1. Speaker Slides Minutes
Laura 1-3 3
Kate 4-7 3
Nat 8-9 3
Dan 10-11 2.5
Dustin 12 2
Mel 13-15 3
Total 16.5 mins

2. Slide 1 LAURA
The 2012 Maxima Diploma of Management Group members all pitched their individual ideas for
what would form the group project. The Team then voted on the idea that best suited the
objectives of the Diploma and the team member’s interests. The winning project was to develop
a project plan, based on our learnings, which would assist the Campbelltown City Council to
explore the notion of converting the old Athelstone library into a functioning community centre.
The final project plan discusses the steps involved in the project, useful tools for planning and
provides recommendations and considerations for the Campbelltown City Council. We appreciate
that our findings may identify steps that have already been undertaken by Council yet this is a
theoretical group project that formed part of the assessment of our competencies but which we
hope will be of some use to the Council.
This presentation will provide a brief overview of the document and our learnings.

3. Slide 2 LAURA
The team consisted of eight participants from eight different metropolitan councils
Laura Zimbardi (project manager) Campbelltown Council; City of Unley
Daniel Jellings City of Holdfast Bay
Kathryn Prenzler City of Playford
Cherie Gill City of Tea Tree Gully
Melissa Jensen City of Mitcham
Kate Berry City of Marion
Dustin Georgeson City of Onkaparinga
Natalie Shallow City of Salisbury

4. Slide 3 LAURA
Our mission is: “To develop a comprehensive, useful and clear project plan that will assist the
fulfillment of the Marchant Community Centre’s vision and provide recommendations to
Campbelltown City Council.”
Once we identified the scope of the project and set the targets, we allocated tasks based on
individual strengths of team members and their willingness to work in areas outside of their
normal duties as council employees.
The scope of this project proposal plan does not include a detailed analysis of the link to
Council’s strategic directions, comment on the project’s financial viability or actual community
engagement activities, as it understood this has been undertaken by Council. The project plan
also does not provide specific milestone dates. Rather, the plan’s objective is to simply highlight
the factors to consider.

5. Slide 4 KATE
As you know, when developing a project it is necessary to identify what the needs are for the
project, whether it is to solve a current problem or to fill a gap in service provision and the best
way to determine this is through a needs analysis.
We discussed how this will ensure future directions for the centre effectively meet local priorities
and still stay within the parameters of Council’s role and available resources.
As we’re all aware, a needs analysis should be based on a strategic planning process, including a
review of the current situation. We considered the following three areas important for the needs
analysis:
• Community Demographics
• Community Engagement
• Establish objectives and strategies in line with Council’s strategic plan
From our basic needs analysis, we found
• Community Demographics: strong multicultural community, including an increase of new
arrivals from Asian and African countries, and that the city is made up of predominantly
families and older people, with an aging population.
• Community Engagement: Consultations that have already taken place have shown that the
primary demographics just mentioned would like programs appropriate to their needs;
Older people, exercise classes, computer beginner classes; Children, arts and crafts
activities, play groups; Families, parent groups or activities to support families.
• Establish objectives and strategies: Centre’s vision to incorporate 3 core areas –
wellbeing, lifelong learning and creativity.

6. Slide 5 KATE
The SWOT framework, which stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats, can be
used to highlight areas of the project that could be maximised to the benefit of the whole
project. This is a simple framework but provides an excellent starting point for projects, and is
one we used to better understand the needs of the Marchant Community Centre

7. Slide 6 KATE
• Active community
STRENGTHS
• The provision of the venue
• We’re aware that there are financial restrictions with this project,
WEAKNESSES HOWEVER….
• There is an opportunity to form partnerships with other organisations and
OPPORTUNITY community groups
• Ensuring the sustainability of the centre (sustainable programs,
THREATS partnerships, costs, council elections)
We go into further detail regarding the SWOT analysis in the hand out that we’ll
provide you at the end of the presentation, including questions to consider that we
thought could be useful.

8. Slide 7 KATE
GET SMART!
As we all know, the most successful goals are SMART: Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic
and Time-bound.
The project team did a SMART goals exercise to further develop our skills in tying the needs and
SWOT analysis to the project. We discussed process and outcome goals and the need for
“working” goals that could be continually referred back to, checked off and assessed. This might
include:
• Plan, run and assess an initial trail program based on consultation with a range of
representatives from the community and other professionals, with clearly set parameters,
supported by thorough and clear documentation.
• Training and support for the Council worker/s will be identified and provided.
• As part of the Trail program identify and document the inclusion of local “experts” or
partnerships that can be included in the Trial; or may be included in future programming
• Essential that these SMART goals tie into Council goals and directions.

9. Slide 8 Nat
Once it has been established that a community centre at Athelstone will align with Council’s
strategic directions and is an opportunity to meet the needs of the community, it is important to
establish a short and long term plan for engaging the community in decisions regarding activities
run at the Marchant Community Centre.
Benefits of Community Engagement
• The benefits of implementing a community engagement model for the Athelstone
Community Centre will include; wider community participation in programs and in turn
increased social emotional wellbeing.
• Evaluating centre programs through consulting and collaborating with community members
will give council important information in regards to community needs and further
determine whether these needs are being met through provided services.
• Participation in relevant community programs will also provided further skills for
community members, enhancing employment potential and creating economic growth for
the area.
• Partnerships with other services will bring benefits to the Campbelltown Council in the
form of shared knowledge, joint use of resources and as such effective and consistent
service delivery across the district.

