LEAD 4033 Module 4 Risk Management and Project Control Plan Example

What Could Delay the Opening? Risk Management and Project Control for the Second Clinic

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD4033: Project Management

Module 4 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 2, 2026

Introduction

The second clinic's plan now has a charter, a thirty-four week schedule and a detailed budget of $1,200,000, with a contingency of $104,600. Plans describe what should happen; risk management and control deal with what actually happens. This paper identifies the main threats to the opening date and budget, scores them, assigns each an owner and a response and adds two opportunities worth pursuing. It then sets out how changes will be requested and approved and how earned value will be used to read cost and schedule performance together, using a worked example from the end of June.

Why Formal Risk Management

Small organizations often handle risk informally, trusting that experienced people will notice problems in time. The research suggests that this is a gamble. In a study of more than one hundred projects, Raz et al. (2002) found that formal risk management practices were not widely used, that they were applied more often in projects with greater uncertainty and that their use was associated with better results in meeting schedule and budget goals. Our project has real uncertainty: an existing building whose hidden conditions we cannot fully see, equipment with long lead times and a hiring market we do not control. A written register makes those uncertainties visible to the partners and gives each one a person responsible for watching it.

How Risks Were Identified and Scored

I identified risks in a ninety-minute session with the medical director, the lead technician, the office supervisor and the general contractor, walking through the work breakdown structure branch by branch and asking what could delay or add cost to each. I also asked my colleague who opened a clinic in Lexington what went wrong for her. We rated how likely each risk was and how much harm it would do, each from one to five, and took the product as its score. Anything at twelve or above counts as high and gets a weekly look; a score between six and eleven gets a look every other week; anything lower is checked once a month.

The Risk Register

Eight risks made the register. R1, veterinarian recruitment falls short (probability 4, impact 4, score 16): owned by the medical director; mitigated by starting in February, recruiting through veterinary school career offices in neighboring states and offering a signing bonus; trigger, no accepted offer for the second position by June 1; fallback, open with one new veterinarian and rotate the existing three. R2, x-ray or anesthesia equipment arrives late (3, 5, 15): owned by the lead technician; mitigated by ordering by May 14 with a delivery date written into the purchase agreement; fallback, the vendor's loaner unit and the spare monitor from the original clinic. R3, hidden conditions in the building (3, 4, 12): owned by the contractor; mitigated by a pre-lease plumbing camera inspection and covered by the $60,000 construction reserve. R4, permit review exceeds four weeks (3, 4, 12): owned by me; mitigated by a pre-application meeting with the city and a complete submission.

Lower-Scoring Risks

R5, controlled substance registration not issued in time (2, 5, 10): owned by me; mitigated by filing in March, immediately after the lease is signed, which leaves about five months. R6, change orders raise construction costs (3, 3, 9): owned by me; controlled through the change process below. R7, strain on staff at the original clinic (2, 4, 8): owned by the office supervisor; mitigated by the relief staffing in the budget and by monitoring overtime. R8, slow bookings in the first weeks (2, 3, 6): owned by the office supervisor; mitigated by inviting existing southeast clients to the soft opening and starting the launch campaign in July. Every risk has a name beside it, because a risk that belongs to everyone is watched by no one.

Opportunities

Hillson (2002) made the case that a risk process should hunt for upside as well, treating a lucky break the team could still miss as one more line in the register. Two opportunities were identified. O1: the equipment distributor offers a discount for orders placed before the end of its fiscal quarter in March; ordering the ultrasound and laboratory analyzers early could save about $9,000, and the response is to exploit it by finalizing those specifications by mid-March. O2: the unit next to ours in the retail center may come vacant in 2028; negotiating a right of first refusal in the lease would cost nothing now and could allow future growth without another move. The response is to enhance it by raising the request during lease talks.

Change Control

Changes to scope, schedule or budget will follow a written process. Anyone may submit a change request on a one-page form that describes the change, why it is wanted and what it would likely do to the budget, the dates and the risk list. I can approve changes costing up to $5,000 that do not affect the critical path, recording each in a change log. Larger changes, or any change that moves a milestone or draws on contingency, go to the sponsor with my recommendation, and decisions are made within five working days so that the project is not stalled. Approved changes update the schedule, budget and register; rejected changes are kept in the log with the reason, which helps when the same idea returns.

Earned Value Control

Comparing actual costs with the budget can mislead, because spending less than planned may simply mean work is behind. Earned value management solves this by asking what the completed work was worth at budgeted rates and setting that figure beside two others: what the plan said should have been spent by now and what has in fact been spent (Anbari, 2003). Dividing the value of completed work by actual spending gives an index of cost efficiency, and dividing it by the planned amount gives an index of schedule progress. Both are read against 1.0, and both feed simple forecasts of where the final cost is heading.

A Worked Example

Suppose that at the end of June, the planned value is $460,000, the sum of the first two quarters' planned spending. Construction is about two weeks behind, so the work completed is worth $438,000 at budgeted rates, while $452,000 has actually been spent. The cost variance is minus $14,000 and the cost performance index is 0.97; the schedule variance is minus $22,000 and the schedule performance index is 0.95. If cost performance stays at this level, the estimate at completion is the base budget of $1,095,400 divided by 0.97, or about $1,130,400, an overrun of roughly $35,000 that the contingency could absorb. The schedule index alone does not show whether the opening is at risk, so I would check the critical path directly. If construction remained two weeks behind with six weeks left, I would ask the sponsor to approve a second finishing crew from contingency rather than squeeze training.

Conclusion

The risk register names eight threats and two opportunities, each with an owner, a response and a review frequency. A change process with clear approval limits protects the baseline without slowing decisions, and earned value gives the partners a single picture of cost and schedule. Together, they turn the plan into something the team can steer. Module 5 addresses how I will lead the project team and close the project when the clinic opens.

References

Anbari, F. T. (2003). Earned value project management method and extensions. Project Management Journal, 34(4), 12-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280303400403

Hillson, D. (2002). Extending the risk process to manage opportunities. International Journal of Project Management, 20(3), 235-240. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(01)00074-6

Raz, T., Shenhar, A. J., & Dvir, D. (2002). Risk management, project success, and technological uncertainty. R&D Management, 32(2), 101-109. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9310.00243