project management

Introduction

Assessment Task 2: Project Portfolio

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Assessment information

Information about how you should complete this assessment can be found in Appendix A of the Business Works Student User Guide. Refer to the appendix for information on:

· where this task should be completed

· how your assessment should be submitted.

Note: You must complete and submit an assessment cover sheet with your work. A template is provided in Appendix B of the Student User Guide.

This project requires you to undertake project work on a minor project or a section of a larger project. You can do this based on the assumption that you are the project manager of a project related to the case study business.

You will be collecting evidence for this unit in a Project Portfolio. The steps you need to take are outlined below. Before you begin, complete page 4 of your Project Portfolio.

Read through Section 1 of your Project Portfolio. Review the business information in the Simulation Pack.

Identify all the information you need to develop the project scope and review the Project Management Policies and Procedures in the simulation pack. As part of this step, you will need to communicate with your supervisor to clarify any issues or concerns. Refer to your portfolio for more details.

Complete Section 1 of your Project Portfolio.

Now read through Section 2 of your project portfolio in preparation for a meeting with stakeholders. You will be discussing the plan in preparation to complete it after the meeting.

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Although you are working into a project portfolio for this assessment, you are going to be assessed on establishing and maintaining recordkeeping systems throughout the project. So, at this step, create an online folder for the project as specified in the Project Management Policy and Procedures and according to your planning that you complete in Section 1. When the project is completed, you will be assessed on whether you have set up and maintained a record keeping system for the folder using a digital online system. This can be any system or tool you decide on. At each stage of submission, make a copy of each section of your portfolio and attachments, and store these in the folder system you have created. Take a screen shot of this and include it in each section of your portfolio to demonstrate your record keeping and file management system. At the very end, you will send your assessor a link to your online filing system for them to review it. You will be assessed on this.

Your project portfolio will prompt you to attach screenshots of this system at the end of each section. Follow these prompts.

Meet with your project team to discuss the scope of the project and to help inform your project management plan. This meeting will last for approximately 20 -30 minutes. Your supervisor will attend this meeting and provide further information to you about the project.

At the meeting, you must:

· Outline the project as set out in your project scoping.

· Outline the organisation's mission, goals, objectives and operations and how the project relates to them. Briefly explain the organisation’s project management policies and procedures.

· Discuss the project management plan, including roles and responsibilities of the project manager, as well as the project team member. Discuss the limitations of your responsibilities and how approval processes will work with your team.

· Identify and discuss factors that could affect the timeframes to ensure that the timeframes are realistic and achievable.

· Seek the project team members’ feedback.

Take notes during the meeting as you will need to develop the plan after the meeting.

During the meeting, you will need to demonstrate effective communication skills including:

· Speaking clearly and concisely

· Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding

· Asking questions to identify required information

· Responding to questions as required

· Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding

· Applying appropriate communication protocols as expected of your role

· Engage your team in the discussion and encourage feedback and discussion.

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This can either be attended in person by your assessor or online. Your assessor can provide you with more details at this step. Make sure you follow the instructions above and meet the timeframes allocated.

Based on the project scoping completed in activity step 2 and any feedback from the meeting in activity step 3, develop a project management plan.

Your project management plan should include, as a minimum, the following:

· Background: Provide a brief explanation of the background of the project

· Objectives: Benefits that the project intends to achieve

· Activities and Milestones: major activities, scheduled start, scheduled finish and accountability.

· Budget

· Risk Management Plan: include at least one WHS risk.

Complete your project management plan by working into Section 2 of your Project Portfolio to guide your work.

Your project management plan should identify at least three risks associated with the project, one of which should be related to work health and safety.

You will be required to use the risk legend to assist in the classification of risks.

Seek approval from your supervisor to proceed with the project and obtain sign off for your plan, including approval for your budget and timeframe. Do this by developing an email to your supervisor outlining what you require and authorisation to proceed. Ensure you use professional business language. Attach this email to Section 2 of your Project Portfolio.

Assume your supervisor has responded to you and provided the necessary approval. Develop an email to your project team members to ensure that the team is clear about overall project requirements and project roles and responsibilities.

The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.

Attach this email to Section 2 of your Project Portfolio.

Submit Sections 1 and 2 of your Project Portfolio to your assessor. Remember to include all relevant attachment prior to your submission.

