Project Management Assignment

                     PPMP20009 Project Management Methodology
                                    Assessment Specification
                                       Written Assessment

Objectives

This assignment is designed to encourage the development of ability to apply project management concepts, methodologies, standards and frameworks to new situations, the ability to explain reasons why organizations adopt project methodology, the ability to critically analyses the impact of project management methodologies upon stakeholders, the ability to compare and contrast how different domains might apply project management methodologies and finally the ability to explain and justify

the major elements of a project management methodology that might meet the needs of an organization.

These objectives will be measured by the ‘closeness of fit’ to meeting the requirements and the assessment criteria below.

General Assessment Criteria

Incomprehensible submissions. Assessments provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to achieve the required standard. To do this, assessment responses need to be both clear and easy to understand. If not, the University cannot determine that students have demonstrated their knowledge and skills. Assessments will, therefore, be marked accordingly including the potential for 0 (zero) marks where relevant.

Late penalty. Late submissions will attract penalties at 5% for each calendar day or part thereof that it is late of the total available mark for the individual assessment item. This means that, for an assessment worth 40 marks, the mark that you earn is reduced by 2 marks each calendar day that the assessment is late (including part-days and weekends). See Section 4.58 (hereinafter ‘s4.58’ to denote a Section) in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Deadline. The deadline for this assignment is 23:55:00 AEST on Week 12 Friday. All students are encouraged to start working on this assignment from Week 6 and work progressively on this assignment. Extensions will NOT be available to students who are unable to cope with ordinary study load. See s5.51 in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Check with the marking criteria. Before submitting your assignment you should check it against the assessment criteria included in this specification to ensure that you have satisfactorily addressed all the criteria that will be used to mark your assignment.

Academic language. All submissions should be thoroughly proof-read for spelling, typographical or grammatical errors before being submitted. Do not rely on the ‘spell-check’ function in your word processing program. If, for example, ‘affect’ is substituted for ‘effect’, your program may not detect

the error.

Academic Integrity

copied from other sources) using TurnItIn (TII). If you are found to have plagiarised material or if you have used someone else’s words without appropriate referencing, you will be penalised for plagiarism which could result in zero marks for the whole assignment. In some circumstances a more severe

penalty may be imposed. The link to the University’s Academic Misconduct Procedures is available in the unit profile.

Useful information about academic integrity (avoiding plagiarism) can be found at: CQUniversity referencing guides

https://www.cqu.edu.au/student-life/services-and-facilities/referencing/cquniversity-referencingguides

Submission requirements

Who to submit? This assignment is a group assignment for on-campus and Distance Education students (hereinafter “DE students”) alike. One and only one student in the group will be elected to

submit the designated documents on behalf of the entire group. All other students must not submit.

What to submit? Your response to the following assignment tasks in ONE MS Word format (.doc or .docx) need to be submitted. No other document formats are accepted, in particular, no PDF files,

RTF, Apple Pages, Google Docs are accepted.

No Zipped files. Students must NOT zip the MS Word document and submit it as one single zip/

compressed file.

Means of submission. All assignments must be submitted electronically to Moodle. The submission

links can be accessed through the Assessment block on the Moodle unit website. Physical copies/

Email submissions are not accepted.

Auto-submission. Moodle implements an auto-submission process for those items uploaded and leftas drafts before the original deadline. However, any assessments uploaded after the original deadline must be manually submitted by the students.

Please note that auto-submission process does not work for assessments which have extensions. Auto submission only works where the original deadline of an assessment has not changed. If you are submitting after the deadline (original or extended), you must complete the Moodle submission process. Further details on completing the submission process are available via the ‘Moodle Help for Students’ link in the SUPPORT block of your Moodle pages.

Warning. Having said that, however, you should not completely rely on Moodle’s auto-submissionfunctionality because it has not been proved to be reliable in the past. Each student should make surethey submit their assignment before the deadline by manually clicking on the submission button.

Complete and correct submission. Assignments, once submitted, are final and therefore cannot be modified. Students bear all the onus to ensure that their submissions are correct (correct files in

correct format) and complete before submitting to Moodle.

Assignment Tasks

Group/Individual assignment. This assignment is a group assignment for all students. Each group consists of 2 or 3 students. The Group formation and registration guidelines are provided in this document.

Instructions. You are required to address a number of tasks given in the case study. You need to first read the following case.

