Project Constraints and Assumptions

The project aim is to manage the strategic risks that are associated with the Acacia mining Plc. (Acacia). This is generally a mineral exploration company with the aim of acquiring, exploring and developing mineral properties in the area Tanzania. The enterprise has divided the business operations into five segments and this includes North Mara, Buzwagi, Corporate, Exploration and Bulyanhulu. The enterprise started facing problems by the mid 2017 after the government of Tanzania banned the export of unprocessed minerals. With different mining regulations by the starting year of January the enterprise faced problems in their business and also lead to shutdown of their business in Bulyanhulu. In addition to this the enterprise faced another major problem by October 2018 when the senior manager was charged with corruption (Vikhlinin et al., 2015). This situations has developed risks towards the employee of Acacia mining Plc (Acacia) enterprise. Project constraints and assumptions are needed to be classified broadly so that the developed project can be built without any limitation. Assumption is referred to the situation when the project developer thinks about an outcome however is not sure about it. Constraints are the limitations faced while developing a project. The project aim is to develop a better strategy that will mitigate the risks properly and will escalate the existing issues.

The basic approaches for mitigating the risks includes approach for managing the risk at mining site and second approach for offices in urban environment. Both the risks addressed are different and needs different strategies for mitigation. The project constraint includes failing due to improper ERM and this leads to company’s overall preformation. The project fails to prepare a truly suitable approach that will mitigate the risks properly. The project needs to implement proper timeline and budgeting so that the required actions can be implemented properly and within time frame. The project scope was clear however it became difficult to adapt strategies that will be really beneficial for the enterprise. The boundaries and the areas are needed to be set properly. The only aim is to mitigate the risks encountered so the employees can work freely without any hesitation. There is a need to have a proper strategy that will define whether an employee is corrupted or not. This facts effects the organizations reputation and also employee will not like to be in touch with such an organization. The project needs proper budget planning else it will fail to mitigate the risks. It is important to remove the project constraints for proper implementation of the project. Project assumption is referred to the factor included in planning process that is measured as real, certain or true. This are the activities that are expected to occur while project life cycle. In the project of managing strategic risk within the Acacia mining Plc. it is assumed that the project will able to mitigate the risk after successful analysis (Söderblom, Samuelsson & Mårtensson, 2015). With the implementation of timeline graph the budget incorporated and the schedule can be determined. It is assumed that the project will get completed successful within the time frame.

Project Teams (Resourcing Requirements)

The major challenges faced within the Acacia mining plc. are many. Among this one of the major challenges is too cope up with the new regulations developed by the government with the implications of new rules the organization has failed miserably in delivering their products. Government implemented rules that has affected the working of Acacia mining plc. Several impacts are caused to environment this includes erosion in the environment, loss in diversity, the soil gets contaminated, groundwater and surface water gets affected by the chemicals used in the process of mining. With the implementation of new rules and regulations the mining rules also changed. This came into effect by January 2018 (Roder, 2018). This includes a law that each foreign investors are nee to have a bank account within Tanzanian owned bank.

The top risks associated with the mining industry Acacia is divided into two aspects, one is the risk associated with the mining site and another one is with managing the offices in urban environment. The risks at mining are as follows:

1. Commodity risk
2. Permitting risk
3. Political risks
4. Environmental risks
5. Risk related to insufficient requirement
6. Improper allocation of capital

However it is not possible to determine each level of risk with this project. The project will not focus on the problems related to water availability and quality problems.  The risk and issues related to water at different level of mining are out of scope. It is not possible to describe this part of the risks. The risks that are related to technical issues and mining site issues can be explained (Payne & Calton, 2017).  It becomes important to mitigate these risks before it starts effecting the organization. This sector involves several danger to life and thus it becomes important to have a proper mitigation strategy. Risk management strategy is further divided into process, project and business after analysing risk at this level it becomes important to create a risk action plan and proper management plan will help to mitigate the risks.

The project is completed by three members that is me, Alex and kalagadda. Each member of the team has contributed significantly towards the project. The role of each member was decided from the beginning itself. Kalagadda collected the information regarding and problems faced by the organization Acacia currently. He discussed about the risk and also provided approach for developing a proper mitigating strategy. A proper risk identification technique is suggested for better working and for easy mitigation process. The approaches are defined after analysing historical records. He also undergone researches and found about the organization Acacia and the working structure. Kalgadda was being decided to be the project manager as he has having the maximum knowledge about the organization and the regulations that affected the working. Alex described the project goal and determined the expected outcome of this project. In the project my role was to create a proper stakeholder map that will help to understand the main stakeholder associated with the organization. The project timeline is also developed by me after analysing the important factors and the time needed to develop it.

