Project Management - Assessment Brief – May 2021

Academic year and term: Summer 2021

Module title: Project Management

Module code: QAB020N503H

Module Convener: Jeevesh Goolab

Learning outcomes Knowledge:

assessed within this piece
You will be able to develop understanding of the core activity areas
of work as agreed at the
programme level meeting project managers concern themselves with and how they relate to
personal and organisational issues.
Intellectual/transferrable:
You will be able to apply the principles of project management to the
planned development and delivery of business initiatives, e.g. new
products, services or events

Type of assessment: 100% coursework (individual) submitted as two separate

assignments worth 40% and 60% respectively.
Assignment 1: Wednesday 23rd of June, 2021, 2pm
Assessment deadline:
Assignment 2: Friday 6th of August, 2021, 2pm

Instructions for assessment

Coursework Details
Formative (not marked – for guidance only): You will be given an opportunity to produce outline
samples of your assignment work (using a pre-structured form) and share it with your seminar
classmates for peer review in small groups. In addition, informal feedback will be offered by the
seminar tutor but you will not be marked.

Individual Summative (Main) Assignments x2: These assignments are based on a fictitious case
study that presents students with a business project scenario. You are free to choose the case study
from the four options provided. You must take the role of Project Manager and are required to analyse
the case study, research the best approach to managing it and develop the following items of project
planning documentation, to be submitted as two separate component assignments at various points
through the semester: Assignments are individually marked.

Tasks to be completed are on page 2 and the four case scenario options are on page 3

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Assignment 1 – to be submitted in week 6, 23/06/2021 (40% of module mark)
A. Sample Project Initiation Document (PID) including simple budgetary information (max 10 line
items), timescales, objectives, approach, key staff and stakeholder analysis (approx. 750
words plus diagrams, etc.). Note: a full, detailed breakdown of how the budget may be used is
not required, although you are free to put such information in an appendix if you feel it will help
explain your summary position. Refer to the lecture slides for a typical example of a PID
B. Work breakdown Structure containing at least 20 items in the WBS. The WBS should be
presented in the form of a suitably referenced diagram that must include dependencies,
milestones and a hierarchy of tasks. You are free to deliver this as a Gantt chart (use MS
Project to develop this) but it is not required. All diagrams should be embedded into your report
as images. In addition include with this table a referenced paragraph explaining how a WBS
can be used to help manage the tasks on a project and give a further paragraph briefly
explaining the importance of critical path analysis;

Assignment 2 – to be submitted in week 12, 06/08/2021 (60% of module mark)

You must produce a short report written directly to the project sponsor (approx. 2,000 words plus the
contents of the risk register) containing the following three items:

A. A suggested risk register containing at least 10 fully documented risks, including owner,
mitigation and contingency actions, pre-and post- action weighting and scores and a
(referenced) paragraph to the sponsor explaining why such a register is important
B. An explanation of the need for careful, correctly managed completion of a project. Using theory
and suitable examples, tell your sponsor how best you believe the project completion should
be structured and managed for your specific case study so as to maximise the benefits
available.
C. An analysis and critique of methodologies that might be used to run the project case study,
principally comparing Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 methodologies. Explain their strengths
and weaknesses and give your recommendation to the sponsor as to which methodology you
believe would be best to use. There is no right or wrong answer for this and hence marks will
be given on the basis of how well you have explained and justified your decision. As with the
other assignment elements, reference examples and reference to theory is very important.

Note: Submit copies of your first assignment as appendix to this second piece of work so
that the marker will be able to see continuity between the earlier assignment and this final
one. Simply paste them in at the end and submit as one large document. If you did not
submit assignment 1 but do wish to submit assignment 2 then simply note at the end that
you do not have anything to submit for 1 (capped resits may be required).

IMPORTANT: So that there is no confusion or doubt, for ALL elements in all assignments,
reference must be made to established project management theory and best practice. As this is a
fictitious project case you are free to make assumptions where necessary and these should be
clearly stated in your submission. Furthermore, you are required to use multiple real project
examples (both good and bad) as additional reference sources. These will help you demonstrate
what good practice project management looks like and what happens when it is not applied.

It is also recommended that you include an appendix that contains all relevant assumptions that
demonstrate how you arrived at your estimates - see separate student assignment guide.

