MGMT 625 Week 4 Project Management Plan Example

Project Management Plan: Converting a City's 14,200 Streetlights to LED With Networked Controls

Project Description

The city operates 14,200 streetlights, most of them high-pressure sodium fixtures installed between 1985 and 2005. They consume about 9.6 million kilowatt-hours a year, cost about $1.15 million annually in electricity and maintenance, and fail at a rate that generates roughly 2,300 repair calls a year, most reported by residents. This project will replace every cobrahead fixture with a light-emitting diode fixture and install a networked control node on each pole, connected to a central management system. The new system will let the Public Works Department dim lights during low-traffic hours, receive automatic alerts when a light fails and measure energy use pole by pole. The city council approved the project in its capital budget with the expectation that energy savings will repay its cost within eleven years.

The project runs fourteen months, from contract award in February to final acceptance the following March. Installation will be done by a contractor selected through competitive bidding, working under the direction of the city's Public Works Department, with the city's Information Technology Department responsible for integrating the control system with existing networks. The project is sponsored by the Director of Public Works and managed by a project manager in the department's engineering division.

Project Scope, Cost and Objectives

The scope includes the purchase and installation of 14,200 LED cobrahead fixtures, a control node on every fixture, the central management software and its hosting, the integration of failure alerts with the city's work order system, the disposal and recycling of removed fixtures, and training for public works staff. It also includes a photometric survey of 40 sample streets before and after installation to confirm that lighting meets the city's standards.

The scope excludes the replacement of poles, arms or underground wiring except where a pole is found unsafe during installation, which will be handled as a change; the 640 decorative lights in the downtown district, which are scheduled for a separate project; traffic signals; and lights owned by the electric utility on state highways.

The estimate was built from manufacturer quotes for fixtures and nodes, a unit installation cost per pole from three recent bids in comparable cities, and staff time for city management. The contingency, about 7 percent, reflects the record of similar conversions rather than the planners' own expectations, an approach Flyvbjerg (2006) recommends to correct for optimism by forecasting from a reference class of comparable projects.

The schedule is built in four phases. Mobilization and design, in months one and two, complete the specifications, the security review of the control system, the pole ownership survey and a pilot on two residential streets. Installation, in months three through twelve, proceeds district by district across the city's eight maintenance districts, starting with the two the police department identified as priorities and pausing for the coldest weeks of winter. Integration and testing, overlapping installation from month five, connects each district's control nodes to the central system as the district is finished. Closeout, in months thirteen and fourteen, completes the photometric survey, staff training, punch-list repairs and final acceptance. Each district completion is a milestone reported to the sponsor.

The project has four objectives. First, complete installation and acceptance of all 14,200 fixtures by March 31 of next year. Second, stay within the $9.8 million budget. Third, reduce streetlight energy use by at least 55 percent, measured over the first full year of operation. Fourth, cut resident-reported outages by at least 80 percent through automatic failure alerts.

Team Roles and Responsibilities

The project manager plans and controls the work, maintains the schedule and budget, chairs weekly progress meetings and reports to the sponsor. The sponsor, the Director of Public Works, approves changes within the department's authority and resolves issues the project manager cannot. The city's lighting engineer approves fixture specifications and photometric results. The IT project lead manages the control system's integration and security review. The contractor's superintendent directs installation crews. Two city inspectors verify installation quality, and the purchasing manager administers the contract.

R = responsible, A = accountable, C = consulted, I = informed.

Key Stakeholders

The project affects many groups whose support or concern can change its schedule. The city council approved the funding and expects quarterly reports on cost and savings. Residents will see crews in their neighborhoods and will notice the change from yellow to white light; some neighborhoods have raised concerns in other cities about glare and brightness. The police department values improved lighting and has asked for priority in high-crime districts. The electric utility must update its billing as fixtures change and owns some poles on which city lights are mounted. Public works crews will maintain the new system and must be trained. Neighborhood associations and the downtown business district want advance notice of work on their streets.

Assumptions and Constraints

The plan assumes that fixture and node deliveries will arrive in monthly lots matching the installation schedule, that the contractor can staff four installation crews, that the utility will provide pole ownership data by the end of the first month, and that the existing city network can carry the control system's traffic with the planned gateways. It also assumes that residents' concerns about light color can be addressed with 3000 kelvin fixtures, which several cities have adopted for this reason.

Four constraints bind the plan: the council's fixed appropriation, by a noise ordinance that limits work in residential areas to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., by the city's purchasing rules, which require council approval for any contract change above $100,000, and by the cybersecurity requirements of the city's IT policy, which the control system must pass before it connects to the network. Winter weather is expected to slow installation in December and January, and the schedule reflects that.

Communication Management Plan

Communication is planned around who needs what information, how often and in what form. The project manager holds a weekly progress meeting with the contractor, inspectors and IT lead, reviewing installations completed, defects found and the coming week's districts. Every second Friday the sponsor gets a written status report, covering schedule, budget, risks and decisions needed. The city council receives a quarterly briefing with a one-page dashboard showing fixtures installed, spending against budget and early energy results. Residents receive door hangers two days before crews arrive on their street, and a map on the city website shows completed and upcoming districts. A hotline and email address route resident questions to the project team, with a target of a response within two business days. Wilson (2014) emphasizes that schedule and cost data matter only when they reach decision makers early enough to act on, and this plan ties each report to a decision maker. Internally, the project uses one shared schedule file and one issues log, so that the contractor, inspectors and IT team work from the same information. Communication with residents is coordinated with the city's communications office, which approves notices, handles media inquiries and posts updates on the city's social media accounts. If a district falls more than two weeks behind its milestone, the project manager notifies the sponsor and the affected council members within one week, before residents begin calling.

Risk Management Plan

Risks will be identified at the kickoff workshop and at each weekly meeting, scored for probability and impact on five-point scales, and recorded in a register maintained by the project manager, as the PMBOK Guide's risk chapter describes (Project Management Institute, 2017). The six highest risks at the start of the project are listed below.

Quality is managed alongside risk. City inspectors check one in every ten installations in the field for fixture orientation, node connection and pole condition, and the central system confirms that every node reports in before a district is accepted. Defects found by inspectors are logged and must be corrected before the contractor's monthly payment for that district is released.

The register will be reviewed weekly, and any risk whose score rises above the high threshold will be reported to the sponsor within two business days.

Change Management Plan

Anyone who wants to alter what the project delivers, when it finishes or what it costs submits a change request form, which names the proposed change, gives its reason and estimates its effect on cost, completion date and each of the four objectives. The project manager will assess each request within five business days with input from the affected team members. Approval depends on the change's effect. The project manager may approve changes that cost less than $25,000 and do not move the completion date. The sponsor may approve changes up to $100,000 or a two-week schedule effect. Changes above $100,000 require city council approval under the purchasing rules. Approved changes will be recorded in a change log, reflected in the schedule and budget baselines, and reported in the next status report. The contingency may be drawn only for approved changes or realized risks, and every draw will be recorded against the change or risk that caused it.

Conclusion

This plan defines what the streetlight conversion will deliver, what it will cost, who is responsible for each part and how the team will communicate, manage risks and control changes. Its scope boundaries, budget and responsibility matrix will form the basis for the work breakdown structure and the detailed schedule, and its objectives will be used to judge the project's success after a year of operation.

References

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). From Nobel Prize to project management: Getting risks right. Project Management Journal, 37(3), 5-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280603700302

Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (6th ed.).

Wilson, R. (2014). A comprehensive guide to project management schedule and cost control. Pearson FT Press.