11.1.1 Goal I: Design the Coastal Community of the Future

In the face of rising sea levels, Norfolk, one of the international hubs of a global trading system, is committed to maintaining the most significant responsibility in ensuring seamless movements through its port and supporting US Navy Forces’ readiness. The City Manager’s Office of Resilience acknowledges that a physical transformation of the city is needed to sustain economic vitality and social cohesion. Over the decades, the city has worked hard to design and build several protective systems to preserve Norfolk’s coastline and keep itself safe and dry. Those constructions include seawalls, sophisticated dune landscapes, and other gray and green infrastructure types. With its success in transforming into a new kind of coastal community, Norfolk’s achievement can be used as an implementation model to demonstrate how other coastal cities around the world can learn to live, adapt, and thrive along with the water. Figure 11.1 depicts goal I of Norfolk’s resilience strategy (Office of Resilience 2022; Vasuthanasub 2019).

11.1.2 Goal II: Create Economic Opportunity by Advancing Efforts to Grow Existing and New Industry Sectors

The Naval Station Norfolk and the Port of Virginia are central pillars of Norfolk’s economy. Unfortunately, with an uncertain future of government policy and geopolitical context, as well as the declining trend in consumer spending and job investments, it is unlikely that traditional naval activities alone will support the economic growth in a region. Indeed, it is true that the Port of Virginia is expected to grow gradually. However, if a city can still not maximize its advantageous position as an international hub, all input efforts would be worthless. As well as creating the opportunity for living-wage employment in the area to revitalize the economy, the city will also direct its development attention to expanding existing businesses, assisting potential investors, and promoting local workforces to strengthen and attract more industrial enterprises. Figure 11.2 depicts goal II of the NRS (Office of Resilience 2022; Vasuthanasub 2019).

11.1.3 Goal III: Advance Initiatives to Connect Communities, Deconcentrate Poverty, and Strengthen Neighborhoods

As the directions of change point to the new ways of living and working, the City of Norfolk commits to being a place where all residents are connected to the available resources, they need to be successful. Connecting people means creating stronger neighborhoods. They will communicate and support each other to make the city safer, elevate a higher quality of life, and protect themselves better in emergencies. For this reason, the city has initiated a Neighbors Building Neighborhoods program. This initiative was built based on the fundamental belief that people are the most influential catalyst for their community changes. A campaign seeks to complement and support the missions already accomplished. The tasks are still underway and aim to strengthen and help the communities become more resilient at the individual, neighborhood, and city levels. Figure 11.3 depicts goal III of the NRS (Office of Resilience 2022; Vasuthanasub 2019).

11.2.1 Project Execution Plan

To professionally tackle a sophisticated project, such as resilient city development, Project KickStart (https://www.projectkickstart.com) is selected to render essential study and extensive examination in Phase I (Project Planning and Management). The information presented in the NRS report was input data to develop and evaluate an ideal platform framework.

Project KickStart is desktop project management software created by Experience in Software, Inc. in Berkeley, California. The program uses a wizard-like interface for project planning. Project KickStart’s wizard prompts users to identify phases, goals, obstacles, and personnel assignments for projects and uses a calendar to produce a Gantt Chart that features the project’s phases and the goals, tasks, and assignments for each of them (Ahlvin 2008).

Project KickStart is equipped with nine wizard functions, while its planning process requires seven major steps. The software’s user interface and operating procedure are straightforward. The software features provide a more convenient way to administer the work structure and increase the management efficiency to monitor the ongoing progress and resource requirements until the project completion. The subsections concisely describe how to outline and detail (i.e. a list of phases, tasks, responsibilities, and timeframe) an execution plan for Norfolk Resilient City (NRC) as a development project with Project KickStart implementation. Moreover, KickStart’s project files can be exported into several software packages, including Microsoft’s Project, Outlook, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, as well as ACT!, Milestones Professional, MindManager, and WBS Chart.

11.2.2 Project Name

Each project has a name; therefore naming a project is the first mandatory step for planning with Project KickStart. Figure 11.4 depicts the initial layout of the project in Project KickStart. Since the project objective is to create a resilience development plan for the City of Norfolk, the name of this project is “Norfolk Resilient City Development.”