Stakeholder Map (RACI)

According to mineral report, the estimated revenue is US$751.5B million (2017). The operating income of Acacia mining plc. is around US$(699.2)million (2017). These is important to have a perfect calculation about the reserves and resources of Acacia mining plc. According to the newly developed committee mineral reserves and resources, it is being calculated that the mineral reserve of the organization is around US$1,100.00 per ounce. This is being calculated by using an assumed long term average gold price. The silver price per ounce is around US$15.00 and the price of copper is around US$2.50 per pound (Nishat Faisal et al., 2016).

Acacia mining plc. operates total three mining sites in northwest Tanzania, this includes North Mara, Bulyanhulu and Buzwgi. The Bulyanhulu gold mine is an underground gold mine in the region of Shinyanga and is located 6 km away from the town of Kahama. This is the second largest mine opened in 2009 and is the single open pit mine in Tanzania. The gold mine of North Mara is an open pit gold mine located in Tarime district of Mara. This mine was opened in the year of 2002 and was acquired by Barrickk in the year 2006.  Buzwagi production in the year 2009 was over 1 million ounce till date. The plant designed within this area has the capacity to give a throughput of 12000 tonnes of ore per day. The amount of gold sold in the year 2017 was amounted to around 160,552 ounces that is 40% lower than the production of 2016 (Manetti, 2017).

By the end of 2018, Acacia mining plc. has expected to invest on the brownfield and greenfield exploration and aims at adding new features. This includes the following:

• Adding new Greenfield gold discoveries
• Continuing the organic growth throughout the mining and expansion of resources
• Optimizing the use of assets in mining process
• Identifying new opportunities throughout Africa with the help of strategic joint ventures, acquisitions and opportunistic.

The internal factors that attracts people includes some basic concepts. Each team member are exposed to some unique world class cultural transformation programme that helps the employee to grow. The main rules followed by the working staff includes planning the work before executing, every employees dedication is appraised at correct time and hence leads too motivation, proper communication is done and everyone works as a team, the team always tries to deliver what was assured to the customers before the deal (Lawson, 2016). The products developed are best and hence attracts customers and also a huge importance is given towards the worker.

• There is a decrease in revenue of $94.8 million by 10% with every consecutive year (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015).
• The estimated gross margin for GAAP is around 47.3% and the gross margin of non-GAAP is around 46.7%
• GAAP income from operations of $8.0 million; non-GAAP income from operations* of $15.0 million (Lauwo, Kyriacou & Dedoulis, 2017)
• The net income of GAAP was analysed to be $8.2 million and the non-GAAP net income* is around $17.6 million

The organization also focuses sustainability practices and need of stakeholders. The code of ethics followed by the organization includes proper rules and regulation for conducting the business. The goal of Acacia mining plc. is to have their employees with highest security so that they can go home safely and can have a good health. Each employee is expected to work according to the safety and occupational health management policies set by organization. This policies are implemented to ensure proper benefit towards the families, communities, colleagues and business (Hillson & Murray-Webster, 2017). With the health and safety systems provided using equipment the organization enables employees safety at work.  The responsibility of the organization is to protect, enhance and reclaim the environment in which the operation is taking place. The Acacia mining plc. has conducted several environmental programmes that helps in protecting environment. Managing the environmental activities are supported by sufficient financial provisions and resources. This plan ensures that environment is protected for future generations and the sustainability of the nature is safeguarded (Chilala et al., 2015). With implementation of effective security standards, procedures, controls and policies that will contribute towards the safety and protection of each employees, reputation of organization, assets and communities in which the organization is operating.

Stakeholder	Responsible	Accountable	Consult	Inform
Executive Board of Acacia mining	yes
General manager		yes
Unit manager		Yes
Security and ethics committee of Acacia mining	Yes
Staff of Acacia Mining			Yes
Union of workers				Yes
Suppliers	Yes
Mine transportation company	Yes
Workers of subcontractor		Yes
Security staff	Yes
Public administrators				Yes
Media				Yes
Ministry of natural and energy resources				yes
Public administration at provincial level	yes

Project Timeline (high Level Only)

Acacia mining gives proper priority to each of the stakeholders in order to achieve main objective. The mining organization follows some principles while maintaining the relationships with stakeholders. This are as follows:

• The work is done by adding proper values towards the human being and valuing each member.
• There is a need to establish a proper human resources that will create added value and will be committed towards the organization.
• Providing honest support, transparent communication and proper services.
• In order to act as a model that will support innovation and provides proper support towards the staff.
• Providing proper training so that the qualification of each staffs can be improved. This will also help to improve the services offered by the staffs and will provide a better future.
• Environmental approach is used to protect natural resources and environment.

