A project health check for coal mining caompanies : case of Douglas Middelburg optimisation project

The purpose of the study is to develop a project health check model to evaluatethe status of projects within the coal mining industry. The model will be based onthe Buttrick (2000) project health check model as described in his book “TheInteractive Project Workout”.The model assesses the current “health” or status of a project. It looks at the fullproject environment and uses a set of question results in an assessment of theoverall risk associated with the project. The model evaluates seven key projectsuccess factors which include:1. Project Plan 5. Expertise2. Resources 6. Clear Specification3. Ownership 7. Top Level Support4. Justifiable CaseThe model fulfils two roles:• As a checklist, and• As a tool to indicate where a project manager’s efforts should be directed.This study will give an overview of the coal mining industry and the way projectsare being evaluated and prioritised. The Buttrick (2000) project health checkmodel will be assessed and adapted to evaluate projects within the coal miningindustry. The “new / adapted” model will be applied to the Douglas / MiddelburgOptimisation (DMO) to evaluate the health status of the project which is currentlyat the end of definition (feasibility) stage within BHP Billiton Energy Coal SouthAfrica.The results obtained from the new health check model showed that the DMOproject was in a healthy state with a project health check score of 47.33. It could4thus be concluded that the DMO project is ready to move in to the executionphase of the BHP Billiton capital investment process.The results obtained from the project team member participants were split intomanagement perception and team members’ perception. The overall health ofthe DMO project between the two parties gave similar results with the teammembers score of 43.76 being slightly lower than the management health scoreof 45.42. The only major difference was observed on the “Communication”project evaluation criteria where the management perspective on thecommunication effectiveness was higher than that of the project team members.