Assignment Task

The aim of this course is to help you to understand how projects are planned from conception to delivery. Many (possibly all!) organisations run projects and it is inevitable that you will be involved in planning and running them once you graduate. Hopefully, having completed this course, you will be able to plan projects with a degree of competence and confidence that is often sadly lacking in organisations. We will go through the project lifecycle stages and how these stages can be managed practically using Microsoft Project Software. This will help you gain real life examples of how projects are planned and managed in organisations. Project management involves mastery of both hard and soft management skills and therefore, enhances your understanding across a range of managerial issues. Most of the project fails because of the lack of understanding of these knowledge and skills. Hopefully, having completed this course, you will be able to plan projects with a degree of competence and confidence that is often sadly lacking in organizations.

Research-Led Teaching (RLT)

An element of Enquiry Based Learning links to RLT, which involves faculty introducing students to their own research where it is relevant to the curriculum being taught as well as drawing on their own knowledge of research developments in the field, introducing them to the work of other researchers. RLT sees students as active participants in the research process, not just as an audience. This is achieved by discussing such developments in lectures and classes, and setting reading lists including recent research publications at the frontier of the field. The definition of a diverse assessment regime at the programme level (incorporating an expectation of familiarity with, and use of such publications in assignments) and the inclusion of projects at every level of the programme is also fundamental to achieving these objectives.

Your learning is supported by research conducted here, elsewhere in the world and also by you as the student. This Research Led Teaching (RLT) approach involves introducing you to research conducted by your tutors where it is relevant to the curriculum being taught. They will also draw on their own knowledge of research developments in the field, introducing you to the work of other researchers. Furthermore RLT requires that you become active participants in the research process, not just as an audience. An example of this in this course is with regard to the project planning report. This is achieved by discussing relevant research in lectures and classes, and setting reading lists including recent research publications at the frontier of the field.

Aims

The overall aim of this course is to produce professional business managers capable of making effective and efficient project management decisions. The course provides a range of academic knowledge, business understanding, project management techniques and seeks to develop within students the ability to integrate these with an appreciation of the usefulness of appropriate project management software. On completion of the course, students will have the core knowledge needed to work successfully within a project team or as a project manager on small projects in an environment constrained by time, cost and quality. The course will expose students to the unique nature of project management by utilising a range of learning activities including, but not limited to lectures, tutorials, talks from project management professionals and workshops on project management software. Highlighting the rise of the contemporary project orientated organisation will cause the student to give greater consideration to the importance of understanding the basic disciplines of project management, such as resource and time planning, controls, communication mechanisms, reviews and other project management tools.

Employability

a. The concept of employability has been embedded into the curriculum design of this course. By completing your study, you should expect to gain the following skills which will enhance your employability when presenting to your prospective employers.

Exposure to a wider set of problems with greater emphasis on assessing risk and drawing conclusions. Practice in drawing conclusions, justifying judgements, attention to detail and reflection on skills gained.

b. Generic Competencies Through Group work, students will be able to set goals including influencing, planning, questioning, listening, persuading, interpersonal sensitivity. It also includes the opportunity to reflect on how the task was managed and how the group worked together. Informal project presentations are also included in this course. Substantial written element emphasising clear formatting, spelling and grammar within a clear, well-reasoned narrative.

c. Personal Capabilities Offer extra-curricular opportunities such as team-building exercises.

d. Technical Ability Introduce and apply the advanced technical skills (MS Project Software) in project planning with reflection on the value of these skills for the appropriate subject/discipline.

e. Understanding organisational goals and structures. Awareness of issues around management and leadership in project-related context.

f. Practical and Professional Elements Level 5: Demonstrate increased professionalism and encourage effective applications for project-related placement and internship opportunities.

1: Provide details of the following six tasks

1. Prepare Project Scope Statement to state the project’s objectives, deliverables, technical requirements and milestones.

2. Prepare Work Breakdown Structure (WBS, to include at least 10 activities) for the project.

3. Based on the work breakdown structure (WBS) above, create a Gantt Chart, a network diagram and indicate the critical path by using MS Project software.

4. Explain who your stakeholders are and how would you manage them.

5. Discuss what your project risks might be and how would you manage them.

6. Explain how you would evaluate this project in terms of key project success factors.

7. Risk Management By applying the risk management system as discussed in this course, you can produce a risk management table with containing the items such as ‘the identified risk events’, ‘likelihood’, ‘impact’, ‘detection difficulties’, ‘response plan’ etc. Please note that the risks which you have identified should be closely relevant to your project.

8. Project Evaluation To evaluate your project, you can first discuss what criteria can be used to assess a project’ success or failure and why consider the discussion we have in session 2 seminar. You can then talk about which of those criteria can be applied in evaluating your project and how.

2: Reflective analysis

As a project manager, let’s consider some unforeseen circumstances. Considering the pandemic of Covid-19, University of Greenwich decides to change our conference from offline to online. Write a reflective report includes:

1) Highlight changes comparing with the offline conference regarding: a. Scope statement, b. WBS, c. Stakeholder management, d. Risk management;

2) How do you plan to cope with these changes (i.e. Do you need to change the budget? How will you arrange staffing? Any actions to cope with potential risks? Do you need to use different methods to cope with the project?)

3) Reflect what you have learnt from the planning for the changes. Think about how the project management theories/methods introduced in lectures guide you in this process, and how the experience help you enhance your understanding in the project management theories/methods.