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Project Management Case Study Options – Choose One Only
Academic Year 2020/21 only

The Project Management Assignments require students to develop a number of pieces of documentation
relating to a particular case study. To reflect the wide variety of ways in which project management techniques
can be applied, we are allowing students to choose between four different fictitious scenarios. Choose one of
the four and then answer all of the assignment questions, to be submitted at two separate points in the
semester – week 6 and after Easter break, worth 40% and 60% of the module total mark respectively. You must
use the same case scenario for all questions as it is expected that you will link your two pieces of work.

Case scenario 1
You are the Project Manager for an indoor sporting event, organising a sort of ‘Olympics’ between
London/Birmingham/Manchester (please choose one based on your location) Higher Education Institutions
(HEI), known as the HEI Games. The senior management at QAHE have asked for this as they wish it to be a
flagship event that helps market the QAHE’s facilities. Assume you have the full academic year to organise
this, with the events taking place in July or August. You have a budget of £20k per university taking part and
you should assume around 10 HEIs will be involved although if more join in then that will allow for more
budget.

Case Scenario 2
QAHE wishes to improve the spaces available for business students and has asked you to project manage the
refurbishment and redevelopment of the London/Birmingham/Manchester (please choose one based on your
location) Campus. The preference is for tiered seating that can be retracted, together with acoustic panels on
the walls to make it a better teaching space. You have been asked to project manage this process with support
from the Facilities Management department at QAHE and have been given a provisional budget of £100k. Bear
in mind that the work must not cause disruption to teaching timetables.

Case Scenario 3
QAHE has recognised that students do not always know what is going on at QAHE Campuses outside of
timetabled class sessions and in addition can find it difficult to contact representatives from clubs and societies.
Hence, in order to help increase student engagement with extra-curricular activities, QAHE’s Student Forum
Representative has asked you to project manage the development of a new QAHE Recreation mobile phone
app which will provide day by day details of QAHE clubs and societies’ events, links to contact details and the
freedom for students to publicise their own events. Grant funding from O2 (one of their directors is a former
QAHE student) has given you a budget of £200k and the university, although supportive, wants it ready to be
used by students at the start of the next academic year.

Case Scenario 4
QAHE Business Management Faculty has designed a new degree course in Sustainable Business, focusing on
ethical and environmental business issues. This is now in its third year so there are 30 final year students now
on this course. The Business Faculty has secured funding to support a two week field trip to see some
interesting sustainable projects in Uganda, intending that this takes place in May, after the rest of their
assignments have been submitted. The Programme Convener has asked for your help in organising this trip and
you are doing so as a project management task in place of your dissertation. Each student will be funded a max
of £2,000 to enable them to go, thus meaning there is a total of £60,000 available for the whole trip. You
should assume that staff costs (including yourself) are also funded, totalling an additional £10,000.

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IMPORTANT: You do not need to have any technical knowledge of construction, IT, app development etc. in
order to do well with any of the above as it is the use of the project management processes that will be marked
and not detailed technical understand of a particular industry or technology.

Marking and Feedback

Formative (not formally marked – opportunity to obtain feedback)

Students will be given the opportunity to share their ideas and work so far in small groups. You will be
given a full briefing early on in the semester. You should be expected to complete forms (to be
provided) that help you set out the basics of your assignment work in each case and bring these forms
to the seminar group typically two weeks before deadlines. These forms will be a structured set of
notes about the key elements of each assignment and your initial findings and thoughts. Students will
be placed in small groups where they will pass around their forms and critique and review each
other’s. Seminar tutors will then lead a class discussion to gain broader feedback and observations
from the whole seminar class. In addition, your forms may be emailed to your seminar tutor by the
end of the same week, which will be used to give you feedback on how to improve your work.

Summative (formal, individually marked assessment)

The work in small groups gives you an opportunity to gain a basic understanding of the given case
study through interaction and discussion with each other. This will help you ‘get started’ as you work
towards the delivery of the marked assessments which total approximately 3,000 words plus
diagrams, tables, appendices, etc. containing the items listed above. Although each assignment
requires you to develop different pieces of project management documentation, marking feedback
from one may prove helpful in developing the next, e.g. being told you need to reference better.