11.2.3 Project Phases and Tasks

“Phases” wizard helps create major grouping while “Tasks” wizard helps to help tasks. Each task is then associated with each phase. A planner can begin a process by using a predefined phase library shortcut or manually entering specific details. As a result, by linking and integrating inputs from the NRS report with predesigned methodologies in a proposed ReIDMP framework (see Chapter 7). Figure 11.5 depicts the extracted information grouped into six project phases.

After creating the phase library, we move to the next sub-procedure known as “task identification.” The software wizard cycles through those six phases, one at a time, asking a planner to enter tasks for each phase. It is important to note that phases are organized in sequence as they are created. However, it is not always necessary for a planner to register tasks to the phases by following that sequence.

While Project KickStart allows for linear planning, it was also designed for systemic non-linear thinking – meaning that if a planner thinks of a new task while working on a different phase, it is possible to add a new task to a different phase using a drop-down. The planner can then return to the current phase. In the present study, most of the listing tasks were concisely determined and precisely associated with each phase based on the obtained information from the NRS report and the methodological approaches in the proposed ReIDMP platform framework. Figure 11.6 indicates the completed list of phases and tasks for NRC. Notice that Figure 11.6 includes an additional listing of tasks (i.e. Analysis and Assessment of Risk, Vulnerability, and Integrated Risk). This list provides predefined extension works for potential future studies to enhance the ReIDMP platform framework development and provides further analysis for the City of Norfolk.

11.2.4 Project Goals

Entering project goals is essentially the same as entering project phases. This wizard function has a first-level verification for a more profound understanding of the project phases and structuring of tasks. The milestones, goals, and targeted accomplishments of a project can be identified in this step to suggest any necessary phases or tasks that the planner has not thought of yet. As previously indicated, the City of Norfolk strives to accomplish three primary goals (see Figures 11.1–11.3). A set of strategies accompanies each goal, and then each strategy encompasses a set of actions. However, the three primary goals of NRC are already mapped in the previous step; there are no additional phases or tasks to enter in Project KickStart Pro 5.

11.2.5 Project Obstacles

Project KickStart also offers a feature that allows a planner to identify potential risks or issues in the project planning stage. In this wizard, the planner can key in a list of obstacles that may occur during the project timeframe and then prepare the encounter measure as additional phases/tasks. The NRS report does not address this aspect of research. However, to develop the ReIDMP platform, several obstacles were assumed and added for project elaboration and execution.

11.2.6 Task Assignment

Project KickStart provides a simple and direct way of assigning tasks or responsibilities to team members. There are two ways a planner can deal with resources: (i) manually key in the resource names (e.g. team members, individuals, and organizations) to the main window or (ii) use an automated resource list wizard “People Library,” to store the resource information by registering them one-by-one or importing those data from Microsoft Outlook. The distinction between these two options is that the software will save all information in its resource list if the second option is selected. Then the planner can reuse that stored information when similar resources are required for planning a new project.

The present research implemented the second option since it provides more flexibility during the planning review process and faster access in case resource revisions are necessary later in the project. Figure 11.7 illustrates the tasks and resources needed for the ReIDMP platform development. For example, since the NRS report was prepared by the City Manager’s Office of Resilience, the staff members are listed as resources. The specific roles are based on verified information from the City Manager’s Office of Resilience website (Office of Resilience 2022).

Once the project task list is constructed and the project team members are identified, the planner can start assigning the tasks to each resource responsible for that task. Again, the planner must select each person, one at a time, to assign a task. If one resource (e.g. consultants) is needed for multiple tasks, the planner can choose those tasks as a group and then assign them all at once to that person. Figure 11.8 depicts the assignment of the tasks. Many of the assignments are based on the NRS report.

11.2.7 Task Management

Step six in Project KickStart is not only about reorganizing and editing the project phases and tasks, but it can also be seen as a second-level verification of phase determination and task identification. This wizard contains the features that allow the planner to (i) move up and down any task or any phase and its tasks, (ii) promote a sub-task to a task and demote a task to a sub-task, (iii) add a new task and add a new sub-task under an existing task, and (iv) delete any task and sub-task or any phase and its tasks.

