Project Management leadership
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Assignment2Requirement.docxThe Team* Project brings together some of the principal elements of the course; notably Communication and Communications Planning, and an understanding of the effects of ambiguity and complexity. It will also provide a simulation of the requirements of working in a virtual project management team.
*you may find me alternating between the words Team and Group, which in the case of this Assignment are synonymous.
The Situation - Boston University (BU) is located on a large inner-city campus that stretches for about two miles along Commonwealth Avenue, which is one of the main routes into central Boston from the west of the city. As a part of this campus, BU owns and operates the Nickerson Field sports complex, which was originally the home of the Boston Braves baseball team. BU purchased the field in 1953 when the Braves relocated to Milwaukee, and over the last sixty years or so the complex has been and is still used to host various BU sports teams.
The Nickerson Field site is at the western end of the BU Charles River campus, and is close to both bus and subway routes. The site is also only about a mile or so away from the Boston Red Sox ballpark at Fenway. Over the years, this area has been developed by BU with many student housing units, a Fitness & Recreation Center, the Agganis Arena Ice hockey complex, the ‘New Balance’ multi-purpose sports field, and other BU facilities.
Assume that you will be the Project Manager for the project to make this happen, and that you will be responsible for planning, organizing, and implementing the infrastructure to support this venture in anticipation of the franchise. This will include considering such elements as traffic management, security, services (including catering), cleaning, maintenance, and management of the facilities.
The marketing, ticketing, coaching and team management, and game scheduling will not be a part of your role.
The Team Task or Team Project is a maximum fifteen to twenty-page research paper. Each team will be responsible for a single paper. This paper will require you as a team to carry out an analysis of the Nickerson Field project, identify the various stakeholders, and compile a Communications Plan for the project. This assignment consists of two deliverables.
The team task in this project will be to write a paper and present it (20-25 minutes, last class), using research and materials from this course, to develop all of the elements of a communications plan for the selected project. I would expect that the plan will have some contingency to allow for changes in requirements that could and would emerge during the execution of the chosen project.
In addition to the creation of team-submitted maximum fifteen to twenty-page research paper, it is expected that each student will submit a second paper (approximately 250 words) on "Lessons Learned." These are to be submitted individually in class, and should specifically address the learning from working in the group, not the learning from the whole class.
You will need to make and to justify a number of assumptions in developing this group submission, as there is no Project Scope document. This is a deliberate decision on my part, and will allow for creative solutions to issues that arise whilst documenting the Project Communications Plan.
The Division of Labor and Responsibility within the Team will be the responsibility of the team – in other words, as in agile methodology; this is a “self-organizing team”. The team may wish to follow strict project management guidelines requiring the selection of one of the members as Project Manager. The work of research and findings could then be divided up one topic per remaining member of the team.
There are numerous permutations of available resources that may be applied. The important factor in assigning these tasks and responsibilities is that it is a team decision and the team will succeed or fail based on that decision.
Just as with labor and responsibility, monitoring and/or motivating team members in task completion is a team responsibility. Actual leadership of the team will be the responsibility of the team or the team member given that responsibility.
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Any issues with individuals NOT participating fully in the team effort need to be reported to me by the other team members as early in the course as possible. You should take every possible step to resolve these issues on your own, directly with such individuals, and if that fails, advise me as soon as possible.
THE END OF THE COURSE is not the time to make excuses for lackluster performance of your Team because “team member xyz did not do their part”. Your future employers and customers will – by far - appreciate great performance over last-minute excuses!
Formatting - The paper format will follow American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines.
