Case Study

Situation Governor-General Mary Simon summoned you today, October 01, to Rideau Hall. You noted how excited and nervous she is. She just got off the telephone with the Queen's Private Secretary about Her Majesty's wish for a Canadian homecoming from June 26 to July 02 of next year.

Her Excellency mentioned she wants you and your staff of five to plan and execute the highlight of the Queen's homecoming: the official Canada Day State Dinner. Governor-General Simon asked you to plan for 110 diners including herself, the Royal Party, and Canada's government leaders and luminaries. She said, "numbers may inflate in days before the event, but number of total diners must not exceed 120".

She gave you a maximum budget of C$400,000. She wants the dinner to be formal and elegant. To make it easy for you, your team's only responsibility is the State Dinner. She suggested you study past Governor-General State Dinners as well as those hosted by the President of the United States. You assure the Governor-General that your team will not fail her.

The Royal Party: The Queen, the Dukes & Duchesses of Cornwall, Cambridge, Sussex; and Princess Anne

You and your team are Project Management certificate graduates. You will present a Project Plan to Her Excellency on October 29. The Plan, should at minimum, include the following:

1. Table of Contents

2. Name of project and summary background (e.g., essential information to properly identify and explain the context for this document)

3. Project stakeholders, teams, and project organization (identify and state the role of stakeholder organizations and teams, a project organizational chart works well for this)

4. Summary of project objectives, tasks, and deliverables Project schedule--tasks, start and end dates, and Gantt chart. (You may choose to only summarize tasks at a medium level in your task hierarchy (e.g., 2-level task summary from a more detailed 3-level WBS)

5. A budget (summary of main budget items is OK)

6. Risks and risk response strategies for the selected risks (e.g. how to deal with several powerful individuals jockeying for seats and insisting their "plus one" be included)

7. Summary of appropriate quality management plan for a State Dinner

8. How do you and your staff plan to do project monitoring, reporting. and communications activities (tracking progress, status reporting, team and client communications, etc.)