the overall collaboration service architecture. Project plenary meetings are scheduled to be held on a semi-annual basis so that the entire project team can meet to share ideas and exchange experiences based on their work on the project. The first project meeting was held at the University of Duisburg- Essen in April to both kick-off the project and to introduce individuals to one another in a face-to-face manner. The second plenary meeting is scheduled to be held the first week in September in Instanbul, Turkey. Additional plenary sessions will be planned during the meeting in Instanbul. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 18 of 26

19 The table that follows summarizes the various calls and meetings currently being utilized by the FInest team to communicate and manage the project. Call/Meeting Type PMB Conference Call WPL Conference Call Plenary Sessions Work Package Calls Deliverable Calls FI PPP Board Calls/Meetings Schedule Bi-weekly 1.5 hour call Bi-weekly 1.5 hour call Every six months As required by WPLs As required by DLs Monthly Purpose Project updates from PC, TC, AC, LSC and WPLs Inter-work package coordination call to ensure technical designs fit collaboration architecture and address domain requirements Face-to-face FInest team meeting to present progress to date and discuss next six months activities Intra-work package coordination calls to ensure technical designs are being developed per plan and domain requirements Focused deliverable calls to ensure that progress is being made on deliverable development Discuss issues related to the overall FI PPP program (Steering Board, Architecture Board, Working Groups) Table 1 FInest coordination call/meeting list 5.1. Project website The FInest team has begun designing and implementing a project website ( This website will serve as a dissemination vehicle for the project providing interested parties with an overview of project activities and access to all the public documents generated during project execution. It is planned that the website will be made operational and accessible to the public during the first half of July External users of the website will find information on the project, the FI PPP program, downloadable public documents from the project, notices on conferences either hosted by the FInest team or where the team will be presenting information on the project, academic papers generated by project team members concerning the project, information on other projects within the FI PPP program and/or addressing issues associated with the Future Internet, and other documents that provide valuable insights on what the project is all about to external parties. A mock-up of how the website might look is shown below. For more information on the FInest website see project deliverable D10.1. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 19 of 26

20 Figure 11 Mock-up of project website 5.2. Project newsletters In addition to the communications processes described in previous sections, the FInest team has begun developing a project newsletter to distribute to interested individuals. The newsletter will contain important information about the current activities of the FInest team and articles of interest to the readers of the newsletter. A draft newsletter was developed for the FIA conference in Budapest and based on the feedback received at the conference a final form of the newsletter is under development. The newsletter will be updated periodically based on important advances in the FInest project and posted to the FInest website to ensure that it has broad distribution Project templates To ensure consistency in the FInest project when communicating with external stakeholders or interested parties, the FInest team has developed a set of standard templates for various communications activities that are maintained in the eroom. These templates include a standard deliverable template, a standard presentation template, a standard review template, standard internal project reporting templates and standard logos for the project. 6. Project quality control A formal quality control process has been developed by the FInest team to ensure that the quality of deliverables generated by the team meets the requirements of the D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 20 of 26

21 European Commission and that any potential risks affecting the project are properly managed. The deliverable quality assurance process that has been developed by the FInest team is graphically depicted in Figure 12 below. Figure 12 - Quality assurance process for deliverables The quality control process for deliverables requires that the deliverable owners and reviewers ensure that the deliverables adhere to the following quality aspects: The contribution of the deliverable to the WP and the overall goals of FInest should be clearly stated The objectives of the deliverable should be clearly expressed in the introduction to the document (and in the abstract / management summary). Specifically, the deliverable should feature a short 1-2 paragraphs introduction that clearly states the role and duty of said document, in the scope of FInest (and possibly the whole PPP programme). The deliverable should be clearly related to previous and future deliverables in the WP and if applicable to deliverables from other WPs The relation / additions / differences to previous deliverables in the same work package (i.e. in the case the deliverable is an improved version of a previous one) should be clearly stated The deliverable should be a self-contained document, which can be understood without knowledge of the DoW (or previous deliverables) The deliverable contents should be consistent with its description in the DoW; if not, the deviation should be explained The deliverable should be cohesive and concise (typically not more than pages) D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 21 of 26

22 The deliverable should not contain any claims that are not proven or supported by references The terminology in the deliverable should as far as possible be aligned with the definitions from D1.2 Transport and logistics domain dictionary, as well as the FI-WARE definitions (that should be published as part of their deliverable D.2.2 FI-WARE High-level Description ) Concerning the use of notations (modelling languages and the like): A deliverable should clearly state if the standard semantics of the notation is used, or not. Deviations from the standard semantics need to be explained in the text 7. Project risk management Risk management for the project is based on the risk management and cross-partner risk awareness process shown in the figure that follows. Below this figure the phases and management approaches employed by the FInest team to control project risk are explained in more detail. Figure 13 Risk Management Process 1. Risk Planning is concerned with identifying risk management procedures and responsibilities. Risk Management Planning occurs as part of the proposal and negotiation phase and continues throughout the lifecycle of the project to ensure that any changes in project scope or focus are carefully analysed as to their potential impacts on project risk. 2. Risk Identification is the proactive process of uncovering risks before they turn into problems. Like risk planning, risk identification is an iterative process. The first phase of risk identification occurred during the proposal phase; the risks identified during the proposal phase of the project have been re-examined and updated based on the current state of the project. This process of ongoing updating will continue throughout the lifecycle of the project. Participants in risk identification include subject-matter experts, WPLs, project management and team members. Identified risks are documented in a risk statement that describes the conditions that are causing concern, followed by a brief description of the potential consequences of these risks. 3. Risk Analysis is the most detailed phase of the entire risk management process. It involves evaluating the risk attributes and prioritizing the risks. Evaluating the attributes of a risk involves establishing values for probability (the likelihood the risk will occur) and the impact (in terms of significance for the project). The D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 22 of 26

