| Assessment:Individual Coursework Weighting:80% |
| Module Title:Project Management – People and Organisations |
| Submission Due Date: @ 16:00 30th December 21 |
| Word Count:3,000 |
| This assessment relates to the following module learning outcomes: Knowledge and Understanding A1. Demonstrate knowledge of traditional and contemporary approaches to the management of organisational aspects of projects. A2. Appreciate the temporary nature, specific dynamics, and potential diversities of project environments, characterised as: multinational, multidisciplinary, multi objective and multi stakeholder. A3. Understand the roles of project leader and manager and their required competencies. A4. Appreciate the value of effective teamwork, participative approach, and stakeholders’ managementin projects. A5. Demonstrate understanding of the impacts of organisational dynamics on project success or failure. Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills B1. Critically analyse projects’ contexts, challenges and dynamics considering the pluralistic nature of projects and project organisations and regardless of their industry. B2. Analyse the effect of projects’ organisational structures, management, and leadership in project success. Transferable and Generic Skills C1. Apply an analytical, reflective, and critical approach to problem analysis and resolution. C2. Work effectively in project teams as a team member, manager, or leader. C3. Report and present ideas in writing or orally. |
| 1. Introduction to the Coursework This is an individual coursework (cw) of 3,000 words, worth 80% of the total mark for the module. The coursework intends to assess the depth and breadth of your appreciation, reflection and critical analysis of the organisational and people aspects of project management. |
- Coursework Components
- Essay 1 Analysis of and reflection on your teamwork
2.1.1 Aims of Essay 1
Essay 1 aims at evaluating your capability in: describing a team’s dynamics; identifying potential weaknesses and strengths in teamwork; critically analysing a team’s performance and its influencing factors; self-reflecting on your own strengths, weaknesses and performance in the team. You should reflect on whether and how different approaches could have led to different outcomes in the context of the given teamwork and demonstrate your leanings through this teamwork.
2.1.2 Contents of Essay 1
The essay is a 1,000-word analysis and reflection on ‘teamwork dynamics’ based on the knowledge learned throughout People and Organisation. Throughout this essay you should clearly demonstrate that you have used formal and academic project management knowledge (from lectures, journal papers, textbooks) in developing any of the above items (rather than intuitive descriptions and reasoning).
The ‘teamwork’ you need to reflect on is your real experience of working within your team for Project Management process group assignment. Please contact me if this is not clear or if you have any questions.
Initially, you need to identify the main issues and subjects of significance in your ‘teamwork’, which had the most impact on the team’s dynamics and you and other members’ experiences. These might have positively and/or negatively affected your teamwork atmosphere, collaboration, outcome, etc.
Then you need to clearly describe and analytically and critically discuss these issues from different aspects (for example, communication, motivation, conflict management, team roles and natural roles, etc.) as learned throughout the lectures and further academic papers/books.
Important note: the selected issues should be relevant to the ‘people and organizational aspects of project management’ as covered in People and Organisation (and NOT the ‘process’ aspects covered in Project Management process). If in doubt, please consult me for further guidance.
Here are the main and general areas you have to cover in your essay (see marking scheme and grade descriptor for further details). To fully organise your text, you should use appropriate titles and subtitle. You should decide on the word count of each section as appropriate:
a. Introduction to the essay and problem statement (15%)
- Teamwork discussion and analysis (60%)
c. Conclusions (25%)
Please pay careful attention to the weight for each section, specially the conclusions. With 25%, this section should obviously go beyond a simple and general summary rather than repeating what you have previously stated. It should at least clearly state your main findings, lessons learned and actions for your future teamwork.
2.1.3 Further Guidance
To prepare the initial outline of your essay and to facilitate your writing up, you should identify the main (possibly interdependent) issues relevant to your teamwork. You can then select a set of worth to explore issues/incidents and/or questions the essay seeks to answer. Depending on the unique circumstances, dynamics of your team and your personal views, these issues and questions could be different for each of you even if you have worked in the same team. You can find some ideas and examples of typical content of the essay in the marking scheme.
Important note: Project management and specifically team issues are highly interdependent so pay careful attention to the cause-effect relations and connections between your selected issues. These are essential to note, discuss and analyse so that you can enhance coherence and enrich your essay (e.g., impacts of team communication on the quality of collaboration or team conflicts).
