Project Management Techniques

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Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Project Management Techniques assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

Learning Outcomes:

After completing the module, you should be able to:

Lo1. Apply and evaluate the concepts and principles of Project Management in different environments.

Lo2. Critically evaluate a range of project management strategies and approaches,

Lo3. Critically evaluate a range of methodologies, competency frameworks and maturity models.

Lo4. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the personal skills and competencies of a professional project manager

Lo5. Apply advanced principles of leading and managing project teams to solve complex problems

Lo6. Be capable of performing professional project management skills at the APM level D competence level and exhibit some of the competencies expected at level C.

Lo7. Professional Skills: Perform effectively within the professional environment. Work within a team, demonstrating interpersonal skills such as effective listening, negotiating, persuading and presentation. Be flexible and adaptable to changes within the professional environment.

Assignment Task

Question 1

You are a manager within an organisation of your choice. Your organisation has decided on a new environmental policy and has tasked managers to review their current suppliers and assess the environmental impact of current supplier choices. Suppliers need to be reviewed with regards to the carbon footprint of deliveries from these suppliers, their environmental policies and their commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility. NB: You do not actually need to undertake a review, but to consider how to plan such a review as a project.

Task 1

a) Confirm why this request could be considered to be a project and confirm its scope and likely key deliverables and constraints

b) Evaluate the importance of stakeholder analysis to successful projects and include a stakeholder analysis for undertaking such a task. This should consider of all stakeholder needs and interests from the project and identify who can participate / is needed to contribute towards the project to optimise its success.

c) Given that this will require a review of a number of current suppliers, provide an explanation as to how the task schedule would be developed and presented, and how this might align with a Project Initiation Document / Business Case

d) Explain how the project’s performance will be monitored, including justification of the techniques which you propose to use. (LO 2, 3, 5, 6) (60 Marks)

Task 2

For the project in task 1, critically analyse the process you would follow to produce a detailed plan, post project approval. Provide justification and state how the plan could be developed. Advise and justify the expected lifecycle of this project and how this impact on project planning. This should include an evaluation of a range of planning tools covering each aspect of the iron triangle such as WBS, RBS, Gantt and Budget. Illustrate how these would look in practice with reference to this project. We are not looking for accuracy regarding contents, just an illustration as to what each planning tool might include. (LO 1, 6) (20 marks)

Question 2

Reflect on your learning from the PMT module and consider the tasks which you would require to undertake to plan and implement a project such as the one above.

Identify:

a) the key personal skills and competencies of a project manager

b) key challenges with regards to project management practices

c) how might your behaviour / approaches to project management be different as a result of your learning

d) further personal development required to enable you to confidently practice project management in the future (LO 4, 7) (20 Marks) Page 5 of 7