You are employed as an HR Advisor by an organisation which has just acquired a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who has ambitious plans for the business.

The new CEO has decided that certain employees, identified as future talent, should work with him on 6-month high-profile secondments, carrying out special projects to take the business forward. You have been chosen to lead one of these projects.

The purpose of your project is to investigate the organisation's recruitment and selection processes to improve their cost-effectiveness and the quality of people they bring into the company, and enhance the level of new recruits' engagement' with the organisation.

The new CEO wants to know how you will go about managing your project and has asked you to respond to the requests below. To impress the CEO you should refer to relevant models and theory within your response.

1. Given the purpose of the project and 6-month timeframe, devise a project plan, with objectives, activities, time-scales and deliverables, for your project.

2. Risk-assess your project for (at least two) potential areas where problems could arise and explain how you would identify and resolve these.

3. Identify a potential aspect of the project which may require crefative thinking anatexplain how you would encourage this in your team.

4. Explain the steps you would take, as project leader, to help your team work together effectively and how you would resolve any inter-personal conflicts.

5. Give at least two examples of how other people/team's political behaviour in the organisation could impact on the success of your project, and explain how you would apply the skills of influencing, persuading and negotiating to manage these situations and ensure your project stays on track.

6. Assuming that the project reveals several possible ideas for improVing processes, explain how you will determine which of these to Armally recommend to the CEO.