- Essay 2 Analysis of the people side of a large project from your country
2.2.1 Aims of Essay 2
Essay 2 aims at evaluating your capability in: describing organisational and people aspects of a given actual project; identifying weaknesses and strengths of the project from these aspects; critically analysing the project performance, success or failure in relation to these aspects; reflecting on whether and how taking different approaches could have led to different outcomes and ultimately, what you learned from these.
Throughout this essay, you should clearly demonstrate that you have used several academic project management knowledge and information from several valid project sources (e.g., the project’s or the relevant company’s website, formal news agency websites) in developing any of the above items.
2.2.2 Contents of Essay 2
The essay is a 2,000-word analytical and critical review of a ‘project’ based on the knowledge learned throughout People and Organisation and your extensive background studies (i.e. journal papers/books and project’s sources). For the essay, you need to select and review a controversial ‘project’ from your home country. It should have had high impacts on its main stakeholders at national or regional (e.g., a big province) levels (e.g. restructuring a major bank or an educational system, mechanising agricultural systems, or digitising the healthcare system). In some cases, you could use a project, which is part of a large programme or a project that had stopped before completion due to some major people or organisational issues.
There is no restriction in the industry or discipline of the project. Hence, you can select a project in line with your personal or career interests or in line with your previous educational backgrounds, and so on. Please consult me if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of your project or would like to make sure.
Examples of sources for finding such projects are websites of: public or large private organisations; city councils, ministries, municipalities; PM professional bodies or similar institutes (such as construction or financial institutes) active in your country; major and formal news agencies or international organisations who fund such projects (e.g., United Nations, UNICEF, World Bank). Consult the lecturer, in the rare case that no such sources could be accessed.
For the purposes of this essay, typically the project information accessible in ‘public domain’ would be most useful and enough.
Important point: Case studies used in People and Organisation and Project Management process are not acceptable for this essay. Also, very well-known and/or old projects, which their analysis have become extensively published in books, papers or websites in the form of case studies are not acceptable. These will not let you demonstrate your own capabilities and at the best, your essay will end up being a description and collection of others’ analysis and insights. One way to test this is Googling the name of the project and if there are many results for the project stakeholder analysis in journals and various websites, the project is not appropriate.
Examples of projects not to choose are as below. Note that the list is not exhaustive, so check your project with me if you are in doubt:
- Projects on Airports, Airplanes, Olympics, World Cups, NHS-related, O2, Scottish Parliament, Channel Tunnel, NASA, Three Gorges Dam, Grenfell Tower, Bicycle sharing projects in China, Uber, Disney, Tesco in China, M&S and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, One Tablet Per Child project in Thailand; Demonetization in India; Garden Bridge London; HS2; London transport (Metro, tube, underground, …); Millennium Dome..
- Projects, which were completed before 2018 (contact me if you are interested in a unique project that has finished before 2018 or has not been finished but meets other criteria).
Here are the main and general areas to be covered in your essay (see marking scheme and grade descriptor for much further details)
Your essay should cover the following three main areas in a structured and precise manner with most relevant and essential information for the purposes of this essay. Choose appropriate titles and subtitle to structure and organise your text. You should individually decide on the appropriate word count allocated to each of these areas (lecturer will not suggest numbers):
· Introduction to the essay and the project (15%)
- · Project discussion and analysis (60%)
· Conclusions (25%)
Please pay careful attention to the above weights, specially the conclusions. With 25%, this section should obviously go beyond a simple and general summary, repeating the previous sections. It should at least clearly state your main findings, lessons learned and actions you will take for your future role as a project professional.
3. Essay Format
*Essay 1 and 2 should be submitted as single file, but each should have their own covering page, table of contents and word count.
Margin: Normal
Structure: Essays should have sections separated with relevant titles and subtitles as required.
Essays without titles and subtitle are hard to read and mark.
Paragraph: Should be ‘justified’. Avoid using very long paragraphs. Break very long paragraphs into manageable small ones with a clear central idea and a few relevant sentences focused on one or two clear themes. (Additional info: You could ask the Library for Study Skills textbooks and other available sources)
Titles Font: Larger than 12, bold, and should be easily distinguished from the body text.
Font of the Body of Essays: 12, Times New Roman or Arial.
Figures and Tables Font: 10 or 11 (preferred), Times New Roman or Arial. These should be very clear and easy to read if they are part of a copied picture or figure.
Cover page: Should include module code and name, title of the assignment and your student ID. At the bottom of this page, please provide the name or number of the ‘team’ (NOT the team members’ names) you worked with in Project Management process. The cw should be marked anonymously, so please avoid adding your or your team members’ names.
