Reference no: EM131829779 , Length: 4000
Practical Assessment Critical Analysis Report
Assessment Overview
Project Management in various domains is considered to be a relatively mature discipline. There is extensive body of knowledge that promotes project management and supports its main object of delivering successful projects. This knowledge base is supplemented by well-established standards that have been evolving over years such as PMBOK and Prince2 to equip project managers with the knowledge, tools and skills to perform their role.
Since project management is supposed to improve project delivery, it is essential to fully appreciate the reasons behind project failure. Understanding the reasons for project failure will help protect management profession work towards achieving more consistent project delivery.
This is a group assessment. This assessment item requires you to consider:
1. Project execution,
2. Project success factors,
3. Reasons for cost and time overruns,
4. Application of project control systems,
5. Stakeholders' influence on project performance
You must demonstrate your understanding of the above in the context of a project of your choice and submit a critical analysis report.
You are encouraged to use assessment output and ideas that you may have developed from previous practical assessments within this unit as supporting evidence for your analysis.
Task -
Your task is to consider the first two learning outcomes in the context of this unit. This assessment requires you to examine a significant project of your own choice from any discipline (perhaps from personal experience or professional network). You are required to produce a detailed report which forwards a critical analysis of project control approaches used to ensure successful completion of the project and stakeholders' influence. The report should include a demonstration of the range of control systems and evaluation of their application and whether a poor application of the control systems and lack of stakeholder's management has contributed partially or fully to the project failure.
Purpose -
The primary purpose of this assessment item is to help you to develop and demonstrate your skills in the use of project management concepts, principles, theories and arguments about the project management execution phase. You are particularly required to demonstrate your understanding of the real application of control system. You must then be able to analyse and argue what type of control systems will enable better or worse project outcomes.
The secondary purpose of this assessment is to give you the opportunity to enhance your analysis, critical thinking and written communication skills; particularly in the areas of argument development and academic writing.
Structure of the report -
Your report should be of 4000 words (excluding references and appendices). The report should include the following 7 key sections:
1. An introduction to the project you have chosen;
2. Explanation of the range of used control systems for cost, schedule, quality and scope.
3. An analysis of the reasons that explain the cost and/or time overruns encountered during the project;
4. An analysis of the extent to which the project execution team could be held responsible of the incurred time and/or cost overruns;
5. An analysis of the relationship between the problems you identify in (3) and the stakeholders' needs and influence;
6. An analysis of the project management actions that could have been taken to better control the project and stakeholders to increase the chance for successful delivery;
7. A conclusion which identifies the key lessons that Project Management can learn from the experience of the project.
8. References
This assessment also involves researching your assigned topic to enhance your understanding of project management concepts and utilisation of academic literature. Whilst you should use the recommended textbooks you may also refer to relevant peer reviewed academic journal articles.