During the implementation of this step, after reviewing the existing structure of project phases and tasks, minor modifications were made to avoid the potential confusion of listing tasks in the development of the “Resilient Strategies and Actions Plan.” For example, three primary goals were inserted into the list as the three sub-phases, and the associated strategies of each goal were demoted under the sub-phase as the individual task. Then again, the proposed actions of each strategy were demoted under the task as the individual sub-tasks. The same correction concept was also applied to the “Analysis and Assessment of Risk of City’s Risk,” “Assessment of Vulnerability,” and “Assessment of Integrated Regional Risk.” These assessment areas were promoted from the main tasks to the sub-phases, and each domain’s analysis and assessment methods were re-associated to their sub-phase as individual tasks.

11.2.8 Project Timeline

The final wizard’s primary purpose is to present the project timeline visually. The software uses the Gantt Chart feature, which allows the planner to edit start/finish dates and durations, work with weekends and holidays, and adjust tasks according to resource availability. In Project KickStart, the default duration of tasks is set to one day. The planner can either key in the exact number of days or select the start/finish date fields in the calendar to indicate each task’s duration.

The NRS report was released in October 2015. It was then assumed that most of the predefined actions were also ready to be implemented around that time. Hence, fall 2015 was adopted as the set-point to complement the estimation of task durations in prior or later phases. When the information from the NRS report was merged with the methodological approaches in the proposed ReIDMP platform framework, it was estimated that at least seven months would be required in advance to prepare and develop strategies and actions. Figure 11.9 depicts the overall project timeline and task durations. Project KickStart set the motion for the research articulated in Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

11.3.1 ReIDMP Implications

A targeted objective of this was the development of a generic platform, ReIDMP, that supports the planning and management process for the resilient city project. The development intends to propose a practical approach to building or enhancing the capacity of resilience for the city systematically and reliably. The platform is grounded in several concepts and techniques adopted from academic disciplines and industrial practices, including project management, serious gaming, risk analysis, vulnerability assessment, multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), and object-oriented programming (OOP). The ReIDMP consists of four primary phases:

• Phase I – project planning and management. The first step of resilient city transformation – definition, scope, and tasks – is indispensable. To reach significant milestones and achieve resilience, a definition must be clearly articulated, the scope must be explicitly established, and the tasks must be comprehensively designated. Overall, the example of a resilient city project plan outlined in Project KickStart software allows the planners, stakeholders, and decision-makers to capture the procedural step of project execution in sequential order, track the progress of tasks, and control the ongoing development process.
• Phase II – development of a simulation city and management of risk and vulnerability. This phase is divided into two parts. First is the utilization of a commercial computer simulation game under serious gaming. Second is the application of risks and vulnerability management. SimCity (2013)^® was selected and employed to support the process of modeling cities. Then, the simulated outputs are incorporated with a set of assumed scenarios to conduct the analysis and assessment under the selected technical manuals of risk, vulnerability, and integrated regional risk (International Atomic Energy Agency 1996, 1998; Science Applications International Corporation 2002). Indeed, serious gaming methodology experimentations can successfully be adapted to the classroom environment and have delivered learning experiences to students at different educational levels. In this research, most students grasped using SimCity (2013)^® for non-entertainment purposes and manipulating the simulation city-building mechanisms.
• Phase III – evaluation of alternatives using MCDA. This phase demonstrates how to transform the identified alternatives into decision problems and how those decision components can be analyzed. In this regard, a specific part of the information in the NRS report (Resilient Strategies and Actions) was used as input data in this research. Later, the decision models were implemented using two distinct techniques in MCDA framework through two decision-support system tools: Logical Decisions^® for Windows via Multi Attribute Utility Theory LDW (MAUT) and Intelligent Decision System via Evidential Reasoning. All in all, these two MCDA techniques can handle the decision problems involving a large group of stakeholders. The examples of results obtained from both software reveal that they can be applied in parallel to compare the difference in alternative prioritization.
• Phase IV – representation of project complexity. Due to city resilience’s complexity and dynamic nature, a tool that can provide a holistic view at the time of planning and execution is required. The final phase of the ReIDMP framework relates to implementing and presenting management complexity for the resilient city transformation processes. The software, TopEase^®, grounded in an OOP paradigm, was adopted to handle large-scale data structures and model the resilient city’s different objects.