The case. You are working in a leading project management consulting firm. This week is one of your busiest week - four of your clients are pressing you for solutions to their long standing issues:

Client A is a leading software development firm, specialised in website and mobile software development. They provide customised web solutions to local and established businesses, for

example, they developed an online ordering and delivering system for a local fish and chips store, a website for a local realestate agency and a learning content management system for a high school.

Most of their customers know exactly what functionalities they need for their website. Most of them would also provide a reference point for their website in mind. For example, the owner of that fish

and chips store has instructed that they wanted a website similar to Pizzahut/Domino’s website that allows their customers to place order online, process payment online and track food delivery. Most of them understand their business model and would be able to give clear instructions about their requirement. For web development, Client A are dealing with customers in traditional industry where

the business model is well established. They found that their website requirement are stable and not prone to changing.

Their mobile development section, however, are dealing primarily with start-up companies. Most of them wanted to develop small-ish apps to test the market so that they can turn their ideas into cash

flow as quickly as possible. Their ideas are immature and constantly changing and your team is snowed under their change requests.

Adam is the Chief Technology Officer for your Client A, and he believes Agile Methodology is the only choice for IT projects. Whenever you have an IT project, the answer must be Agile Methodology.

All other traditional methodologies are age-old and less effective. In a private meeting you had earlier with Adam, he said: “I am planning to roll out Agile Methodology to the entire firm. Agile

Methodology is specifically designed for IT projects to replace traditional methodologies,e.g.waterfall, and therefore all IT projects must adopt Agile Methodology.”

Client B operates in engineering and construction domain. Since 1998, they have been creating innovative designs and building quality homes for Australians. The founder started with the burning

desire to build homes for Australians where they would truely love to live. “Our commitment to quality and excellence in home design has helped us become Australia’s market leader in new home

design and construction”, their Chief Operations Officer, Barbara, said, “we offer the biggest range of new home designs in Australia. With hundred of floor plans, we build new homes for every budget

and lifestyle.” 
Barbara has always wanted to incorporate PMBoK into construction projects in her company, but she never understood how PMBoK is a project management methodology.

“I mean, there are 10 knowledge areas and 47 processes, each belongs to one of the 5 process groups.

But it does not tell you which process I need to start with. These processes all seem interrelated, but nowhere in PMBoK does it indicate the chronological sequence of the processes I need to follow.”,

Barbara asked.

“No, it doesn’t. PMBoK does not specify any order for these processes. But it gives you the flexibility

of arranging and tailoring them into a step-wise methodology that suits your projects”, you answered.“This is where I need your help with. Tailor PMBoK into a step-wise methodology that suits the

projects in our company.”

“Well, how about telling me more about a typical project in your company”.

“That’s easy. This is what I do day in and day out: after our customer decides to build their dream

home with us, the entire process is divided into two stages: pre-construction and construction. Preconstruction

involves our customer selection of floor plans and details of their home, signingcontracts, obtaining approvals and permits from city council, and preparing the site to ensure everything it is ready for construction. The first step in the construction stage, known as base,involves excavation, site drainage installation and pouring the slab for the building. Then comes the frame stage where the builder erect the wall frame and roof trusses. Next is the exterior. The key

activities that occur during this stage include the installation of all windows, of the fascia and gutter,the roof covering, the completion of brickwork, and external cladding and fitting of external doors.

After the exterior is completed, we move on to the interior steps where we hang the plaster, complete architraves and skirting, install stairs in double storey homes, install baths, basins, troughs and sinks,fix internal doors, cabinets, shelves and cupboards. The next step is the final touches where we finalise the interior and exterior details of the house, for example, floor and wall tiling, internal and

external painting, installing tap ware, shower screens, mirrors, electrical, light points and switches,heating and cooling vents and garage doors. Then it will be ready for our customers’ inspection. If

they are happy with it, then we will book a settlement day to hand over their new home to them.”

“Also,” Barbara added, “the plan for the construction stage cannot be fixed because there are a lot of variables only determined by the customers and their city council in the pre-construction stage.”

“I think I have something for you”, you replied confidently, “we will work out an implementation

plan for you.”

Client C is one of the major accounting firms in Australia, specialised in tax services for businesses.

They offer efficient, cost-effective tax compliance services, including co-sourcing and outsourcing options. For each reporting cycle, a customer’s income tax reporting or their Business Activity

Statement (BAS) lodgement can be viewed as a project. For large businesses, they normally assign asmany as 8 - 15 accountants working on the project. “The work is not hard once you get into it, ”

Catherine, the CEO of the firm, says, “it normally does not take more than 3 weeks, but it requires an immense amount of cooperation and involvement of our customers. We constantly need their clarifications on transactions”.

