A Project to Develop a Strategy to Reduce Casualties in Accidental Dwelling Fires - Report Example

A PROJECT TO DEVELOP A STRATEGY TO REDUCE CASUALTIES IN ACCIDENTAL DWELLING FIRES A project to develop a strategy to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires Student Name: Registration No: Lecturer Name: Date: Outline Aim Objectives Benefits Costs Business Case Tasks Precedence Chart Staffing Risk Management Plan Documents Management Plan Introduction The main purpose of this Project Initiation Document is to provide the requisite foundation in the beginning of the project. This document ensures that the project of developing a strategy to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires has a sound basis before asking the concerned stakeholders such as the Project Board to make any major obligations to the project. In addition, the Project Initiation Document offers a distinct source of reference about the project to the persons concerned to enable them find out about the project and its management. Finally, the document acts as a base deed which the Project Manager and Project Board and can evaluate progress, concerns and fragmentary feasibility questions. The Project Initiation is structured to answer pertinent questions about the strategy to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires project by addressing diverse issues including the aims of the projects, the Specific Measurable Achievable and Realistic objectives of the project, the benefits expected to be accrued by implementing the project, the costs to be incurred in implementing the project, the project’s business case, the tasks that are imperative for the accomplishment of the project, the implementation timelines, the persons concerned and their responsibilities, the Risk Management Plan and the Documents Management Plan. The Project Initiation Documentation is a dynamic basis and reference that at all times echoes and reveals the projects present status, plans and controls of the project as presented by Kerzner, (2009). The component products of the Project Initiation Document shall be updated and re-baseline, as and when needed, at the closing of every stage of the project to replicate the current status of the project’s modules. The performance of the project at the closing of the project shall be assessed based on the version of the PID used to gain authorization for the project. Aim The aim of the project is to develop a strategy to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires. This shall aim at reducing casualties in places where at a given time people can dwell such as residential care premises, hospitals, penal establishments, boarding schools, hostels, flats, and other residential accommodation, schools and any other place that at a given time, people can dwell. In line with the aim, the Project Initiation Document defines strategies, scope and approach that can be implemented to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires in the aforementioned places. The imperative aim of the project is to ultimately reduce if not eliminate any casualty attributed to accidental dwelling fires. Objectives In order to attain the aim of the project, the project shall have SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound) objectives, which are To define strategies concerning accidental fire fatalities to reduce the number of accidental fire deaths by fifty percent yearly, reduce serious non-fatal casualties by ten percent and reduce the number of accidental fires in dwellings by thirty percent yearly. To define strategic shift in accidental fire management to adjust focus in fire service from fire fighting to fire prevention and fire safety. To attain measurable annual improvement in fire safety awareness, attitude and behaviour by the populace, in the town and its environs. To establish key factors resulting to or influencing accidental dwelling fires and recommend, develop and implement policies and regulations regarding those factors. To enhance communication and collaboration by the concerned stakeholders and authorities to foster adoption of a new unified integrated approach to the management of accidental fires in dwelling places before the end of the year, 2011. Benefits Casualties’ resultants from accidental dwelling fires have been a problem globally. Apart from simple injuries, accidental fires have also resulted to severe injuries, crippling the persons, destruction of property and monetary loses. Therefore, the implementation of the project is envisioned to offer several benefits, such as enhanced resource utilization resulting to decreased fire risk and reducing fire costs, freeing other resources to be dedicated to prevention rather than cure. Moreover, the project is envisioned to provide the benefit of creating an informed environment where the populace is educated on the fire accidents and their responsibilities and the roles they can play in fire prevention. Moreover the benefit of the project is the decrease of casualties such as deaths and injuries from accidental dwelling fires to zero and as well limit property damage from dwelling fires. Business case Accidental dwelling fires cost the country billions of Euros to the economically annually, the actual cost of the lose can hardly be derived since there are direct and indirect costs, including societal losses, which can hardly be quantified. In addition, indirect costs to the economy are significant. Citizens spent massively on healthcare and related issues’ resulting from casualties in accidental dwelling places on top of economic loses afflicted by the destruction of property. Dwelling places that implement effective fire safety management and casualty reduction strategies may expect to considerably decrease injuries and illnesses and decrease the costs associated with the casualties such as compensation claims, medical expenses and lost productivity. The existing strategies in managing accidental dwelling fires tend to be reactive rather than proactive. The current strategies emphasise and focus on fire fighting, while minimally addressing the root causes of the fires in dwelling places. This approach has proved to be monetarily expensive without reducing the casualties. The projects proposes a paradigm shift in reducing casualties in accidental dwelling fires, the approach is envisioned to address more of preventive strategies, rather than reactive strategies. This is expected to substantially reduce the costs associated with accidental dwelling fires, through reduction economic losses accrued from the fires while also reducing the casualties. Tasks The project to develop a strategy to reduce casualties in accidental dwelling fires shall be implemented in phases. Every phase shall consist of several activities which in turn shall be made up of several interdependent and independent tasks. The phased implementation of the tasks is suited to due to its numerous advantages such as simplicity to control and follow up the project divided into well-defined phases and tasks, reduction of time for operational evaluation, increment in product usability, reduction of project risks, easier transition to the new system, easier prioritizing of tasks, getting controller acceptance and having clearly defined milestones. These tasks are grouped into activities such as which ascribe to the conventional project management steps aimed at facilitating tasks such as Accident fire prevention, fire safety of buildings, duty of care and the universal