As these assignments are essentially elements of a larger report, they should make extensive use of
structural elements (table of contents, headings, subheadings, lists, diagrams, tables, etc.) to help
make your work clear to understand and assignment 1 should be included as an appendix when you
submit assignment 2, in order to ensure continuity between assignments. You are expected to show
understanding of theory and practice and make use of multiple external reference sources including
referencing sources of all templates used for sample PID, Risk Register, etc. Whilst students are
encouraged to work together, particularly until the formative assessments, the final reports are
required to be individual work demonstrating the student’s unique understanding and insight into the
case given. NOTE: Copying of other student work is not accepted and both the original author
and copying students will be held equally accountable under university disciplinary
procedures.

How will we support you with your assessment?

 You will receive formative feedback. See details above. Although the final deliverables are
individual pieces of work, staff will encourage and support you in working informally in small
groups to help everyone gain a better understanding of the cases available.
 There will be an assessment briefing in Weeks 1 and/or 2 as necessary and further briefings for
formative assessments where necessary.
 Frequently asked questions (and their answers) will be posted on the module’s Moodle site
 There will be an opportunity to review and reflect upon work from previous cohorts. This will be
delivered in lecture and seminar time.
 Significant seminar time will be given over to the discussion of the various aspects of project
management that you will cover in your assignments and seminar time in the final two weeks will
used to help support you in developing your final assignment answers.

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How will your work be assessed?

Your work will be assessed by a subject expert who will use the marking grid provided in this
assessment brief. This marking brief will be applied to all three assignments. When you access your
marked work it is important that you reflect on the feedback so that you can use it to improve future
assignments.
Referencing
You MUST use the Harvard System. The Harvard system is very easy to use once you become
familiar with it.
Assignment submissions

The Business School requires a digital version of all assignment submissions. These must be
submitted via Turnitin on the module’s Moodle site. They must be submitted as a single MS Word file
(not as a pdf) and must not include scanned in text or text boxes. They must be submitted by 2pm on
the given date. For further general details on coursework preparation refer to the online information
via StudentZone http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/howtostudy/index.html. 

Mitigating circumstances/what to do if you cannot submit a piece of work or attend your

presentation
The University Mitigating Circumstances Policy can be found on the University website - Mitigating
Circumstances Policy

Marking and feedback process

Between you handing in your work and then receiving your feedback and marks within 20 days, there
are a number of quality assurance processes that we go through to ensure that students receive
marks which reflects their work. A brief summary is provided below.
 Step One – The module and marking team meet to agree standards, expectations and how
feedback will be provided.
 Step Two – A subject expert will mark your work using the criteria provided in the assessment
brief.
 Step Three – A moderation meeting takes place where all members of the teaching and marking
team will review the marking of others to confirm whether they agree with the mark and feedback
 Step Four – Work at Levels 5 and 6 then goes to an external examiner who will review a sample
of work to confirm that the marking between different staff is consistent and fair
 Step Five – Your mark and feedback is processed by the Office and made available to you.

The grid below shows you the detailed marking criteria against which your work is marked.

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 Outstanding 100 Excellent (80-89) Very Good (70- Good (60-69) 65 Satisfactory Adequate (40-49) Marginal Fail (30- Fail (20- Missing (0)
85 79) 75 (50-59) 55 45 39) 35 29) 25

Use of Theory and Demonstrates a Extensive Considerable Good evidence of Some relevant Adequate Weak and Theory not No theory
reference examples sophisticated approach evidence of evidence of solid thorough use of theory investigation somewhat applied. mentioned
(30%) to the application of quality research research into the investigation with supported in using a range of superficial. Project Very little and no
theory to practice. throughout with project. research general by a appropriate not properly use of examples
Quality and
Project has been generally an Extensive use of informing your solid amount of sources to inform investigated using relevant used
application of relevant
researched in depth excellent use of theory. answer and research. your answer. appropriate reference
project management
and sources have been theory to inform supporting Some evidence of sources and material
theory and examples
used to provide practice. extensive use of wider reading and lightweight, and any
to inform all your
considerable insight. theory. research into the limited use of sources
answers, support your
issues discussed. theory. incorrectly
analysis of the project
Reasonable use Referencing poor cited
and add credibility to
and application of and few
your
theory to support appropriate
recommendations
analysis. sources used to
enhance report.
30 25.5 22.5 19.5 16.5 13.5 10.5 7.5 0
Knowledge (30%) Professional standard Near professional Very good Artifact is largely Some valid Poor but Weak attempt at Task Task not
Thoroughness, based on high quality, standard based on attempt with all correct and references adequate the task with attempted attempted
accuracy and referenced quality, major elements appropriate with support a attempt. Some significant but
completeness of examples/templates. referenced and good use of most points reasonable key elements may elements missing missing
content element - Complete and examples/templat quality external covered and attempt that is be missing or are and little or no basic and
demonstrating thorough, es. Complete and references. supported by mostly superficial and of referencing. core
knowledge of what demonstrating depth thorough, Artifact is useful references. complete. limited relevance. Artefact is of little elements.
artifact should of insight into the demonstrating generally correct Could be Somewhat Weak real use and is Artefact is
contain. usefulness and understanding of and improved with lightweight but referencing. Some superficial at best ineffective
importance of this the importance of demonstrates guidance but is a has potential basic and
element. Difficult to this element. some good solid and with additional understanding in irrelevant.
improve within the Perhaps could be understanding. competent help. evidence in
constraints of this case enhanced with Some points may attempt places.
study. some further be improved.
guidance.
30 25.5 22.5 19.5 16.5 13.5 10.5 7.5 0

