Project Management Assignment: Business Case, Project Charter, WBS and Quality Assurance

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

1.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 project manager;

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 2000 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 on a network diagram or Gantt Chart. Students should also critically evaluate ethical, social and legal responsibilities during a project by referring to current project management literature.

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 which would include: (20 Marks)

• An evaluation of cost and benefits expected (both tangible and non-tangible) and provide a rationale for it.
• An evaluation of the risk assessment with the provision for possible solutions
• An evaluation of risks of alternative strategic options whilst providing a rationale for the selected options as well as their opportunity cost.

b)A summary of the outcome 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 either on a network diagram or Gantt Chart. (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 the knowledge and skills project managers need to perform exceptionally well and produce high quality results while working on a project. You also need to assess their limitations.  (15 Marks)

Task-4: Write a critical summary of the KPIs and Quality Assurance measures to assure the quality of the project is maintained throughout its lifecycle. (25 Marks)

Presentation, Report Layout and References:

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.

Tasks / Deliverables of Assignment 2

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

You need to state the word count at the end of their assignment. 10% over the stated word count is permitted without penalty.

If students go beyond this, then there is a penalty of 5 marks for every additional 10% beyond the word count with a maximum of a 15 mark penalty reduction.  

There is no specific penalty for submitting a piece which is below the word count, but please note that shorter submissions are likely to attract poorer grades, particularly where they lack the necessary depth of analysis.

How do you calculate the word count?  

The word count includes the Abstract or Executive Summary and all in-text citations. The word count does not include the Bibliography and Appendices.  

Please note that Appendices should only include supplementary information, not information critical to your work.

Marking Criteria:

1 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. 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 outcome the project will bring, and any potential drawbacks.

2 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.

3 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.

4 KPIs 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 KPIs and other quality assurance activities. How do these reflect the life cycle of a project?

Presentation, Report Layout and References 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.