LSBF Module
Project Management and Leadership
Assignment
Title
Creating and Leading a Project Plan
Assignment
Type
Individual Assignment
Word Limit 3,500 – 4,000
Weighting 100%
Plagiarism When submitting work for assessment, students should be aware of the LSBF guidance and regulations concerning plagiarism. All submissions should be your own original work.
You must submit an electronic copy of your work. Your submission will be electronically checked.
Harvard Referencing & Special
Instructions
The Harvard Referencing System must be used. The Wikipedia website must not be referenced in your work.
You are allowed to upload only ONE attachment (e.g. an Excel sheet) in addition to your original assignment, unless there is a requirement for more than one document in the assignment brief.
You must upload your assignment in PDF or Word document format. Your paper will not be graded if it is submitted in any other format.
If you submit your assignment as a PDF version, please include the exact word count of the assignment on the title page.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this assignment you will be able to:
1. Assess the project life cycle and explore and critically appraise alternative approaches to management of projects.
2. Critically evaluate the relationship between effective project management techniques, leadership, project implementation and the project planning process and successful project management.
3. Evaluate contemporary project management practices and leadership styles in an organisation and identify and critically evaluate suggestions for improvement of these practices.
4. Identify and critically assess the criteria for measuring successful performance of a given project.
5. Evaluate and apply appropriate approaches, tools and techniques to project planning, monitoring, control, evaluation, and risk analysis and risk management.
Grading Criteria Postgraduate Grading Criteria for this assignment is available at the end of this document.
Your Task
Clemente is a country with a population of about four million people. It was under authoritarian rule for ten years.
This year, the people had finally had enough of the economic and social quagmire brought about by leaders who dictated how the people should live their lives.
The people successfully changed their leaders by forcing an election, from which a new set of democratically elected leaders emerged.
The new and young leaders wanted to hire the best minds to jumpstart initiatives that will get the economy where they want it to be within the next five years.
To signal to the international community that their economy is no longer protectionist, is opening up, and is willing to accept investments, the leaders think it is best to hold a month long celebration that will culminate in a summit of world leaders and private investors. The summit will be called the Clemente Global Summit.
As an experienced project manager and leader in your field, you were hired to head the project management team that will organise the preparation for the Clemente Global Summit. You are given a free hand to organise the summit and to propose a plan that you think can be executed and will achieve the desired results.
Now, you will draw up the project control cycle and prepare a plan or report for the summit.
Your plan or report should contain the following elements:
1. The Approach or Framework
This part will discuss the project management approach you think is best. You should refer to theoretical concepts, techniques, and principles discussed in the recommended textbook for this module as well as in the academic literature on project management and leadership theories.
You should be able to compare and contrast the different approaches that can be used and analyse why one approach might work and why the other approaches might cause problems and eventually lead to the unsuccessful execution of the project.
(30 marks)
2. The Summit Plan Proper In the report, you are required to:
a. Define objectives of the project
b. Identify the work and how to break it down into smaller tasks
c. Estimate time and cost for doing the tasks
d. Sequence and schedule the tasks and determine the critical path
e. Optimise the assigning of resources to the tasks
(30 marks)
3. The Risk Analysis and Baseline Plan
The leaders are particularly antsy about what could go wrong considering the magnitude of this political and economic event. The consequences of failure could be detrimental to the democratising country. Hence, you should provide an extensive and in-depth identification of the risks, an analysis of the nature of the risks, and recommendations on how to address or mitigate them in a baseline plan.
(15 marks)
4. Leadership and Human Resources
To conclude the plan or report, on the basis of your research for this assignment, identify and justify the qualities and skills you believe are most important for leading/managing the project. In particular, discuss which of the skills or qualities of the manager of a successful project will make the framework work.
Similarly, you should identify and explain which qualities of the manager or leader would be disastrous for the project, and therefore should be avoided.
You will discuss this in reference to you as the project manager and the other team leaders you will hire to comprise the organising team.
(25 marks)
All these required discussions should be contained in one report. All information you are using should have adequate references and supporting arguments.
Guidelines
Read all questions and information provided carefully. Answers should be an appropriate length, keeping in mind the question requirements and total word count allowance.
In addition, your assignment should demonstrate the following qualities:
A critical appreciation of relevant literature and its use to support your argument, substantiate calculations, and address other aspects of the assignment.
Taking ownership of the content, being prepared to debate and argue a personal position, and providing evidence of evaluative skills. A submission made up of extracts from published sources which is descriptive or simply theoretical regurgitation is not acceptable. Your submission must have interpretation and consideration of the challenges and issues of applying theory to practice.
Logical flow of ideas and treatment; appropriate selection of real-world factors related to the companies under scrutiny.
Evidence of additional personal research, and the ability to analyse material from a variety of appropriate, relevant perspectives.
Presentation, structure, appropriateness of methodology, breaking into section headings/subheadings, tidiness.
Marks will be awarded for proper referencing and originality of work. Also note that plagiarism is a serious offence and your submission will be electronically checked.
Your report must be handed in electronically no later than the given date of submission.
Last Completed Projects
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