Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module you should be able to:

LO1. Be able to develop a project specification launch
LO2. Be able to plan for the launch of a new product, service or process
LO3. Be able to implement a project
LO4. Be able to evaluate the outcomes of a project
LO5. Be able to present the outcomes of a project

Assignment Task

For this assignment you are asked to consider an improvement project that you have been involved with / are familiar with within a workplace situation. This could include introducing new procedures; consider new approaches to work tasks, purchase of new equipment / updating of equipment or new product / service development. It does not need to be a major project but it is important that the project has concluded / will conclude during your study of this module. The project does not need to be a large project, but it does need to have contributed to enabling the organisation to meet its strategic objectives. Remember the definition or a project is that it is a unique event; it is temporary in that it has a start and a finish and is focused on a specific deliverable. It may be repeated but not within exactly the same context. This assignment asks you to consider how you would design, plan and improvement that project yourself given your learning from the module. You are not being asked to advise how this happened rather how you would approach the project.

Identify an improvement project which is required / is underway and prepare a formal report for the project sponsor which covers the following:

Task 1 Project Need

Briefly describe an organization and a strategic project in the organization within 100 words.

Analyse the internal and external factors that can lead to a project being required including the factors which can lead to a project being required including the factors which have led to your highlighted project being needed.

Task 2 Project Specification

a) With reference to your example project identified above, describe the steps to develop project specification for the project.

b) Write detail project specification for the example project identified above.

Task 3 Produce a Project Plan

Based upon your specification above, prepare a detailed project plan. Consider what the plan would need to include in order to secure approval for implementation by senior management including:

a) Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) showing all the necessary works (including those works for the implementation strategy in (e) below) to complete the project.

b) Resource requirements (by resource type and when required) for all the works in the WBS.

c) Cost all resources required for the works in the WBS.

d) Prepare Gantt Chart and / or Critical Path Analysis (CPA) for the timescales of all the works in the WBS.

e) Plan appropriate Implementation Strategy for the project. Detail works to implement the strategy should be included in the WBS.

Task 4 Implement a Project

With reference to your project, advise how you would implement this project and why including:

a) Job description and role of project participants (include those outside the project team). Prepare Task Responsibility Matrix and / or Project Team Structure for the project.

b) Develop appropriate measures to monitor and evaluate progress and outcomes of the project. Describe the use of Gantt Chart and / or Earned Value Analysis.

c) Use the measures described in (b) to monitor the implementation of the project.

Task 5 Evaluating Project Outcomes

a) Describe relevant techniques which should be used to analyse the outcomes of the project in terms of the original project specification in Task 2.

b) Use the technique described in (a) to evaluate the outcomes of the project.

c) Make justified recommendations for improvements to the project base on the evaluation in (b) above.

Task 6 Presenting Project Outcomes

a) Describe the considerations and steps when you produce a report of all project procedures used in the project.

b) Prepare slides to present the project procedures and outcomes of the project to the senior management.

All of your work should be copied into your word document / pdf for submission as one file. This may mean that you will need to take screen prints.