The approach presented in this research contributes to the current body of knowledge by proposing four frameworks that support the practical development of resilient cities. In addition to the intended functions of assisting the planning process and execution management for building a resilient city, this ReIDMP platform can also be used as a decision analysis toolkit. The platform enables the decision-makers and stakeholders to assess the current problem, identify the solutions and strategies, and evaluate the alternatives. It also enables the capturing of interrelationships, interconnection, and interdependencies between city entities as a whole system.

11.3.2 ReIDMP Limitations

The use of serious gaming in commercial and industrial sectors is widely accepted to be a promising strategy for training employees and promoting customer experiences and satisfaction. Even though this technique has proven to provide considerable success in marketing practices and business management, adopting this technique in the academic field, notably higher education, to teach specific knowledge or to encourage learning experiences poses challenges. For example, choosing a game that can benefit learning experiences and measuring the outcomes can be a challenge. Moreover, the first part of Phase II was introduced with the application of SimCity (2013)^®. Various versions of this simulation city-building game have proven valuable within the formal classroom setting at both school and university levels, yet they are limited in pedagogical contents and features.

In the development of the ReIDMP platform framework, the first part of Phase II was introduced with the application of SimCity (2013)^®. Various versions of this simulation city-building game have proven valuable within the formal classroom setting at both school and university levels, yet they are limited in pedagogical contents and features. Bereitschaft (2016) and Gaber (2007) assert that when using SimCity^® for an educational purpose, particularly at the university level, the limitations and inaccuracies of the game limit its utility for understanding the complexity of urban planning processes. While professional urban planners and theorists familiar with the required knowledge or experiences could understand the underlying principle by themselves, most players without the proper training will be influenced by contextualized biases woven by the game mechanism. This criticism is valid in the present research. For example, during the experimentation periods, students involved in this research would start the modeling process without laying out the road pattern or conditioning the zones even though the completed basic instructions were presented in a classroom setting. Therefore, to optimize the percentage of success in SimCity (2013)^® under serious gaming, it is necessary to provide clear instructions with comprehensive demonstrations.

Besides the limitation of the pedagogical tool embedded in the game itself, participants’ mindset could also be a concern. Frequently, when serious gaming is included in the coursework as a learning tool, gamers (students) will try to master the game context and mechanism for experiencing the learning contents. However, non-gamers with less or no digital gaming experience will spend more time and effort figuring out how to play the game than trying to understand the intended learning material. Situations such as these make it harder for the participant to benefit from serious gaming (Heeter et al. 2011; Vasuthanasub 2019). Feeling lost or incompetent while attempting to play the game could cause negative impacts that create performance deficiencies, resulting in negative consequences on learning.

Another limitation of this research is using data and information from the NRS report as input in Phase III. The purpose of adopting the NRC project as a case study is to provide an example of how the decision analysis in Phase III of the ReIDMP could be functional and helpful in real situations. However, the current case application does not involve subject matter experts. The involvement of subject matter experts could potentially have yielded a more comprehensive platform framework. Unquestionably, validating this kind of research study requires great effort from stakeholders, decision-makers, and the people involved in the actual project implementation.

11.3.3 ReIDMP Future Direction

Management of risk and vulnerability is fundamental to building a resilient city. The ReIDMP platform covers this underlying implication by including those activities in the second part of Phase II. In this development, three analysis and assessment methods are performed and provided as examples to delineate some specific aspects of risk and vulnerability, including: (i) prioritization of risks due to the major accidents-related industries, (ii) integrated risk management in large industrial areas, and (iii) highway vulnerability for critical asset protection. Moreover, a few selected methods are used in the analysis and assessment of different risk areas, and vulnerability can be incorporated. There remains room for additional analysis methods and tools that extend the platform. Such a study will render extra advantages in analyzing the entire community’s resilience and identifying strategies and actions to cope with risk and hazards.