You are required to analyse and prepare a written report on the use of specific planning, execution and control capabilities in a real-world project.
1. Briefly describe the organisation(s) involved in the project, the specific planning, execution and control tools and methods and the overall project goals in terms of schedule, cost and product definition. Analyse the relationships between the three and assess the fit between the planning and control methods and tools, the organisation(s) involved and the overall project goals. This section should be brief, but provide the context for your subsequent analysis.
2. Select a particular planning, execution and control problem / opportunity within the project and characterise it. Be specific and focus on a single problem / opportunity. Contrast your observations and the information you collected with the methods and tools discussed in the module material. It is best to identify a problem with which the organisation is having trouble (e.g. running over the initial budget or initial schedule) or an opportunity for improvement (e.g. compressing the project delivery time or preparing a cost monitoring system). If you find a specific problem / opportunity, you will have a target for your analysis. Avoid the temptation to analyse the entire organisation.
3. Develop recommendations and specific ways to help the project organisation to improve the planning and resource management capabilities. Your target audience for the recommendations should be the people responsible for the problem / opportunity in the organisation you are studying. Make specific, actionable recommendations. Present critically the value of your recommendations, assuming they are adopted.
The format of the final report may include specific deliverables (e.g. a CPM chart, cost estimating technique, or earned value analysis technique) in the body of the report. You should select the format that best meets the needs of your client organisation. Be constructive and helpful in your report. Adopt a professional attitude and think of the organisation you are assisting as the client. If you develop a specific deliverable, you should plan to spend time with your client during its development working out the bugs and accommodating changes they suggest. The deliverable should be turned in with annotations indicating how it works.
Report Composition Guidelines:
Your report must include a literature review comprising at least 10 REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES. All references must be cited in the text appropriately and be contained in full in the References section. Refer to Study Skills Support for help with this. Citations from books, Internet, newspapers, magazines etc are additional.
The outline of your report is as follows:
- Title Page
- Contents Page
- Executive Summary (300-400 words)
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Discussion
- Recommendations
- Conclusions
- References