Complete some of the project implementation activities (at least two) as outlined in your planning. Work into Section 3 of your Project Portfolio and attach the relevant evidence as directed.

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If using the case study in the simulation pack, follow the guidance below.

You are to develop a brief in order to obtain quotes from at least three website designers.

Use the case study information to develop the website design brief.

Your brief should include the following:

· Background information

· Target audience

· Content: what should be included in the website.

· Call to action: what the people who visit the website should do

· Social Media

· Functional requirements

· Website design ideas

· Logo

· Search engine optimisation

· Practical issues

Develop an email to be sent to three web designers for quotes along with the design brief.

Prepare a project status report to send to your supervisor.

Your status report should include, as a minimum, the following:

· Progress summary

· Milestones: achievement of key dates for activities as specified in the Project Management Plan

· Budget: planned expenditure and actual expenditure

· Risk management: of project risks to date

· Recommendations

Continue working into Section 3 of your project portfolio.

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If using the simulation, the following will apply:

It is two months into the project for the development of the website.

The status of the project is as follows:

The content has been developed for the website within the required timeline of 1 month from the implementation of the project plan and at the specified cost.

The content was written by a public relations consultancy company, PR Pulse for the cost specified in the project budget.

Three quotes have been received from website developers as follows:

· Bestweb Design $3,750, timing indicated as 4 weeks – examples of other websites developed do not seem to be suitable.

· Visualweb $5,000, timing indicated as 8 weeks – examples of other websites developed seem to be along the lines required.

· Web designs Australia $6,000, timing indicated as 12 weeks – examples of other websites developed seem to be along the lines required.

The customer service officer has left the organisation unexpectedly.

You are required to provide support to one of your project team members. This must be done in person so you will need to set up a meeting with someone on your team.

You are required to demonstrate that you can provide support to this team member to help them achieve deliverables.

It is important that you are very clear about the importance of meeting the documented timelines of the project with this person. These should be the same as those in the activities and milestones section of your project management plan in your portfolio. Confirm with them that these timelines can be met.

During the meeting, you are required to demonstrate effective communication skills including:

· Speaking clearly and concisely

· Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding

· Asking questions to identify required information

· Responding to questions as required

· Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding

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If using the case study, refer to the information below:

You have received the following email from the Operations Manager.

Dear Marketing Coordinator.

Thank you for your Project Status Report. We have recently hired a new customer service officer, who will be part of the project team. I will set up a meeting for the three of us, so you can bring them up to date on the project. I will be attending to assist with this if you need me to.

Regards,

Operations Manager

This new team member has been employed to take the place of the person who has unexpectedly left.

You are required to provide support for the new Project Team member by discussing all aspects of the project with them. The Operations Manager will also be attending the meeting.

Keep in mind the new customer service officer will need your support at this stage, so make sure that you understand in what areas they may need assistance, and work with them to find how this can be provided.

During the meeting, you must be very clear about the expected quality of the project outcomes. Keep in mind that this is a new employee, and they are not familiar with the quality expectations that have been outlined during earlier discussions that you have participated in.

Submit Section 3 of your Project Portfolio to your assessor. Remember to include all relevant attachment prior to your submission.

Complete finalisation activities for the project.

Conduct a meeting with your team to formally close the project. Discuss project outcomes and ensure that all of the staff involved in the project are working in new roles or have been reassigned to their previous roles. Before concluding the meeting, ensure that all project team members have the opportunity to give feedback on the project. Gain verbal confirmation from all team members that they can transition to their other tasks following project completion and offer your support as necessary.

During the meeting, you will need to demonstrate effective communication skills including:

· Speaking clearly and concisely

· Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding

· Asking questions to identify required information

· Responding to questions as required

· Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding

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If using the simulation, the following will apply:

The project is now complete, with the outcomes as follows:

The website is now live. There has been very positive feedback amongst all staff about the look and content of the website. The website designers were very professional and easy to deal with.

It is four months since the project commenced. Delays occurred because of the following:

· The website developer could not complete the website within the required timelines as originally stated in their quote.

· There were additional delays due to the customer service officer’s departure and changes to the website during the development as a result of the project manager’s input.

· The design of the logo took longer – see below.

The estimated cost for the logo was doubled because the first designer employed was unable to develop a logo to the company’s liking and so a new logo designer was contracted. This therefore doubled the costs as the first designer, as well as the second designer needed to be paid.

