Faculty of Business and Law
Assignment Brief 2023/24
Unit Title: Portfolio and Project Management in Organisations
Unit Code: 5Z7V0001 Core: YES (MSc OSCM) Level: 7
Assignment Identifier: 100% Individual Assignment (Report)
Unit Lead: Dr Rosane Pagano
Contact Details: r.pagano@mmu.ac.uk
Submission Date: See date on Moodle – to be submitted before 21:00 hours GMT Feedback Return Date:
Four weeks after submission date
Submission Instructions: Submit through the Moodle Assessment link
Feedback Return Information: Feedback will be uploaded to Moodle
Assignment Task and Word Count
You will produce an individual written report that critically examines current advantages or challenges facing the Project Management Office (PMO) in a specific business sector.
Word Count: Maximum 3500 words for the body of the report (excludes references).
Unit Learning Outcomes Assessed
1. Critically evaluate the latest principles and methodological approaches relating to the management of projects within and across organisations.
2. Critically examine how project and programme management can be adopted as a strategic tool in organisations to provide value added services to the client within common overarching constraints of time, cost and quality.
Early Career/ World Class Professional Skills (PLOs) being developed/assessed.
This assignment will help you further develop your information gathering capabilities, critical analysis, critical thinking and practical decision making, as well as enhancing your written communication skills essential for employability and lifelong learning.
PLO1. Our graduates will apply critical thinking to practical and theoretical problems (developed)
PLO2. Our graduates will be effective communicators using a range of media (developed)
PLO4. Our graduates will demonstrate professional and commercial/corporate awareness (developed)
Assignment Details and Instructions
The professional body, the Chartered Association for Project Management (APM), describes the Project Management Office as a strategic driver for organisational excellence, which seeks to enhance the practices of execution management, organisational governance, and strategic change leadership.
The aim of this assignment is to investigate some of the advantages or challenges presented to the Project Management Office (PMO) when performing its role and responsibilities. These responsibilities relate to the project management knowledge areas, that is, the management areas of Time, Cost, Quality, People, Risk, Resources, Integration, Scope, and Communications.
To narrow the scope of your report, choose a business sector of interest to you, for example, construction, IT, or healthcare, to focus on. Then, conduct a review of the literature, selecting studies that discuss advantages or challenges related to the PMO and overall project or organisation performance.
Refer to the International Journal of Project Management and the Project Management Journal for PMO related journal articles (the two most established academic journals in the field) - but you may use other academic journals as well.
Assignment support will be provided at lectures, seminars, drop-in slots, asynchronous activities online, and materials posted on Moodle.
This is an individual piece of work of a maximum of 3500 words (excluding the reference list). Note that any word count in excess of 10% of the maximum 3500 words will be ignored. Please aim to stay as close as possible to the 3500 word count – not much less and not much more.
Use the Cite Them Right Harvard referencing style.
Support available on the Cite Them Right website includes:
Guidance on How to use Cite Them Right
Advice on how to reference a broad range of source types in the Cite Them Right Harvard style.
The Cite Them Right website encourages students to identify and correct their own referencing mistakes via the ‘You try’ function.
Offers an online tutorial on referencing and plagiarism and lots of video guidance.
Assignment Formatting:
1. Title: Include a title followed by your name (author) and your MMU ID
2. Line spacing: Single-spaced
3. Margins: 2 cm left and right, and 2 cm top and bottom
4. Font Type: Arial 11
5. Headings: Include numbered headings and subheadings, as applicable, for clearer structure and flow of ideas.
6. Page number: Include page number in the bottom centre of each page.
7. Figures and Tables: All figures and tables should be numbered and have a title. The numbering should be used when referring to a Figure or Table in the text.
NOTE 1: submission is of one file only, Word or PDF format.
NOTE 2: multiple submissions are allowed up to submission deadline. You can then check your TurnItIn similarity index. A new submission overwrites the previous one. NOTE 3: no need to include abstract or table of content.
Academic Integrity, Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism
Academic Integrity is about engaging in good academic practice. It means being honest and transparent, and demonstrating rigour and accuracy in your work. This can include the proper citation and referencing of the sources of your ideas and information, ensuring that you are using appropriate research methods, or checking that your work is free of errors.
Additional information, video tutorials and guides to support good academic practice and maintain Academic Integrity in your assignments can be found on the Academic Integrity area of the Academic and Study Skills page on Moodle.