23 following five level scoring approach is currently being used for the analysis of the risks in the project. Probability Qualitative Impact 1 20% = Remote Insignificant 21 40% = Unlikely Minor 41 60% = Likely Moderate 61 80% = Highly Likely Major 81 99% = Near Certainty Catastrophic 4. Risk Response is the process of deciding what should be done with a risk, if anything at all. Risk Response answers two key questions: (1) who owns the risk (responsibility) and (2) what can / should be done (scope and actions). The range of response actions for the project is as follows: Delegate: Risk is internal to project. Research: Means investigating the risk until enough is known to be able to decide what to do. Research ranges from making phone calls to conducting a detailed review of the risk drivers. Transfer: Risk is external to the project. Resources and knowledge outside of the project are better able to manage the risk. Transfer implies the ultimate accountability, responsibility and authority to expend resources, it requires acceptance of the risk by the receiving party. Accept: Do nothing, but handle the risk as an issue if it occurs. However, no further resources are expended in managing the risk. These are usually risks of lower significance. Mitigate: Eliminate or reduce the risk by reducing the impact, reducing the probability, or shifting the timeframe when action must be taken. Watch: Monitor the risks and their attributes for early warning of critical changes in impact, probability, timeframe or other aspects. 5. Risk Monitoring is the process of keeping track of the risks and evaluating the effectiveness of the response actions. Monitoring may also provide a basis for developing additional response actions and identifying new risks and is done in a continuous manner. In order to manage the project s risks in accordance to the process and assessment instruments as defined above, a risk register has been created and populated with initial risk estimates. This register will be updated quarterly based on input from the WPLs and the project TC. The current risk register, with impact assessments for identified risks, appears in the table following. Risk Description Probability Impact Prevention and Mitigation Technical Risks D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 23 of 26

24 1 Insufficient domain relevance by missing real world requirements 15% Moderate The consortium includes several leading service providers with vast expertise in various fields of the Transport & Logistics industry and involves them strongly in domain and use case definition as well as technical development 2 Conceptual Design not well aligned with business requirements and domain knowledge 15% Moderate The work plan is structured in two iterative cycles with a synchronization every 6 months to ensure alignment with requirements; the first iteration ends in M12 and provides refined requirements and an initial design for the second iteration, that ends in M24 3 Conceptual failure within the software design 20% Major The overall design is defined by experienced software engineers from several partners, broad expertise can be accessed since some partners have decades of experiences in software engineering 4 Poor alignment with FI PPP Core Platform (Generic Enablers, domain-specific capabilities) 15% Major Work package 9 is dedicated for all FI PPP alignment activities and coordinates the answers for Core Platform Calls and provides all requirements from technical work packages 5 Time for domain analysis, design and specification is underestimated 25% Moderate Project milestones every 6 months will monitor project progress and will detect problems early to take corrective actions; additional resources will be invested to ensure project timeline; adequate replanning of actions in collaboration between Executive Management Board and involved WP leads to ensure project results in the worst case 6 Specification of use cases does not meet real word requirements 30% Moderate The application partners within the consortium have a vast expertise in the Transport & Logistics domain. Real world applicability of envisioned use cases will be proofed in D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 24 of 26

25 dedicated experimentation environments, including both software and hardware aspects. Management / Financial Risks 1 The coordination and/or management of FInest fails 2 Personnel leaves before project completion 5% Major 80% Moderate The project coordinator KN as well as all of the consortium members have extensive experience in managing and running EU research projects, and professional project management will plan and proactively avoid deviations and failures Introduction of common responsibility and backup developers (at least two people are familiar with critical aspects within the project) 3 Key person leaves consortium 50% Major If the partner cannot provide a replacement, a re-allocation of responsibilities between partners will be implemented 4 Partner leaves consortium 10% Major The Project Coordinator will find a capable new partner. The delay of the project will be kept to a minimum by contributing additional resources to remaining partners. 5 Dissemination of the project results is not sufficient to create impact 25% Moderate The consortium is highly motivated to create sustaining impact, and the partners have substantial experience in the international R&D business; the dedicated work package for dissemination, exploitation and standardization will ensure proper dissemination of results. 6 Standardization committee rejects or declines standard proposals; severe changes in standards conflict with FInest results 35% Moderate The consortium will discuss and monitor standardization activities, participate in applicable standards setting bodies and maintain a proactive stance with respect to any changes proposed for standards that impact the project. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 25 of 26

26 7 Lack of communication or consensus within consortium 50% Moderate Management procedures have been defined for enabling effective decision making. The project coordinator and the members of the Project Management Board have the necessary skills to resolve such conflicts by adequate negotiation. Additionally, it is planned to keep close contact within the consortium by regular telephone conferences and virtual meetings. 8 Partner does not report financial or effort consumption in time to realize the management report 40% Moderate Project management processes have been established to enforce timely and correct reporting. In the worst case, the missing data for reports and cost statements will be handed in later. Table 2 Project risk register 8. Summary This document presents the approach taken by the FInest team to manage the project. In addition, the tools used by the team to manage the project, communicate internally and externally about the project and to control the quality and risks associated with the project have been presented. The project management plan and the various instruments used to control the project will be continuously updated and refined as the project moves forward. These updates will become part of the FInest project s review at the end of each review cycle. D11.1 Project Management Plan V1.0 Page 26 of 26