Table of Contents: provide the list of the titles and subtitles used in your text with their page numbers on the first page after the covering. At the bottom of the page, provide the essay’s ‘word count’.
4. Further Notes on Resources and Referencing
- Essential resources: It is absolutely necessary that you initially study the main references given for each topic in the lectures and then move on to further background studies using other resources. This will ensure you have appreciated the fundamentals as expected by the lecturers. It will also help you to select better and more relevant resources for your further studies, not a random selection of numerous PM resources, which might not be of a high quality or academically valid.
- Further resources: You are strongly advised to use a good range of relevant textbooks and papers from academic journals. See above point for more details.
- Correct citation: It is necessary to follow the Harvard referencing system as suggested by the University/School guidelines. More information: read this Library source: Cite Them Right.
- Lecture slides: Lecture slides are for teaching purposes in lectures and guiding you through your background studies. These are not designed as the only reading material for preparing coursework. So, if you miss a lecture, you will need to read the readings/references of a lecture much more carefully.
Lecture slides cannot be referenced or copy/paste to your essay. All lectures have reading and/or references lists, for your further and in-depth studies during your private study time.
5. Word Count
- Word count for the overall essay is 3,000: 1,000 for Essay 1 and 2,000 for Essay 2.
- For this essay, cover page, table of contents, references list, in-text tables and matrixes and attachment are not counted towards your word limit. For inclusion or non-inclusion of any other items, please refer to and follow the Business School word count (limit) policy. Use of tables are encouraged if appropriate but these should not be used for circumventing the word count.
- Please note +10% does NOT apply for this cw (the above allowances already provide you with more flexibility than the School’s policy anyway, so you are not allowed to go beyond the limit for none of the essays). You could have attachments if absolutely necessary and not for circumventing the word count.
6. Submission
You should only submit your coursework electronically. Your work will be marked electronically, and you will receive mark and feedback via e-grade. Make sure you submit the correct version of your work in your last submission attempt.
7. Further Guidance and Tips
- Balance your theoretical and actual data and discussions: High quality essays provide a reasonable balance between literature/theoretical discussions and the actual data (i.e. team experience for Essay 1 or project data and information for Essay 2). Such essays carefully select the main incidents from the teamwork (for Essay 1) and the project highlights (for Essay 2), which are worth to discuss and analyse. They focus on the most relevant theories and provide discussions, which add value in line with the essay purposes. You need to be selective and precise to get the best out of your word permit.
- Depth of your Essays: To add academic value to your essays, try to be as analytical, reflective and critical as you can throughout the essays.
- Follow the Coursework Instructions: Before you start working on the actual assignment, read these instructions carefully once more and review as many times as required while you are in the process of preparing the assignment. This will ensure you do not unintentionally deviate from the cw instructions and that your essay will cover all the tasks set here. Ask lecturers if you need further clarification on the instructions.
- Be (self-)reflective and critical: As you will learn in lectures, project management is a learning process so it does not affect your mark if you discuss, which parts of your team arrangements or your performance (in Essay 1) were not managed appropriately or needed improvement! Such reflections are indeed very valuable findings! It is important to demonstrate that: 1) You had been able to identify issues and better ways of working; 2) You had been able to learn lessons and are able to identify and reflect properly on your mistakes as much as on your good practices.
- Assessment workshop/surgery and office hours: One session (might be out of the lecture normal hours if Timetabling could find a time that the whole cohort is free) will be assigned to discussing assessment and giving feedback through answering your questions. I will also announce an office hour for answering your potential questions in due course. Note that this is not for the review of your draft or the detailed check of your analysis. Using these sessions and feedback opportunities could directly enhance the quality of your work.
**Please carefully read the next two pages for further important details provided.
Nature of Assessment: This is a SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT. See ‘Weighting’ section above for the percentage that this assignment counts towards your final module mark.
Word Limit: See the relevant section in the previous instructions.
You should always include the word count (from Microsoft Word), at the end of your coursework submission, before your list of references.
Title/Cover Page: You must include a title/ cover page that includes: your Student ID, Module Code, Assignment Title, Word Count. This assignment will be marked anonymously, please ensure that your name does not appear on any part of your assignment.
References: You should use the Harvard style to reference your assignment.
Submission Deadline: 30th Dec’21 before 16.00 for ALL assessments. Turnitin Submission: The assignment MUST be submitted electronically.
Check your assignment for plagiarism before you submit your final version.
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