“We would like to have a documented approach to our project, and communicate it to all stakeholders including our customers,” Catherine requested, “now everyone is busy with everything, customers do not cooperate as much as we would like them to. There seems a lack of a systematic methodology for

our projects”.

“Our team will work out something for you.” You replied assuringly.

Client D sends David, their Director of Teaching of Learning Support Division, to you. Client D is a reputable high school with over 1000 enrolled students and over 50 full time teachers. Most recently,David noticed that students are not preforming as well as they used to in their end of semester test,and it is statistically significant that students are not doing as well as their peers from last year. David worried that if this situation becomes worse, it could put the reputation of the School in jeopardy.

“What do you think where the problems are?” You asked curiously.

“I really don’t know,” David answered anxiously, “it’s like a black box, I only see the average grade coming out of the blackbox, and it doesn’t look good. I have zero ideas about what went wrong inside

of the black box.”

“Well, I think we will need to first figure out the cause to the problem. Hmmm…How motivated are teachers in improving student’s marks. Do you have any measurement for teaching quality?”

“Well, we rely completely on students’ evaluations. At the end of each term, students provide evaluations to their teachers.”

“Do you think students’ evaluations are always a true reflection of teaching quality?” You asked“hmmm…I am not sure, but we have always been using it, no one has ever thought about changing it”

David replied honestly.

“That process may need to be improved. How about students’ attendance?”

“Well…I’m not sure. We have not been collecting attendance information”.

“David!” You shout out, “I think I know what the problems are. I think your School needs a continuous improvement plan”.

“A continuous improvement plan?”, David asked, looking puzzled.

“Yes! A continuous improvement plan is a set of activities designed to bring gradual, ongoing improvement to product, services or processes through constant review, measurement and action. In

your case, you will need a continuous improvement plan for ongoing improvement of teaching and learning activities. But first you will need to find out what the causes to the problems are. There are a number of tools and techniques to help. I will also work out a plan for you to monitor key performance indicators and purpose a continuous improvement plan for you”.

“That would be awesome!” David replied cheerfully.

Assignment tasks You need to address ALL the following tasks.

Task A. (5 marks) Do you agree or disagree with Adam’s statement that Agile Methodology is specifically designed for IT projects to replace traditional methodologies, e.g.

waterfall, and therefore all IT projects must adopt Agile Methodology.

Write an essay of 500-600 words. Your essay should be argumentative not descriptive. The essay SHOULD NOT focus on educating the reader what is Agile Methodology or what is Waterfall

Methodology. Introduce your thesis statement (your standing on the topic) and summarise your key argument in the introduction. You should undertake extensive research for this tasks, and you are

required to include a minimum of 5 references in the Reference list.

Task B. (12 marks) Examine the following statement

PMBoK with its five process group, namely initiating, planning, executing, monitions and controlling and closing, dictates a Waterfall methodology. PMBoK suggests project managers to walk through these Groups in a neat and linear order. PMBoK is a standardised waterfall approach. With PMBoK,you plan for the entire project once and only once.

Write an essay of 1000 - 1100 words, including:

(1) To what extent do you agree or disagree with the statement above? (2) Based on your position on the statement above, customise and tailor (if necessary) the PMBoK approach for Client B and provide, in specific terms, how PMBoK processes should be arranged into a step-wise methodology for typical projects in Client B’s company. (3) Provide, in the appendix, a pictorial illustration of your suggested methodology. (4) Analyse what impact of your proposed methodology have on various stakeholders (discuss at least three stakeholders, including the customer and suppliers).

You should undertake extensive research for this tasks, and you are required to include a minimum of 5 references in the Reference list.

Your essay should NOT:

(1)only focus on educating the reader what is PMBoK or what is Waterfall methodology. Assume that your reader have a basic understanding of PMBoK and Waterfall methodology. Your essay should be argumentative and analytical rather than descriptive in nature; and

(2) discuss PMBoK in broad and general terms. Note that this is a case study, and your writing needs to be closely related to the case; and

(3) provide or simply download from the Internet a generic illustration of PMBoK. You are tasked to create your own customised PMBoK-based methodology for Client B by arranging the processes into a step-wise methodology.

Task C. (8 marks) Write an essay of 1000 - 1100 words that advises both Client A and Client C a suitable project management methodology or methodologies. Your essay should (1) propose a methodology or methodologies for both Client A and Client C;
(2) comment in particular on whether you think the methodology needs to be tailored to suits either client. If so, what customisation have you made?
(3) critically argue why you believe the selected methodolog(ies) are the most suitable;
(4) provide an implementation plan for both Client A and C under your proposed methodology.

