Project Management: Analysis and Reflection

Assessment Details

1. Establish conceptual understanding of the complex scenarios that multiple and major projects environments and settings have, including the relationships between projects, programmes or portfolios within host organisations.

2. Critically appraise existing project management knowledge and identify areas that can improve aspects of project delivery for stakeholders through the application of project management, theory or practice.

3. Critically reflect upon approaches to project problem-solving on real life projects, in order to evaluate, learn from, and adopt similar appropriate solutions in future professional practice.

4. Embrace critical thinking, to systematically identify, analyse, plan, produce, and then present, original work for academic review.

5. Embrace academic, ethical, and professional standards, through practice and conduct, whilst developing understanding of competence in project management.

Coursework Overview

Context statement: Projects are variously executed within or across volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments, that present various political, economic, social, technological, legal, or environmental (PESTLE) challenges. Project management provides a means of addressing these.

To help better understand project management practice and this context statement, the following coursework task is set. You are to self-select a Project Case Study, for the purposes of analysis and reflection. The ‘unit of analysis’ in this case study report ultimately remains that of project management practice.

Analysis: This written submission should fully introduce the ‘case’, provide a project description, and position it within a wider PPP context, before identifying and analysing the key project challenges faced, evaluating the solutions produced, to articulate those ‘lessons learned’ that can inform future project management practice.

Reflection: Through theoretical, and evidence-based perspectives, reflect also upon the key elements of project management practice that you perceive have been applied on the selected project case. Discuss this by making use of current and salient academic (and relevant professional) literature from the subjects knowledge-base.

Therefore, the project case study acts a ‘contextual vehicle’ you use to absorb and discuss current knowledge in the discipline of Project Management.

Component 1 is worth 100% of the module. It will be submitted and assessed electronically, and it addresses all Module Learning Outcomes.

Coursework Tasks to be Completed by Students

Select a suitable case study project that is ripe for analysis. This could be a prominent, widely available case, where useful materials are readily and publicly available, or one that the student is currently, or has previously worked on. Such a project should only be one that you have normal access to information. If such a project is a ‘building’ or ‘live site’, then this should only be one that you have the ‘normal’, and ‘necessary’ permissions to access externally and/or internally (i.e. you are not to engage in any trespass of any building/site that you do not have normal permission to enter). Also note that you should not 'coldcontact' professionals to attempt to arrange access to any project that you do not have normal access to.

If you need a discussion to advise if the proposed project is suitable for the purposes of case study analysis, then arrange to have this discussion with one of the module tutors by teaching week 6. In addition to the case study analysis, you should throughout the module, be equipping yourself on aspects of contemporary Project Management practice. To do this and develop your topic specific knowledge and understanding, and help you develop your intellectual skills and abilities in this subject,

you are to engage with the academic and professional literature around the art, science, and discipline of Project Management.

The work is to be appropriately structured and supported through ‘academic’ research using appropriate and quality references which are cited correctly throughout. A separate references list must also be provided at the end of the document.

This written work should be formatted using ‘Arial’ font, of font size ‘11’, with 1.5 line spacing.

The upper maximum limit for this work is 4,000 words. This word count includes:

Any abstract (if provided).

The main body of text.

In text citations.

Direct quotations from primary or secondary source material.

Title & Contents page.

Words within tables, figures, and illustrations.

Glossary.

Footnotes.

§ The work must form a structured and coherent whole. No contents page or superfluous front matter is required. Only a basic front sheet for the submission is to be provided, that identifies the student number (not name), the total number of words used (excluding references section), and the number of figures/tables used.

§ 'Footnotes'/’Endnotes’ will be permitted, as they can offer sufficient value, providing, their use is minimal, sufficiently concise, and appropriate - they offer only 'clarifying' information, or add

'adjacent' value to the sentences already written. In other words, they are not to be used to 'hide' words that would otherwise normally be expected to be contained within the main body of the text, and their use will be considered in accordance with the University policy regarding word limits.