Project Management
Produce some project documentation for a fictitious case study project. This is different to cases from previous years so as to avoid the possibility of you plagiarising work from students in previous cohorts.
You will choose one case study and use the same one for both assignments, completing the following tasks:
Assignment 1
Work breakdown Structure containing at least 20 items in the WBS. The WBS should be presented in a suitable manner, either in the form of a suitably referenced diagram that must include dependencies, milestones and a hierarchy of tasks or as a bulleted list with sub tasks etc. in which case dependencies will need to be shown separately.
You are free to deliver this as a Gantt chart (use MS Project to develop this) but it is not required. All diagrams should be embedded into your report as images.
In addition include with this table two further referenced paragraphs, each typically 10-15 lines:
explaining how a WBS can be used to help manage the tasks on a project, and;
a further paragraph briefly explaining the importance of critical path analysis.
Assignment 2
Produce a short report written directly to the project sponsor (approx. 2,000 words plus the contents of the risk register) containing the following three items:
A suggested risk register containing at least 10 fully documented risks, including owner, mitigation and contingency actions, pre-and post- action weighting and scores and a (referenced) paragraph (typically 10-15 lines) to the sponsor explaining why such a register is important
An explanation of the difference between project leadership and general leadership/management as the sponsor seems to think anyone can lead and manage projects and does not understand the unique difficulties project management presents.
An analysis and critique of methodologies that might be used to run the project case study, principally comparing Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 methodologies (cover all three). Explain their strengths and weaknesses and give your recommendation to the sponsor as to which methodology you believe would be best to use.
Project Management Case Study Options – Choose One Only
Case scenario 1
You are a keen football player and have been asked by your local club (The Roehampton Rovers) to act as Project Manager for a SW London inter-club tournament to take place on a Saturday and Sunday in July or August. Your club chairman is friends with Roehampton University’s Vice-Chancellor and has got the VC to agree to the university’s grounds being used as a location for the tournament (partly because it helps publicise the university and its campus) with proceeds going to charity. The university will supply the grounds free of charge. Local teams will each pay a small fee to compete and spectators will be charged a small entry fee as well. You will need to organise the whole event including agreeing the charity to be sponsored, bringing in any external suppliers that could help raise more money, such as catering, sportswear retailers and any number of other possible local ‘stallholders’ in order to make the whole event as much of a festival of sport as possible and raise loads of money at the same time. Assume you have the full academic year to organise this, with the events taking place in July or August on the Roehampton University playing fields. You are hoping to get at least 20 teams to take part.
Case Scenario 2
The university wishes to improve the informal breakout spaces available for business students and has asked you to project manage the refurbishment and redevelopment of a part of the ground floor on the east side of Queens Building to create a new informal breakout space specifically for undergraduate business students. The university’s Facilities Management department will bring in their subject matter expertise and specialist fitters but you need to drive the project from a student and staff perspective and ensure that the design and fitting out of the space is fit for purpose and gives students somewhere they will want to be when not in class, for social, informal group work or relaxation space. You have a provisional budget of £50,000 and you have been asked to ensure the space can support up to 50 students at a time. Bear in mind that the work must not cause disruption to teaching timetables and you have been asked to ensure it is ready in advance of the autumn open days if not before.
Case Scenario 3
In order to provide maximum opportunities for all students and to help address diversity issues and promote/support inclusion policies the National Union of Students wants to create a platform and opportunity for cross-university interaction for social activity, clubs and societies for universities across London, eventually with a view to rolling it out nationally. Each London-based university has agreed to provide some money and resources proportionate to its student enrolment numbers to help create a new mobile phone app which will provide day by day details of all university clubs and societies’ events, links to contact details and the freedom for students to publicise their own events. You work for Roehampton’s Student Union which is the Union taking the lead on this pan-London project (the VC wants the publicity) and you have been asked to project manage the development of this, building a team of representatives from other universities and driving the gathering of all that may be required to help a development team from O2 (one of their directors is a former Roehampton Business School student) build an effective app. The app is being sponsored by O2 and they are providing technical services to build the app (so you do not need to worry about that) but you need to organise the process so that O2 knows what to build, what goes in it and when to get it done. You do not have a budget for this as you are paid by the SU already and will be relying largely on volunteers from around Roehampton. You should assume you are starting this in Sept/Oct and need it ready by the following academic year.
Case Scenario 4
The Business School at the university has designed a new MSc degree course in Environmental and Sustainable Business (ESB), focusing on ethical and environmental business issues. A part of the validated course that has been agreed (so it MUST happen for the qualification to be valid) is that the students will all do a two week field trip to see some interesting sustainable projects. This could include countries such as Uganda or Costa Rica as well as parts of Brazil, Mexico, South Africa or India. The initial expectation is that the 50 students on the programme will go in small groups of roughly equal size and at least one group will go to each of these countries. It is intended that the trips take place in late April through to mid June, after the rest of their assignments have been submitted. You are an MSc Project Management student and the ESB Programme Convener has asked for your help in organising this trip (note it is now Sept so you have 6-7 months to put this in place). You are therefore doing so as a project management task which will be marked for your MSc in place of a standard dissertation. Each student will be funded a max of £2,000 to enable them to go. You will be expected to drop in on at least two of the groups in different countries so you are able to write a report afterwards as a part of your own MSc submission. Your costs (and those of staff going with each group) are entirely funded by the department.
