Navigating Project Management Success: A Comprehensive Essay

On successful completion of this module students will be able to:

1.Critically analyse literature related to contemporary issues in project management;  

2.Critically appraise the role of project manager in implementing successful IT projects and the social, ethical and legal responsibilities of a successful projectmanager;

3.Create appropriate project management documentations such as business case, project charter, and Gantt chart and in doing so to demonstrate project management skills;  

4.Critically appraise project management approaches and methodologies.

Students will be required to produce a 1500 word project management report which should include and discuss project documents related to their project. These documents should include business case, project charter, work breakdown structure and a critical path. Students should also critically evaluate ethical, social and legal responsibilities during a project by referring to current project management literature. This assignment will be submitted in week 12.

Tasks / Deliverables of Assignment 2

Task-1: Prepare a business case for your selected project. Pay particular attention to the following areas in your project business case:

a)Strategic case for the project with a justification for undertaking the project. (10 Marks)

b)An evaluation of cost/benefits and risks of alternative options while providing a rationale for the selected options. (10 Marks)

c)A summary of the benefits (both tangible and non-tangible) that will arise from the completed project and any unavoidable drawbacks. (10 Marks)

Task-2: Prepare a project charter and based on this, design a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). You also need to develop a critical path for the work breakdown structure. (20 Marks)

Task-3: Evaluate the role of a project manager in the context of their ethical, social and legal responsibilities during a project. Critically evaluate how the project manager performed and give your judgment about the quality of the project manager’s work as well as their limitations. (15 Marks)

Task-4: Write a critical summary of the cost benefit analysis and quality assurance of the project management. How do these change the life cycle of the project? (25 Marks)

Although much of your report will contain existing body of knowledge, you must write your assignment in your own words to demonstrate your understanding of the subject. You are required to follow the Harvard referencing system when citing others' work. An accompanying list of references must also be provided as part of your report. Extensively referenced work reflects the level of research you conducted in the process of producing the document. It is also an acknowledgement of other people’s work. Correct referencing demonstrates your academic and professional skill. It also reflects your academic honesty and thus to some degree protects you from cases of plagiarism.

Please refer to Moodle for the latest version of the Roehampton Harvard referencing System or ask the library.

Academic Integrity is a matter that is taken very seriously at the university and student should endeavour to enforce it to all their assignments. In other words, plagiarism, collusion (working and copying from another student) and ghost writing will not be tolerated and will result in sanctions eg: capped resit, suspension and/or withdrawal.

Although you will be guided throughout the module by your lecturer, you can get extra support for your assignment, just make an appointment with the ACE team for any language, research and study skills issues and/or talk, email the Computing ACE expert for any advice on how to approach your assignment. REMEMBER: they are not here to give you the answers!

Students will have access to formative feedback on each task set in workshops, thereby helping them to refine their approach to the summative tasks that have been set

1.All components of the assignment report must be word processed (hand-written text or hand drawn diagrams are not acceptable), font size must be within the range of 12 point to 14 point including the headings, body text and any texts within diagrams.

2.Standard and commonly used fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri should be used.

3.Your document must be aligned left or justified with line spacing of 1.5.

4.All figures, graphs and tables must be numbered and labelled.

5.Material from external sources must be properly referenced and cited within the text using the Harvard referencing system.

6.All components of the assignment (text, diagrams. Code etc.) must be submitted in one pdf/Word file.

Prepare a business case for your selected project. (a) The business case must provide a strategic case (executive summary) and a justification for undertaking the project. (b) The business case must provide a rationale for your choice of project including costs, benefits and risk of alternate options while providing a rationale for the selected option. (c) You are required to provide a summary of the potential benefits the project will bring, and any potential drawbacks.

Prepare a project charter for the project. The project charter should clearly state the scope, objective and people participating in the project. Prepare a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) for the project from the project charter developed in task 1 of this assignment. A critical path analysis shows the shortest time to complete a project.  You are required to develop a critical path for the work breakdown structures developed in this task earlier.

A project manager is responsible for completing the project while observing all ethical, social and legal aspects during the completion of the project. You are required to evaluate the role of the project manager in this context. Critically discuss the main tasks the project manager performed during the project, and give your judgment about the quality of the project manager’s work.

Cost benefit analysis and other quality assurance activities are part of the project evaluation process. In this task, you are required to write a critical summary of the cost-benefit analysis and other quality assurance activities. How do these reflect the life cycle of a project?

Your report is well laid out and formatted according to the given requirements. Your report is free from grammatical and spelling errors. The Harvard referencing style has been used to cite the work where necessary and a list of references is also provided.