Project Management Methodology Applied to Dall's Sheep Herd Heath Assessments

Abstract

Assessing Dali's sheep herd health is the first step to monitoring and management. Currently Alaska does not have a baseline disease presence and prevalence data set; therefore, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will conduct health testing to develop a baseline of wildlife diseases within south-central Alaska. This project consists of three to seven years of work where 30-40 sheep are sampled annually. These samples will be analyzed to determine what types of disease, bacterial and viral, currently exist in the population. This knowledge base will build a foundation for study of Alaska's Dali’s sheep population. If there is an all-age die off, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will refer to the samples previously collected and determine if the disease previously existed or if there was an external introduction. Though the Alaska Department of Fish and Game conducts projects regularly, project management methodologies are not explicitly applied to their plans. An execution plan was produced for the Project Management Methodology Applied to Dali's Sheep Herd Health Project, incorporating project management methodologies that can be used to conduct their study. This execution plan documents current best practices, allowing a project manager to execute this plan or use it as a template to build a customized plan. This tool will effectively allow biologists to focus their time on research by optimizing their project plan, allowing for more robust and effective project documentation.