In your essay, make sure your logic is sound. In the past, many students have written their argument like the following:

“I choose waterfall methodology because waterfall methodology is a sequential method.”

That is not a sound reason for your choice. “I like apples because apples are sweet”does not complete the logic.“I like apples because they are sweet and I like to eat sweet fruits.” would be better.

Similarly, just stating waterfall methodology is a sequential method is not enough - it begs the question why sequential method should be used for this particular kind of project? Make sure you link

your argument with factual information given in the case study.

You should undertake extensive research for this tasks, and you are required to include a minimum of 5 references in the Reference list.

Task D. (15 marks) Write a 2000 - 2200 words report, providing a continuous improvement plan

solution for Client D. Specifically your report should include the following.

1. Title page: (each) student name (in your group), (each) student number (in your group), (each) student email address (in your group, use CQU email), title of your report, local lecturer/tutor, and

unit coordinator. Not counted towards the word count.

2. Executive summary.

3. Table of Contents (ToC): should list the report (sub)sections in decimal notation. Create the To C using MS Word’s ToC auto-generator rather than manually typing out the ToC. Instructions can be found here: https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Create-a-table-of-contents-or-update-a-table-ofcontents-eb275189-b93e-4559-8dd9-c279457bfd72#__create_a_table. Not counted towards the word count.

4. Introduction.

5. Body of the report (use appropriate headings in the body of the report) should include: (1) tools and techniques available to David to locate the cause of the problem; (2) discuss in relation to the 7

basic quality control tools how David can keep track of key performance measures. Out of the 7 QC tools, provide 2 specific examples how these 2 tools can be used to achieve the intended goal.Suggest any other tools, besides the basic 7 QC tools, can be used to the same effect; (3) provide a high-level continuous improvement plan and a detailed implementation plan for David and his School; (4) anticipate difficulties (from various stakeholders, e.g. parents, students, teachers) that may arise when implementing the proposed plan, identify at least two issues and propose solutions to each of them; and lastly (5) what are the long-term benefit of your proposed continuous

improvement plan.

6.Conclusion.

7.Reference list: all references must be in Harvard Referencing Style. Not counted towards the word

count.You should undertake extensive research for this tasks, and you are required to include a minimum of 5 references in the Reference list.

Marking Criteria

TASK A (5 MARKS)

- Introduction (1 mark)

The submission introduced the background, clearly stated the author’s standing on the topic and

summarised key argument.

- Body (2.5 marks)

Material in body is logically and clearly sequenced; thorough research is indicated; professional use

of sources to support ideas, well integrated, sources are credible. The argument advanced are on topic

and are logically sound.

- Conclusion (0.5 marks)

Key argument are summarised.

- Academic writing (1 mark)

Professional level of referencing and acknowledgement. Thorough and consistent reference list that

complies with CQU Harvard Referencing style. Grammatical and typographical error free.

TASK B (12 MARKS)

- Standing on the PMBoK statement (3 marks)

- Description of the PMBoK-based approach to Client B (3 marks)

- Pictorial illustration of the methodology (3 marks)

- Impact of the selected methodology on stakeholders (3 marks - 1 mark for each stakeholder)

TASK C (8 MARKS)

- Proposal of methodolog(ies) (0.5*2 = 1 mark)

- Comments on the necessity of customisation (1 * 2 = 2 marks)

- Justification of the choice (1.5 * 2 = 3 marks)

- Implementation plan for both clients (1 * 2 = 2 marks)

TASK D (15 MARKS)

- The format of a Report (1 mark) including a title page, Executive summary, ToC, Introduction,

Body, Conclusion and Reference list

- Academic writing (2 marks) Professional level of referencing and acknowledgement. Thorough and

consistent reference list that complies with CQU Harvard Referencing style. Grammatical and

typographical error free.

- Introduction (1 mark)

- Tools and techniques to find the cause of the problem (2 marks)

- The Basic 7 QC tools (2 marks)

- Continuous improvement and implementation plan (3 marks)

- Difficulties and solutions (2 marks)

- Long term benefit (1 mark)

- Conclusion (1 mark)

Group Formation, Registration and Administration Guidelines

To ensure your success in this group assignment, please read and follow these guidelines regarding group formation, registration and administration.

