You work for a major defense contractor. Your company prepared and submitted a bid for a recent Department of Defense RFP, entitled Automated Mobile Defense System (AMDS). You have been assigned to lead Project X, which will design, develop, test, demonstrate and deploy 10 AMDS units to a location to be determined by the DoD assuming a successful demonstration. This project is expected to take at least 5 years to complete at a cost of $1.5 billion. If you are successful and deliver a quality product on time and within budget, the DoD will order 150 more AMDS units at a price of $10 million per unit. The goal of Project X is to develop a defense system to protect major and strategic cities within the US in the event of a missile attack from a hostile nation. It is to be a redundant system; the last in a series of defensive weapons to be used only in the event that all other defensive systems have failed; when enemy ABMs are approaching the US and only AMDS is left to take them down.

The conceptual design for the AMDS that your company submitted in response to the RFP consists of a mobile housing unit (MHU) containing 20 anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs) based on a radically new design; an anti-missile control computer (AMCC) used to automatically target and deploy the ABMs; and a retrofitted detection device (code name: SKYEYE) built on proven, patented radar technology which your company owns. All of these devices: the ABMs, the AMCC and SKYEYE will be completely housed in the MHU, which is planned to be an enhanced18-wheel tractor-trailer. A self-contained power source (for the ABMs) and solar charged batteries for the AMCC and SKYEYE make the entire AMDS portable and completely automatic (no personnel are required to operate any of the systems). However, military personnel on a regular basis will perform routine system monitoring and maintenance, preferably from a remote site. On-site maintenance should only be needed on rare occasions expected to arise from unforeseen events such as earthquake, tornados, ice storms, etc. Should it become necessary, military personnel will move the AMDS to a location known only to them. While it was not included in the design accepted by the DoD, your company would like to be able to provide additional capability with the system: they would like the AMDS to be able to operate while it is being moved.

You are the project manager and oversee the efforts of over a dozen nuclear scientists, engineers, and technology professionals. Many of them are acquainted with the rudiments of project management, but very few know much about project risk management. You'll need to do some education along with managing schedule, budget and scope.

Assignment

After you write your risk management plan for Project X, you're going to make a formal presentation to the project stakeholders. Refer to the list you discussed with the project team during the second week of this project. How will you address the varied interests of the stakeholders when you present your plan? Develop an idea or two for each stakeholder to "sell" them on your plan.