Application (30%) Professional standard Near professional Very good Use of artifact for Some valid Poor but Weak attempt at Task Task not
Relevance of artifact based on high quality, standard based on attempt with all case study is references adequate the task with attempted attempted
content to case study referenced quality, major elements largely correct support a attempt. Some significant but
showing examples/templates. referenced and good use of and appropriate reasonable key application elements missing missing
understanding of how Complete and examples/templat quality external with most points attempt at may be missing or and little or no basic and
to apply artefact thorough, es. Complete and references. covered and application that are superficial referencing. core
principles to specific demonstrating depth thorough, Artifact is supported by is mostly and of limited Artifact is of little elements.

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case of insight into the demonstrating generally well useful references. complete. relevance. Weak real use and is Artefact is
application of the understanding of completed and Could be Somewhat referencing. Some superficial at best. ineffective
element to this case the application of demonstrates improved with lightweight but basic and
study. Difficult to this element to some good guidance but is a has potential understanding in irrelevant.
improve within the the case study. understanding of solid and with additional evidence in places
constraints of this case Perhaps could be how itis applied competent help
study. enhanced with to the case. attempt
some further Some points may
guidance. be improved.
30 25.5 22.5 19.5 16.5 13.5 10.5 7.5 0
Structure & Professional standard Well written and Mostly well Reasonable Adequately Writing Very poor writing. Writing Unintelligi
Presentation (10%) of report that would presented with written and quality of writing written and somewhat poor in Poor quality of rarely ble writing
Professionalism, be worthy of giving to very good use of presented with with only modest does not places with document makes and
writing and quality of a commercial client. structure. Tables, good use of errors significantly potentially presentation with sense. messy/cha
documentation. Expertly written, diagrams, etc structure. Tables, throughout. An detract from significant impact little use of Very otic to the
inspiring confidence, correctly labelled diagrams, etc attempt has been understanding. on report structure. messy point of
no English errors and and used. correctly labelled made to use Some valid use credibility. References poorly presentati illegibility.
layout & structure References and used. appropriate of structure. Presentation poor and incorrectly on, lacking
highly effective and correct to Harvard References structure. Referencing with limited cited. use of
appropriate. standards generally Referencing needs some structure. structure.
Referencing accurate correctly cited. mostly correct correction. Referencing
and correct with minor errors inconsistent
10 8.5 7.5 6.5 5.5 4.5 3.5 2.5 0

OR – for RESIT submissions only…

Reflective piece – Professional and Considerable Generally good Some valid points Adequate but Marginal work – Poorly written and Writing Not
RESIT submissions insightful level of depth of self- depth of self- made about self largely basic and weak, naïve work rarely attempted
only – replaces reporting. Deep awareness and awareness and although at times descriptive descriptive. Does with no self- makes
Structure & understanding of own understanding of understanding of perhaps some narrative with not really offer awareness evident sense. Not
Professionalism learning styles and learning styles learning styles sense of ‘excuses little any information clear that
component(10%) limitations demonstrated. demonstrated. being made understanding of substance the
Insight into personal demonstrated with Good use of Some use of rather than facing of why resit student
limitations, self- excellent us of theory but room theory but could personal required has any
awareness and appropriate theory for a little be substantively limitations. Basic real idea
connection to improvement if improved. reference to of what
established learning guided. theory only they were
theories. being
asked
10 8.5 7.5 6.5 5.5 4.5 3.5 2.5 0

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