10. Slide 9 Nat
You’d already have knowledge that the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
model, which has been adopted by the LGA, provides local government with a framework to
effectively engage the local community and other key stakeholders.
It is vital that the Council identify and consult key stakeholders to assist the development of the
risk strategy. Doing so recognises the knowledge base of user groups, uncovers potential high risk
and unanticipated activities, and can alert Council to political ‘undercurrent’ that may be
unknown to the project team.
The project team have identified relevant stakeholders in this Project Plan, which may assist the
Council progress its risk assessment through contact with these stakeholders.
• Senior Management
• Community Centre Coordinator and Community Service team
• Volunteers
• Community members likely to access the centre (families, elderly, multicultural groups)
• Local businesses
As you would already be very aware of, partnerships will be an essential part of making the
centre sustainable, due to the funding restraints you are working within.
Establishing partnerships with community services will give deeper insight into community needs
and will further provide ongoing support for the centre. Potential partnerships include:
• Local health services
• Local schools and centres
• Adult learning services
• Cultural groups
• Volunteering SA

11. Slide 10 Dan
Just as with any other project or organisation, the objectives of the Marchant Community Centre
are subject to risk, and as such, it is important for the success of the project that its risks are:
· identified
· planned for (or removed)
· improved upon / mitigated, and
· monitored.
There are a number of framework models that it can be utilised to identify and plan for risk. For
the Athelstone Community Centre Project, we utilised two frameworks: a SWOT Analysis and
a PESTEL Issues Analysis. We’ve already touched on the use of SWOT so I might just go through
some of our considerations through the PESTEL analysis (and there is information for both in the
report that we’ll leave with you if you are interested).

12. Slide 11 Dan
So, if you are not familiar with the PESTEL framework – basically it is a simple acronym that
stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal/Legislative.
Each letter represents a different type of risk that we should be considering in the planning for
any project.
In the case of the community centre, as an example, we identified:
• potential loss of Elected Member support (ie. implications for future funding) as a risk
given the timing of upcoming elections (as apolitical risk)
• an economic risk could be failure to account for the full life-cycle costing implications
of retaining the building and using it as a community centre within long-term financial
plans / asset management plans, etc
• a social risk might be fail to adapt to the changing needs of the community – eg is the
centre adequately adaptable to cater for an aging population or migrants or single-
person households? etc
• the impact of ‘virtual’ community space as a risk to be considered for technology,
alignment with the Council’s environmental plans and policies under the heading
of environment and ensuring due duty of care and insurances for legal etc
Utilising a tool like this was a good exercise for us when considering risk as we found it forced us
to look beyond basic risks like OHWS and general liabilities – to the broader more strategic and
political risks, which could be more damaging if not managed and planned for appropriately.

13. Slide 12 Dustin
A Financial Plan identifies the finance needed to meet the specific objectives of the Marchant
Community Centre project. The Financial Plan defines all of the various types of expenses that a
project will incur (labor, equipment, materials and administration costs) along with an estimation
of the value of each expense. The Financial Plan also summarizes the total expense to be
incurred across the project and this total expense becomes the project budget. We identified
several steps to develop a financial plan.
Step 1: Identify Expenses
The first step in defining a Financial Plan and setting a project budget would be to identify all of
the types of expenses that are likely to be incurred throughout the project lifecycle. There’s a
comprehensive list of expenses in the handout, but the key expenses we identified are:
• Staffing, volunteer and training expenses
• Ongoing building costs
• Programming costs
Step 2: Quantify the Financial Expenses
• Once a detailed list of expenses to be incurred throughout the project has been listed, the
next step is to forecast the unit cost of each expense type listed. The unit cost is simply
the cost of a single unit of a particular expense item.
• After listing the unit costs, you should calculate the total amount of each expense item
needed to undertake the project.
Step 3: Construct an Expense Schedule
Next, a detailed expense schedule should be built. This schedule enables the project team to
calculate the total cost to establish the community centre and to operate the centre on a weekly,
monthly or quarterly basis.
An example of a very simple Expense Schedule for the Marchant Community Centre can be found
in Appendix C.
Step 4: Define the Financial Process
Once the expense schedule has been created, with assumptions and constraints listed, a
procedure should be put in place to monitor and control expenses (i.e. costs) throughout the
project lifecycle. There’s a table that goes into detail regarding this in the handout.

14. Slide 13 MEL
-Resources required for planning and analysis
-Detailed social needs analysis: clear vision, engagement
-Financial plan and risk
-Refinement of vision and objectives
-Risk analysis
-Prepare a community engagement plan>

15. Slide 14 MEL
Questions?

16. Slide 15 MEL
Peter Rodges (Maxima Training) provided the training and resources required to guide the project
management plan. This, and the support received by each of the council’s represented, was
much appreciated by all members of the project team…..