As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Project Management Techniques assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

Learning Outcomes:

After completing the module you should be able to:

1. Critically reflect on the nature and process of project management techniques.

2. Critically analyse and evaluate different organisational and project structures.

3. Critically evaluate and apply appropriate techniques for planning and scheduling in different situations including strategies for the control of target setting, slippage, benchmarking.

4. Critically evaluate project management skills and techniques that enable the effective management of projects.

Your assignment should include a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and a word count; the appendices if relevant; and a reference list in Harvard format. You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the assessment criteria set out below in assessing your work.

Maximum word count: 3000 words

Assignment Task

You have been appointed by senior management as project manager for a key project within your organization. Your project board has asked for a project plan that will be used as a baseline against which to monitor project progress and cost stage by stage. The board has also asked that you fully justify your approach at each stage based on current best practice as indicated in the academic literature.

In order to address the assignment requirements, you may choose a project from your organisation or, where you do not have a current project, either use a project you have worked on previously or create your own project. It is important that the project you choose is suitable for dealing with the set tasks: neither too simple nor too large and complex.

For your chosen project you must provide:

1) A project overview giving a brief background to the project, the project objectives, the project scope and exclusions, the project deliverables and desired outcomes and project constraints. You should explain the importance of each of these concepts in project planning.

2) A Work Breakdown Structure broken down by sub-activity to the level of work packages. You will need to explain why a WBS is important in planning and how it fits within the planning process.

3) For one work package chosen from 2) provide a schedule for each activity using at least two appropriate techniques. You will need to explain why modelling the project in this way is important and compare and contrast the various alternative techniques that are available, justifying your choice of techniques.

4) For one work package chosen from 2) provide a risk register using risk identification techniques, risk assessment techniques and filtering techniques. You will need to explain why managing risk is important and justify the techniques you have chosen to use.

The terms used in these tasks should be taken as defined within the module learning materials on ilearn.

Consider the word limits and assessment requirements before choosing the complexity level of the project.

Projects can be concealed to protect the confidentiality of your organisation - you will not be penalised where confidential details are withheld, however, areas of restricted information should be highlighted where appropriate.