Academic Misconduct is any action that could give you an unfair advantage in coursework, exams, or any other assessed work, which could lead to undermining the academic standards of the University. This includes practices such as plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, contract cheating or falsification of data. Full details of the Manchester Metropolitan University guidelines for Academic Misconduct and definitions of terms can be found here.
Late submissions & Assessment Mitigations:
Please refer to this link which will take you to MMU Student Life Assessment & Results guidance. Here you will find information for MMU’s assessment mitigations process. Further guidance can be found in this video link for step-by-step instructions on how to apply for your extension via Moodle.
Please Note: If you think you are unable to submit on time due to a health or some other unforeseen issue you must request this via your unit Moodle page, referring to the guidance in the links provided above.
Resources
Kerzner, H. (2017) Project Management Case Studies, 5th ed, Wiley. E-BOOK available in the university Library.
Kerzner, H. (2017) Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 12th ed, Wiley. E-BOOK available in the university Library.
Chartered Association for Project Management (Resources) https://www.apm.org.uk/
International Journal of Project Management
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-project-management/
Project Management Journal http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1938-9507
MS Project 2019.
Marking Criteria:
Your submission will be marked using the stepped marking scheme. Your grade will show which marking band your work is in, and whether you are at the top, middle, or bottom of the band. Stepped marking is used to simplify the marking process for staff and make it clearer to students in which band their work sits.
Mark PGT Classification
95 - 100% Distinction
90%
85%
78%
75%
72%
68% Merit
65%
62%
58% Pass
55%
52%
48% Marginal Fail
45%
42%
38% Fail
35%
32%
28%
25%
22%
18%
15%
12%
8%
5%
2%
0%
Group Work Guidelines (If applicable)
NOT APPLICABLE
See Moodle for Unit Specification
MARKING CRITERIA
00-29% 30 - 39% 40-49% 50-59% 60- 69% 70-85% 86-100%
(PLO1)
Identify and apply information through critical thinking and analysis. Key points framed and contextualised.
Extremely limited background context and framing of concepts Very limited background and contextualisation offered. Incomplete and superficial points raised Descriptive background and context, adequate number of points raised Sufficient contextualisation and background thoughtful identification and framing of key issues Good examination and
contextualisation of key issues, well defined an framed
with practical examples Rigorous critical contextualisation underpinned with theory. Thorough identification of issues Exemplary contextualisation, meticulously framed
Utilisation of data and evidence from literature Extremely limited use of evidence or data from literature Very limited literature and evidence used Limited evidence and data used from literature Sufficient use of data and evidence from literature Good critical use of evidence and data from literature Rigorous use of data and evidence from literature Authoritative use of data and evidence from secondary sources
Conclusions are evidencebased and supported through logical discussion Extremely limited conclusion that have tenuous links to the discussion Some conclusions drawn but are more opinionated than
evidence based
Limited conclusions drawn from discussion Sufficiently coherent conclusions drawn from discussion Thoughtful and
critical conclusions
drawn Reflective conclusions drawn from discussion Illuminating and
insightful conclusions drawn
(PLO2)
Enhance effective communication skills. Effective written communication. Essay is well structured, with a consistent logical flow.
Extremely poor structure, disrupted flow. Lacks logical flow Very poor structure
and logical flow. It is too jumbled Poor structure, flow, and organisation Sufficiently clear structure and organisation. Coherent and logical flow Good structure and organisation. Critical flow and connectivity between elements Excellent structure and organisation. Fluent and precise connectivity between elements Outstanding structure and organisation. Authoritative connectivity between elements
Appropriate academic
language, spelling, and grammar Extremely poor usage of language, syntax and spelling; extremely poor grammar Very poor use of academic language, too many spelling
errors, poor grammar Poor language, grammar. Still needs to be more academic Adequate and
sufficiently coherent use of academic
language. Few spelling or
grammatical errors
Good use of academic language. No grammatical or spelling errors Excellent use of academic language. Excellent spelling and grammar Complex language. Outstanding grammar
(PLO4)
Identification of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional
practice
Extremely limited
identification of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice. Very limited identification of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice. Limited identification of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice. Adequate
identification of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice.
Good knowledge of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice. Excellent knowledge of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice.
Outstanding knowledge of relevant PM processes and areas of knowledge in professional practice.
6