Assuming you are a Senior Project Manager/Product Manager/Operations Manager of any organization you are familiar with. You are responsible to hold an important project to improve current products, services or processes. This is not a large project, but this has strategic importance to the organization. You are required to submit this project plan to the Top Management to get their supports.
Remember for this assignment you need to demonstrate how this project would be carried out throughout its project life cycle with a firm theoretical and analytical basis.
Identify an improvement project which is required / is underway and prepare a formal report for the project sponsor which covers the following:
Task 1 Project Need
Briefly describe an organization and a strategic project in the organization within 100 words.
Analyse the internal and external factors that can lead to a project being required including the factors which have led to your highlighted project being needed.
(Assessment Criteria 1.1)
Task 2 Project Specification
a) With reference to your example project identified above, describe the steps to develop project specification for the project.
. (Assessment Criteria 1.2)
b) Write detail project specification for the example project identified above.
(Assessment Criteria 1.3)
Task 3 Produce a Project Plan
Based upon your specification above, prepare a detailed project plan. Consider what the plan would need to include in order to secure approval for implementation by senior management including:
a) Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) showing all the necessary works (including those works for the implementation strategy in (e) below) to complete the project.
(Assessment Criteria 2.1)
b) Resource requirements (by resource type and when required) for all the works in the WBS.
(Assessment Criteria 2.2)
c) Cost all resources required for the works in the WBS.
(Assessment Criteria 2.3)
d) Prepare Gantt Chart and / or Critical Path Analysis (CPA) for the timescales of all the works in the WBS.
(Assessment Criteria 2.4)
e) Plan appropriate Implementation Strategy for the project. Detail works to implement the strategy should be included in the WBS.
(Assessment Criteria 2.5)
Task 4 Implement a Project
With reference to your project, advise how you would implement this project and why including:
a) Job description and role of project participants (include those outside the project team). Prepare Task Responsibility Matrix and / or Project Team Structure for the project.
(Assessment Criteria 3.1)
b) Develop appropriate measures to monitor and evaluate progress and outcomes of the project. Describe the use of Gantt Chart and / or Earned Value Analysis.
(Assessment Criteria 3.2)
c) Use the measures described in (b) to monitor the implementation of the project.
(Assessment Criteria 3.3)
Task 5 Evaluating Project Outcomes
a) Describe relevant techniques which should be used to analyse the outcomes of the project in terms of the original project specification in Task 2.
(Assessment Criteria 4.1)
b) Use the technique described in (a) to evaluate the outcomes of the project.
(Assessment Criteria 4.2)
c) Make justified recommendations for improvements to the project base on the evaluation in (b) above.
(Assessment Criteria 4.3)
Task 6 Presenting Project Outcomes
a) Describe the considerations and steps when you produce a report of all project procedures used in the project.
(Assessment Criteria 5.1)
b) Prepare slides to present the project procedures and outcomes of the project to the senior management.
(Assessment Criteria 5.2)
All of your work should be copied into your word document / pdf for submission as one file. This may mean that you will need to take screen prints.
Re-submissions
If you are re-sitting this assessment for the first time, you may re-work your original submission if you wish. However, if this is your third attempt at this assessment, you must submit a piece of work which is substantially different from your first two attempts.
Formative Feedback Opportunity
Students will be given one opportunity to receive formative feedback. Please submit your assessment through the Canvas module assignment submission link on or before the formative assignment due date. You will then receive formative feedback from your assessor one week before the assignment submission date. The assessor will provide feedback with grade during formative submission.
Please note that any assessment submitted after the formative assignment due date will not be given any formative feedback.
Students are able to submit/ re-submit the assignment before the summative assignment due date to the Canvas module assignment submission link. The latest submission will replace the earlier submission and will be regarded as the final submission. If a student doesn’t re-submit any assessment after formative submission, the formative submission will be regarded as the final submission.
Important: Students who submit on the assignment submission date will not be given any further guidance if the module assessment was Refer. We therefore strongly recommend students to submit their assessments by the formative assignment due date in order to receive feedback from the assessor.
Student Guidelines
- You should write this assignment as a formal report
- You must ensure that the submitted assignment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assignments which show evidence of academic unfair practice. (See the Student Handbook which is in the Induction Area). Please also refer to the ‘Guide to Unfair Practice in Assessment’ on the module page on Canvas. Please focus on a strategic project in the organization that you are working in or in a local Hong Kong organization that you can have access to the relevant information.
- You MUST underpin your analysis and evaluation of the key issues with appropriate and wide ranging academic research and ensure this is referenced using the Harvard Referencing System.
- You should use diagrams and tables of figures where appropriate ensuring to reference their source using the Harvard Referencing System.
- You are required to write your assignment with minimum 4,500words in order for your research and summarising skills to be developed, and for effective time management. You are required to ensure that the assignment addresses all of the assessment tasks.
The word count excludes the title page, reference list and appendices. Where assessment questions have been reprinted from the assessment brief these will also be excluded from the word count.
- Your assignment should be submitted as a single document. For more information please see the “Guide to Submitting an Assignment” document available on the module page on Canvas.
Recommended Adacemic Resources
There are a large number of journals and e-books which look at different aspects of project management. You need to undertake an appropriate search of these
Pinto, Jeffrey K. (2013) Project Management : Achieving Competitive Advantage. Prentice Hall
Johnson Whittington & Scholes (2011) Exploring Strategy, 9th ed, Prentice Hall, Harlow
Johnson Whittington Scholes, Angwin & Regner (2013) Exploring Strategy Text and Cases, 10th ed, Prentice Hall, Harlow
Magazines, journals and newspapers
Any Project Management magazine and journals
Websites
Association of Project Managers – www.apm.org.uk
Project Managers Institute – www.pmi.org
Chartered Institute of Project Managers – www.cipmglobal.org
Project Management Education and Opinion – www.projectmanager.com.au
Prince2 www.prince2.com
http://www.prince2.com/prince2-downloads.asp
Mindtools – project management tools http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_PPM.htm
Project Smart – http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/methods-tools.html
Project Initiation
Overview of Project Initiation Stage
http://www.visitask.com/project-initiation-phase.asp
Information on Project Initiation
http://www.project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/p/project-initiation/
21 Project Management Success Tips
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/21-project-management-success-tips.html
Stakeholder Management
Top 10 on SHM http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com/stakeholder_management.html
Project Smart http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/stakeholder-management.html
Risk Management
Ten Golden rules for Risk Management
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/10-golden-rules-of-project-risk-management.html
Overview of Risk Management
http://www.projectperfect.com.au/info_risk_mgmt.php
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_07.htm