duty to act, education and advice, self-preparedness, fire inspections and possible source of accident management and control. The phases shall include planning phase where the items under consideration are the capital allocation framework of the concerned authorities to define the available allocations that can be used for fire management, generation and screening of project ideas where the stakeholders and other persons shall be invited to present their views on the planned strategies that can best be utilized to reduce the casualties in accidental dwelling fires. This shall then be followed by the strategic planning, defining the dwelling fires impacts and strategies, planning for action, proceeding with the strategic plan, and post implementation review. Essentially, the above phases shall consider accident and fire prevention, where the tasks shall be geared towards prevention of fires and other accidents. Concerning the fire safety of buildings, the tasks shall be aimed at ensuring the designing, building and maintenance of buildings and the surrounding areas is done such that the risk of fire occurring or spreading is minor and fostering the possibilities of carrying out rescue operations if accidents occur. In this case, the tasks shall be to ensure that dwelling owners and occupants conform to regulatory requirements to keep the equipment specified by the authorities to be always in working condition. In addition to ensuring that signs showing escape routes and exits, security labels and the supplies in emergency shelters are in working condition. The tasks shall also focus on ensuring self-preparedness where all concerned stakeholders shall be responsible to prevent adverse incidents. In addition, the tasks shall provide for the duty of care, universal duty to act where individuals and groups of persons should act responsibly in situations where there is a risk of fire or other accident. This is in addition to enhancing education and advices concerning rescue services to assist people recognize different causes of danger, act correctly if an accident occurs, prevent accidents be informed on maintaining and ensuring that they operate in a safe environment. During the strategic planning activity, several tasks shall be embarked on as argued by Turner, (1999). The first activity shall be the self assessment which is focused to assessing and defining the project vision, Identifying available skills, information and support and deciding whether to proceed with the project. This shall be followed by defining the Accident Risks which involves researching on the current status on dwelling fires, interview stakeholders, identifying the requisite resources and identifying operating cost elements. Evaluating strategic approach activity shall entail defining new entity requirements, summarizing the business approach, assessing potential risks and rewards, evaluating the availability of needed resources, determining financial requirements hence reviewing and modifying the strategic plan as presented by Kimmons, (1989). The second stage shall involve defining the accidental dwelling fires impacts & strategies, which have several activities such as defining the targeted dwelling areas, assessing available information, Identifying Needed Materials and Supplies, identifying staffing requirements, identify needed utilities as presented by Lock, (2007). This shall be followed by evaluating potential risks and rewards. The third stage is the planning for action phase which shall contain several tasks such as developing detailed 5-year business plan, describing the vision and opportunity, describing strengths, weaknesses, assets and threats as well as describing risks and opportunities. This stage shall be followed by establish business structure, providing physical facilities, establishing utilities providing staffing and establishing the strategies. The final deployment shall be done followed by post implementation review. Tasks Precedence chart Staffing To accomplish the desired objectives, the project shall be carried out by several staff members. Role Project Responsibility Skills Required Number of Staff Required Estimated Start Date Duration Required Project Team Project Manager Lead team, report status Project Management 1 1/2/2011 Six months Core Team Review deliverables, assure quality Project Management 4 1/3/2011 Four months Strategies developer Create framework strategies Research and Fire accident management experience 1 1/3/2011 Four months Fire Safety officers Design web-based performance mgmt tool Fire fighting and fire safety experience 4 15/3/2011 Three months Training team Build the web-based training tool and information dissemination platform Web development Teaching experience and public relations 5 1/4/2011 Two months Review Team Evaluate deliverables, promote use Project Management experience 20 1/7/2011 Two months Costs To accomplish the project objectives, there shall be need to develop a project team, this shall costs the attached costs. Risk Management Plan The risk management plan serves the purpose of identifying the risks that can be defined at the project life cycle stage, evaluates the risks and outlines possible mitigation actions. The plan shall be intermittently updated and expanded during the project life cycle due to increasing complexity as presented by Porter, (1985). The risk management process shall be phased as different stages which are envisioned to ensure probable sources of risk in the project are addressed early. At the first stage, shall involve engaging persons in the project to list potential risk items. This shall be followed by collection of the listed project risks and compiling them to a single list. The listed risks shall then be assessed depending on the probability of occurring then the project team shall identify risk triggers and possible anticipatory actions for the identified threats and enhancement actions for the opportunities. The team shall then create contingency plan for the high end risks and risk management team assigned to watch the triggers of the risks. There are possibilities of several risks occurring such as resistance by the employees to change as argued by Greer, (2002). Communication risk resulting to lack on appreciation and understanding on fire safety by the populace hence jeopardising project implementation, scope risks, estimate risks, retention risks and goals risks. Resistance Risk Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L R M H Communication Risk Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M R H Retention Risk Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M H R Scope Risk Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L R M H Documents Management Plan, Documents will be indexed and filed using the organization’s standards system, new documents shall also subscribe to the indexing and filing methodology which considers the file’s date, department and type of document. References Greer, M. (2002) The Project Manager's Partner: A Step-By-Step Guide To Project Management. New York, AMACOM. Kerzner, H. (2009) Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons. Kimmons, R. (1989) Project Management: A Reference for Professionals. London, CRC Press. Lock, D. (2007) Project Management. Hampshire, Gower Publishing. Porter, Michael. (1985) Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance. California: Free Press. Turner, Rodney. (1999) The Handbook of Project-Based Management. Chicago, McGraw-Hill. Read More