Training will be required in website maintenance to ensure information is regularly updated e.g. the newsletter. Training should ideally be provided to the administration staff.

Develop a final project evaluation report. Ensure that you incorporate the feedback from the team meeting into your report, as well as your own reflections based on the project status report you developed and the scenario information above.

Your project evaluation report should include the following:

· The reason for closing the project

· Any highlights from the project and any innovations that were made.

· A summary of recommendations relating to the project

· Project performance against objectives

· Project performance against outcomes

· Project performance against outputs

· Project performance against budget

· Lessons learnt

Complete Section 4 of your Project Portfolio.

Make sure you have completed all sections of your Project Portfolio, answered all questions, provided enough detail as indicated and proofread for spelling and grammar as necessary. Be sure to include all relevant attachments as outlined in your portfolio, including the link to the online project folder in Section 4.

Submit to your assessor for marking.

Student name:

Assessor:

Date:

Name of project:

Task 2.1: Project scoping and planning

Provide an overview of the organisation. Include their:

· Mission

· Goals

· Objectives

· Operational context

Give the rationale for the project

Business objectives

Relationship of project to the organisation's objectives

Define the project scope

Relationship to other projects

Include dependencies

Stakeholders

Outline the project stakeholders and clearly define the project staff

Resources

The additional resources that will be needed

Legislative and regulatory context including WHS considerations

Risk assessment

Make a list of potential risks

Reporting

Define the project’s reporting requirements

Project management tools and system to be used

Outline the project management system, tools or methods you will use to file documentation and share information for this project

E-mail as evidence of communication with supervisor regarding project issues or parameters

Seek clarification from your supervisor in relation to any queries and issues you have relating to the project and its parameters.

Attach

Screenshots of online file organisation to date

Please insert Google Drive/Dropbox link here:

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Task 2.2: Project management plan

Title

Background

Provide a brief explanation of the background of the project.

Objectives

Benefits that the project intends to achieve

How the success of the project will be measured

Describe the measure(s) that will used to indicate that the project has been successfully completed

Project area

Actions

Responsibility

Scheduled start

Scheduled finish

Cost area

Details

Estimated cost

Risk

Likelihood

Severity

Risk Rating

Treatment/control methods

To: Subject:

To: Subject:

Attach:

Screenshots of online file organisation to date

Please insert Google Drive/Dropbox link here:

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Task 2.3: Implementing activities

Which implementation activities did you complete?

List these here and provide evidence of each one (minimum two)

Project name

Project Manager

Project Objective

Project Progress Summary

Briefly describe the Project’s progress towards meeting its target outcome during this reporting period. Anecdotal information may be provided.

Milestones

Target date

Actual date

Impact

Description of milestone

Target date as per project plan

Actual date achieved

Briefly describe any changes to the project schedule required as a result of the amended milestone(s).

Budget

Indicate total project funding, planned expenditure and actual expenditure.

Comments

Include additional comments as required regarding overspend or surplus/underspend in this reporting period.

Risk

Predicted likelihood

Seriousness

Actions to be taken

Brief description of project risks arising

Include likelihood attributed to risk in project plan

Include consequences attributed to risk in project plan

Include actions to be taken based on original risk treatments identified.

Recommendations

Brief statement(s) for your supervisor to consider and/or endorse as applicable.

Attach:

Screenshots of online file organisation to date

Please insert Google Drive/Dropbox link here:

Task 2.4: Project finalisation

Reason for closing the project

Outline why this project is over

Highlights and innovations

What were the main highlights and innovations of this project?

Summary of recommendations

If using the case study, one of the recommendations should be for the supervisor to agree that the project can be deemed closed.

Performance against objectives

Summarise the actual performance of the project against the planned performance.

Performance against outcomes

Describe the actual performance of the project in relation to the achievement of Were all planned targeted outcomes achieved, to what degree?

Performance against outputs

Describe the actual performance of the project in relation to the delivery of the outputs. Were all planned outputs delivered, to what degree? Were they all accepted? Did the quality of the outputs meet expectations?

Cost area

Estimated cost

Actual cost

Lessons learnt

Describe the project management and quality management processes that were perceived to be inappropriate and/or ineffective for the project, as reflected by the stakeholders and the project records/documentation.

Attach:

Link to completed online file organisation and record keeping system used throughout the project.

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