Assessment Task: Project

The purpose of the project is to stimulate discussion, and sharing of information/ideas about meeting tools and techniques, its challenges and best practice by students and the facilitator.

Participation in the class forum is mandatory to achieve competency in this unit particularly in relation to learner's project selected for Assessment Task 3.

Purpose: Learn to effectively manage diverse and abundant information for use in project meets, including through sharing amongst teammates and others.

Project Scenario: You work at a company called "Trucking Express" in North Sydney. Your company transports refrigerated goods nationally and internationally. At the moment you have several customers and all of them are happy except for one. He/She is from "Meat Queensland" in Brisbane, Queensland which produces meat from Queensland and unfortunately every order that has been sent to them has had problems.
- The first order was delayed by 24 hours.
- The second shipment was incorrect
- The third order had the incorrect invoice report (you charged them too much money)

This situation is not good, your client is thinking about changing companies and using one of you competitors. You are going to have a meeting where it is up to you to.

1. Reassure the client that all future deliveries will be without problems.

2. Address all the problems and create solutions.

3. You need to maintain a good relationship with this customer. You want them to leave happy!

Role A - You work at Trucking Express, you are meeting the Queensland client who makes very large orders with your company. You want to sort out the problems and make a good impression.

Role B - You are the man/woman from "Meat Queensland" meeting with "Trucking Express". You have had problems with deliveries and hope to resolve the problem at the meeting you are attending. You are angry and upset.

Student Tasks

Complete:
- Project Meetings: follow Agendas and Minutes guidance below
- Project Log: create and maintain as per instructions
- Project Library: create and maintain as per instructions

Project Meetings

Purpose: Develop business meeting organisational and communication skill

General Instructions
- Students need to undertake project with their faculty on the problem below

- Meetings: Learner team meetings with advisors will be held weekly for 45 - 60 minutes. Teams are also encouraged to request additional meetings as needed with faculty to address any problems, issues or misunderstandings regarding the project and\or interpersonal dynamics.
Agenda: Each team must email a meeting agenda by 2:00 pm the day before each project meeting to team members and professors.

- Secretary & Minutes: One team member will act as a meeting secretary, responsible for sending the agenda, preparing and bringing the week's Project Log to the meeting, and taking meeting minutes. The secretary will email minutes to team members and facilators by 5:00pm the following day. Secretary responsibilities rotate amongst team members each week, with secretarial performance noted and counted toward the course and\or PROJECT grade.

Agenda
The agenda should be a bulleted or numbered list of specific topics to be discussed. The agenda should fit on a single page. The first topic on every agenda should be a review of Action Items from Minutes of the previous meeting, noting whether tasks were accomplished and if not, why not.

Minutes
The meeting minutes should be written by filling in the spaces between the agenda's discussion topics, using the agenda document as a base. One or two sentences under each topic should suffice to summarize the discussion. Make sure learners keep track of whatever conclusions were reached, as well as loose ends. ACTION ITEMS of tasks to be accomplished should be noted and assigned to specific people, with deadlines specified.

Project Log and Project Library
Due: Ongoing, brought to every team gathering
Purpose: Develop research project management skills by maintaining an organized reference file of all project-generated documents, including meetings documents, assignments, team decisions (e.g., norms, task responsibilities, etc.), faculty feedback, etc.

Project Log
General Description
- Every team will be required to keep a "Project Log", using a 3", 3-ring binder.
- The team must keep the Project Log up-to-date and bring it to every team meeting.
- It will be a repository for everything that each team produces in the course of the course

Project Log Contents
The Project Log will contain 7 tabbed dividers to separate each week's information and each weekly section will in turn contain the following items, more or less in this order:

- Project meetings: All agendas & minutes of weekly project meetings and any other meetings with faculty
- A weekly log of tasks performed by the team, indicating who did what
- Summaries of the main contacts, meetings, interviews, letters or emails for the week
- All assignments due that week
- All returned assignments, drafts or other work commented on and returned by faculty
- Any team-dynamics issues that emerged during the week
- Anything else that is of importance to the project and was collected or produced that week

If one notebook should prove not to be enough, add others as needed.

Project Log Submissions and Grading
- The Project Log should be brought to every Project and team meeting. The log will be reviewed and graded occasionally by the advisors.

Project Library

The Project Library should contain project-relevant research articles, brochures, web page printouts, books, sponsor information, and other documents investigated as part of learner's project. Wherever practical, keep full copies of important articles, etc. for later reference. Purchase or arrange to borrow books learners will need to have on-site. Keep documents in a 3-ring binder and\or other appropriate container. Maintain an annotated bibliography of materials in the Project Library as a table of contents.