Formation

Group size. Each group consists of 2 or 3 students. Groups of more than 3 students must be split into two or more groups. Given the amount of work students need to undertake in this assignment, it is

highly suggested that student form a group of 3 students. Students may be added by the local tutor/lecturer to groups that consists of less than 3 students after Week 6.

Inter-tutorial groups. Students must only form groups within the tutorial group that s/he is enrolled in. No inter-tutorial groups are allowed. DE students will group with other DE students.

Stay in the same group. Students must stay in the same group for this assessment.

Freedom to form groups before the deadline. Subject to the provisions in this document, students have the freedom to choose their group members before the registration deadline. After the

registration deadline, however, those who are not in a group will be allocated to a group by the local tutor/lecturer.

Group Charter. A sample Group Charter has been attached to this document in Schedule 1. The Group Charter is an instrument to help establish team roles, cohesion and on time delivery while

minimissing potential conflicts. Members should agree on the elements and establish ground rules at the time of the formation of your group.

Registration

Deadline. The deadline for group registration is 11:45pm AEST Friday Week 6.

Penalty for not registering before the deadline. Students who have not registered before the

deadline receive no penalty on their marks; they will, however, lose the freedom to form a group on

their own. Local lecturers/tutors will assign them into a group.

Means of registration. To register your group, students must send their local tutor an email with

“[PPMP20009] Group Registration” in the subject line. In the body of that email, students must list

out the name and their student ID for each member in their group. The registration email must arrive

at their tutor’s inbox before the registration deadline to be constituted as a valid registration.

DE Students. DE students should use general discussion forum on Moodle to introduce yourself to other DE students and form groups with other DE students and DE students only. The Unit

Coordinator is your “local” lecturer/tutor.

Administration

Conflicts. The Group Charter will help you to establish rules and procedures to resolve conflicts

within your group. If there is anything that you think you will need to involve your tutor/lecturer,please do not hesitate to do so.

Burden to prove. If you make any allegation against any other group members, you bear the evidential onus to prove your allegation.

Group marks. Everyone in the same group will receive the same mark unless:

(1) there is any issue brought to the attention of the tutor and

(2) the tutor finds it is fundamentally unfair to give every group member the same mark.

Students may be removed from a group. In some circumstances, students may be removed from their group due to their significant lack of contribution. Once it happens, students being removed from

a group will need to undertake all assessment individually from the time they are removed. The marking standard and criteria will remain the same.Schedule 1.A sample Group Charter This is a sample Group Charter that can be used by groups if they wish or required by the local lecturer. This is only an example with some of the basic elements, and teams may wish to modify the details to suit the assessment requirements and group purpose.

Group Details

Aiming marks: HD/D/C/P/F

Group established date/week:

Group leader:

Group member details:

Communication Plan/Requirement

Communication method: CQU Email / Text Message / Phone Call / Whatsapp / Facebook /WeChat / Others:

Group communication frequency and relevant details:

Deemed Receipt Time. The deemed receipt time is the time that the message is able to be retrieved from the server, that is, in case of email, it is the time when the email arrives at your inbox; in case of

text message, it is the time you receive that message.

Expected Response Time. All group members must reply emails within 48 hours of the deemed receipt time; and must reply text messages within 24 hours of the deemed receipt time.

If any group member does not reply to emails/phone calls/text messages, we will take the following

steps to resolve this matter:

Meeting Plan/Requirements

Meeting Methods/locations:

Meeting Frequency and length:

Record keeping of meetings and decisions: [Who is responsible]

Excuses. The following are not recognised as valid excuses in this group to be absent from a

scheduled group meeting.

1. I live very far from the city and it is very inconvenient for me to travel to the University.

2. I have got part time job, and cannot make it to the group meeting.

Group Member Responsibilities

1. How will the members ensure overall fairness and respect within the group?

2. How will the group ensure fairness and equity in assessment task allocation?

3. What if a member does not agree with the task allocation or other group decisions?

4. How will the group ensure high quality standard of work before submission/presentation?

5. How will the group ensure on time delivery of tasks by the group members?

6. What is the process to ensure quality control of tasks?

7. What will the group do if one or more members do not meet deadlines and/or continues to provide

less effort on a regular basis (e.g. lateness to meetings, not enough attention, missing task

deadlines)?

8. What are the penalties for non-compliance with requirements as in point 7 above?

9. How will the group consider one-off individual emergency situations?

10. What is the mechanism to resolve issues within the group?

11. What is the mechanism to escalate issues if they cannot be resolved within the group?

12. What will the members do if they don’t agree with the group leadership?

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