Project Management Case Study #2
SITUATION
The Occupational English Test (OET) was a bi-monthly written and verbal English test for medical professionals looking to migrate to English speaking countries. The OET was conducted at the same time of day worldwide to mitigate fraud. Essentially, staff at the OET operate on behalf of the Australian Government in a border patrol capacity. In 2008 Talent2 was awarded the contract of running the OET.
ISSUE
Talent2 was awarded the OET contract with provision to run the first test in Sydney and Melbourne within 6 weeks. The process for achieving this was to gain a full understanding of running the OET, then employing and training 170 team members.
RESOLUTION
I was employed by Talent2 to run the OET and had under 6 weeks lead time. My plan was:
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Gain an understanding of the operations.
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Simultaneously commence employment of the 170 team members.
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Identify and personally train the leaders for each site.
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Ensure all team members study the training material provided by the OET prior to test day.
The main challenge was employing 170 team members within 4 weeks. I achieved this via unconventional methods such as approaching Universities for junior staff. It went down to the line, but we got there.
The first test was delivered successfully, and my next deliverable was to run the test Australia wide and training consistency was my next priority. We transposed the PDF based OET training material into eLearning modules, uploaded them to a Learning Management System, and ensured all team members were accredited prior to all events.
I replicated this process as. we expanded the event management to sites such as London, Egypt, Dubai, Japan, N.Z., U.S.A., Manilla, and Singapore, whilst never leaving my office in Melbourne.
I managed 12 OET events over 22 months with a total of 12,500 learners, an average of 230 staff per site, and zero client escalations.