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\section*{Project Management Plan}

The management plan presented here is identical to the plan contained in the
proposal submitted on the European side to the EC.  The main goals of the
management of this project are: (1) to organize the project as a whole,
initiate its different activities, perform all the necessary administrative
tasks; maintain the contacts and report to the Commission, the NSF and the
partners; (2) to supervise the technical progress of the project, and give
technical advice; (3) to insure that the project adheres to its scientific
goals and satisfies user needs, in order to achieve a high exploitation
potential of the project's results.  An important consideration is the
``transatlantic'' nature of the \spectrum project.  Thus the consortium will
have to report to two funding agencies, the EC and the NSF, which differ in
many important respects: cost monitoring practices, overall control on
projects achievements, etc.  Our experience carrying out the \nespole project
has been extremely positive, so we propose to maintain the same structure and
methodology adopted therein, which is described in the following.

Management of the project will be assured by the partners through the 
following structures:
\begin{itemize}
\item Administrative Director
\item Technical Directors (PD)
\item Project Management and Technical Committee (PMTC)
\item Project Exploitation Manager (PEM)
\item Project Managers
\item Work-package leaders
\end{itemize}
In addition to the classical structure defining managerial and technical 
committees, we add the following concerns: Knowledge protection; Exploitation 
preparation; Dissemination of results; Quality Assurance; Establishing and 
interacting with a User Group.

\paragraph{Project Administrative Director:}
The Project Administrative Director will be responsible for:
(1) chairing the PMC; preparing and managing the management reports; 
(2) handling all communications with the EC and the NSF; monitoring project 
costs; 
(3) creating and maintaining the conditions necessary for successful and
effective collaboration; 
(4) proposing and implementing the quality assurance procedures; 
(5) creating and coordinating the user groups; 
(6) planning and implementing the project's contribution to IST/HLT project 
clusters; 
(7) representing the project (or delegating the project representation to the 
appropriate project staff) in the occasion of cluster events and meetings.

\paragraph{Project Technical Directors (Project Coordinators):}
Given the important role of the US partner, the Consortium will have two 
Technical Project Directors, one for the European side and the other for the 
US one; they will be nominated by the (European) Prime Contractor, and by the 
US partner, respectively. They will be responsible for:
(1) co-chairing the PMTC meetings; 
(2) managing the progress reports; 
(3) monitoring the time schedule and the timing of the related activities; 
(4) recommending appropriate actions to rectify delays; 
(5) ensuring that all project deliverables are available on time; 
(6) ensuring that all the resources consumed in the performance of the work 
are actually relevant to the specific work involved; 
(7) representing the project (or delegating the project representation to the 
appropriate project staff) at various scientific events.

The coordinating partner will operate a Project Secretariat office for the 
duration of the project.  The office will support the project by: maintaining 
a central archive of all documents produced within the project; distribution 
of information inside and outside the project; maintaining the Project Plan 
and producing consolidated reports on efforts, results, schedule, and resource 
consumption.

\paragraph{Project Management and Technical Committee (PMTC):} 
This committee will be formed by one key person of each full contracting
partner (Project Manager), with the role of Administrative and Technical
Manager involved in the project and by the Project Exploitation Manager.  The
role of the PMTC is to: (1) assist the Project Directors when carrying out
their duties; (2) make sure that the activities and results thereof conform to
the proposed quality standards; approve all official deliverables; (3) approve
all significant changes in the project work-plan; (4) approve the Exploitation
Plan; (5) establish Knowledge Protection policies; (6) assign specific
responsibility to the most suitable partner representative, when new events
require it; (7) monitor the technical direction of the project; (8) approve
all major technical decisions: reviewing and/or amending the work-plan, the
cost or time schedule under the EC Contract, the termination of the EC
Contract, lay down procedures for publications and press releases with regard
to the project.

\paragraph{Conflict Resolution:}  
The decision-making procedure is organized as follows: each full contracting
partner has a vote. Decisions will normally be taken by seeking consensus. In 
cases where consensus cannot be reached, decisions will be made based on 
majority vote.

\paragraph{Project Exploitation Planning Manager (PEM):}. 
The PEM will be responsible for coordinating the overall project exploitation
planning strategies and actions. He will also coordinate the preparation of a
detailed Exploitation Plan.  This Plan will be defined throughout the project
in order to be able to support, effectively, the project operation and
exploitation phase.

\paragraph{User Groups (UG):} 
Two User Groups will be created and actively involved in the following project 
activities: (i) user requirements; (ii) system validation; (iii) system
demonstration, and (iv) system exploitation.  The Project Administrative
Director will be directly responsible for creating and coordinating these two 
user groups.

\paragraph{Administrative and Technical Project Managers:} 
Each contracting organization will appoint an Administrative Project Manager
(APM).  All official communications will be addressed to him.  He will attend
the PMTC meetings and also liase with it to ensure the alignment between the
organization's objectives and the direction of the project.  He will also be
responsible for ensuring that the organization provides resources to the level 
specified in the project.  In addition, he will provide to the project
Director all the needed information regarding his organization for the
preparation of the management reports.  Moreover the same person will be
responsible for ensuring that the organization respects the planned schedule,
both with respect to activities and their results.  He/she will provide to the 
project Director all the needed information regarding his organization for the 
preparation of the advancement reports.

\paragraph{Work-package Leaders:} 
The work-package leader is responsible for the coordination of the activities 
carried out by his work-package. He/she reports to the PMTC.

\paragraph{Information Flow:} 
The preparation process of a deliverable is the following: a project
deliverable is prepared under the responsibility of the person appointed by 
the responsible organization for a specific task.  The deliverable is sent to 
the Project Director, who submits it to the Commission.

\paragraph{Periodic Reports:}
The coordinator will supply a full report on a quarterly, semi-annual and/or 
annual basis, detailing the progress of the work, any problems encountered, 
actual expenditures (of money and manpower) versus plan, and plans for the 
coming year.
