Read the case study below and answer the questions that follow. Case Study: Standardized project management helps Indra successfully deploy a high-prole automated vote- counting system in Norway At any given time. the portfolio at global technology solutions provider Indra includes some 10.000 projects. No matter what the project, Indra relies on standardized project management practices throughout the company to help ensure it delivers expected benefits. \"The costs and scheduies associated with that volume of projects could not be handled without an integrated approach." says Enrique Sevilla Molina. PMP. director of the corporate project management ofce {PMO} at Indra's headquarters in Madrid. Spain. In 2011. one of those projects called for developing an intricate electronic voting information system for local elections in Oslo. Nonvay. With election day 10 months away. the Oslo city council tapped Indra to: o Create a more efcient voting system by streamlining manual processes. the project aimed to save time, costs and human resources. particularly important in a country with high labour costs. o Deliver accurate results quickly Norway had a reputation to maintain. It is ranked number one among 155 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy 2011, in which a country's level of democracy is strongly tied to its electoral processes. Indra was tasked with delivering accurate advance vote results in seven hours and election-day vote results in 10 hours. 0 Keep stakeholders satised after poor voting management left the 2000 0.5. presidential election in limbo for 36 days, all elections projects faced greater stakeholder scrutiny. And the Oslo project team was dealing with a large number of especially vigilant stakeholder groups: the Oslo city council, 15 district boards. an array of government agencies. political partiesand hungry media outlets looking for a book. To deliver the expected benefits, Indra did what it has done successfully for two decades: It implemented the project using its own project management methodology based on PIvll's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOKIEJ Guide}. Indra's company-specific project management methodology is encapsulated in its custom-built information system, which stores real-time data on individual projects, including goals (both nancial and strategic}. work breakdown structures, budgeting, milestones. issues, risks and progress. Broad use of standardized project management practices across the company lets Indra take a comprehensive view of each project and the portfolio as a whole. \"Before we adopted an integrated approach. part of the group would take care of the project schedule and scope. and another part would take care of cost." Mr. Sevitla says. However. that made it difcult to identity and handle trouble spots early in the process. For example. if a project ran into a delay. the project manager couldn't easily see the potential impact of the holdup on costs or, consequently, the effect on deliverables. Added Scope Means Added Risk, The 21 million Oslo election project was much larger in scope than previous Indra elections projects in Norway. The company typically provided e-counting, an automated process that electronically detects each vote. This time around. Indra was tasked with developing and implementing a solution for the entire election process. including pre-election processes. advance voting and elections management. says Onstina Frutos Lopez. PM P. the Indra project manager who led the Oslo elections project. Indra was responsible for. 0 Design. printing and distribution of all paper ballots a Operator training 0 Calculation, scrutiny. storage and transmission of results The company also had to upgrade its process for managing the increasingly popular advance voting. which occurred one month prior to election day. The project team set up 23 advance-voting polling stations in Oslo and created a centralized processing method to avoid the risk of people voting early and on election day. The system included printing a unique serial number on every ballot. In case of duplication, both battots were referred for review by adjudicators. Advance voting [either in polling centres. by mail or from abroad at embassies] accounted for 27 percent of the total voter tumout. compared with 13 percent in previous local elections. Indra's project management information system kept the team on track. \"Everything is integrated into our project management platform. so it gives us the full perspective of the project.\" Mr. Sevilla says. Every expense had to be allocated to specic activities. with no way to enter a generic cost in the system, helping the project team stay within budget. Mr. Seville explains. Conquering Stakeholder scepticism because the project was introducing a new electronic system, stakeholder understanding and acceptance was identied as the project's greatest risk. \"As in every change process, we were concerned that the users might not be convinced to buy in to our system and therefore show resistance to it," Ms. Fmtos says. To mitigate the project's top threat. the team maintained a risk register and issue log in a distributed system that allowed revisions and status updates for project meetings. The team also provided detailed reports with testing and training results to council ofcials and political party representatives at election committee meetings