However Acacia mining guarantees that relationship maintained with each stakeholder is transparent. Stakeholder engagement is important for Acacia mining plc . as it is important to develop a strategy that will maintain proper transparent and will be accessible to everyone (Attenborough et al., 2017).  In order to maintain proper relationship with each stakeholder, Acacia mining follows certain principles. This are as follows:

• Identifying each stakeholder associated with project.
• Overviewing the stakeholders of different levels while mapping the stakeholder’s activity. This includes local people, national and international stakeholders and public administrations.
• Plans for managing the relations with stakeholders, analysing the impact of stakeholder’s engagement in order to ensure active engagement.
• In order to minimise the negative impacts on project local active stakeholders are communicated. This also add on to the benefits obtained from the project.
• Records related to issues from stakeholders are collected and are provided to the concerned stakeholders as soon as possible.
• Methods are developed to ensure proper access of vulnerable groups within a project.
• Different communication channels are used in order to offer more opportunities towards the stakeholder. This ensures active engagement of stakeholders.

Acacia Mining has aimed at contributing towards the development and growth and of Hanönü. Acacia Mining thinks that there main responsibilities as a corporate includes having the capability to act fairly at the time of recruitment and giving equal opportunity to local people, allows shopping and procurement from district resources as much as possible and also ensures work that will improve the educational, structural and health services in district. Stakeholder mapping is the first step towards stakeholder engagement plan. The main objective behind stakeholder map is to identifying each group of stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities. With the help of stakeholder map priority mapping can be done. Stakeholders are basically divided into two parts, external and internal stakeholders.  During the mapping of internal stakeholders the engagement time and effect from institutional engagement can be obtained (Andriof et al., 2017). The mapping process of stakeholder defines the role played by them throughout project. The stakeholders and their engagement process are different for each group. Media and NGOs related to the organization engages with other stakeholders through dialogues. The public administrations, vulnerable people and affected people communicate with cooperation. Exchange of information takes place in order to engage with the residents of the area and the consultation helps in engagement with indirectly effected people.

Project Role	Name	Organisational Role
Process Owner	Peter Galeta	CEO Acacia
Project Sponsor	Asa Mwaipopo	MD Tanzania
Project Manager	Kalagadda	MineScope Services
Customer

References

Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B., & Rahman, S. S. (2017). Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). Routledge.

Attenborough, A. S., Sinclair, P. J., Sharp, T., Greene, A., Stuelcken, M., Smith, R. M., & Hiller, C. E. (2017). The identification of risk factors for ankle sprains sustained during netball participation. Physical therapy in sport, 23, 31-36.

Chilala, G. C., de Assuncao, J., Harris, R., & Stephenson, R. M. (2015). Initial effects of improved drill and blast practices on stope stability at Acacia’s Bulyanhulu Mine.

Hillson, D., & Murray-Webster, R. (2017). Understanding and managing risk attitude. Routledge.

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227-237.

Lauwo, S., Kyriacou, O., & Dedoulis, E. (2017). When Sorry is not an Option, CSR Reporting and ‘Face work’in a Stigmatised Industry: A Case Study of Barrick (ACACIA) Gold Mine in Tanzania.

Lawson, R. (2016). Acacia to grow without Barrick. Australia’s Paydirt, 1(243), 39.

Manetti, G. (2017). The quality of stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting: empirical evidence and critical points. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 18(2), 110-122.

Nishat Faisal, M., Banwet, D. K., & Shankar, R. (2016). Supply chain risk mitigation: modeling the enablers. Business Process Management Journal, 12(4), 535-552.

Payne, S. L., & Calton, J. M. (2017). Towards a managerial practice of stakeholder engagement: Developing multi-stakeholder learning dialogues. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 121-135). Routledge.

Roder, K. (2018). “Bulldozer politics”, state-making and (neo-) extractive industries in Tanzania’s gold mining sector. The Extractive Industries and Society.

Royer, P. S. (2014). Risk management: The undiscovered dimension of project management. Project Management Journal, 31(1), 6-13.

Söderblom, A., Samuelsson, M., & Mårtensson, P. (2015). A longitudinal investigation of business angel relationship risk mitigation strategies within investments: a three-dimensional approach. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 35(1), 8.

Vikhlinin, A., Kravtsov, A. V., Burenin, R. A., Ebeling, H., Forman, W. R., Hornstrup, A., … & Voevodkin, A. (2015). Chandra cluster cosmology project III: cosmological parameter constraints. The Astrophysical Journal, 692(2), 1060.