NEHRU NAGAPPANPM Consultant| Project Leadership AcademyShah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Friends.
I teach project management for Degree students. Each intake lasts for 3 months.
At the end of the intake, the students are to submit an assignment, as a group of FOUR person, which includes a case study on a project management topic/challenge.
I am looking for ideas from you, for a sample case study that I could use as an assignment for these students.
Here are the learning outcomes:
1. Organize a typical project and decompose it into manageable components, systematically estimating the resource requirements and allocating tasks with due regard to risk and the available human and technical factors, discuss and critically evaluate the process.
2. Analyze, plan and manage a typical project using an appropriate variety of scheduling, monitoring and controlling tools and techniques, and communicate the plan effectively to a technical and non-technical audience, discuss and critically evaluate the process.
3. Understand, discriminate between and apply some techniques of team building and management, risk assessment and management and change management and are likely to improve the success of a typical project, discuss and critically evaluate the process.
The assignment must be:
1. simple, but challenging enough
2. Theoretical or Practical
3. Must be able to cover all 10 knowledge area of PMBOK, and the 5 Project Life Cycles
That is complex enough to cross all knowledge areas and use the most common tools but also simple and familiar enough that most students should be able to contribute to it.
Kiron has the right idea. Something simple, contained, yet covers all the knowledge areas. Although whenever I recommend ideas for these types of situations, I always throw in some curve balls such as:
1. Add one (hypothetical) remote resource into the project so it challenges communications management and team building.
2. Something going wrong, like a risk that occurs outside of the identified risks, to demonstrate some workarounds.
3. A difficult stakeholder who just won't play along to see how they handle negotiation and influencing techniques. Saving Changes...
Some ideas to covers all the areas are:
1. Human Resource Management: a team member leaves the project
2. Scope & Cost change: the sponsors as for a change on the kitchen layout Saving Changes...
In addition to the great points, I would like to propose an alternative approach.
I would get to know the interest areas of these students and prepare a case based on these interests.
For example, if their common interest is football, then I would prepare a case of extending the seating capacity at a famous stadium (the Bernabau, Old Trafford, Ashburton Grove). I would use this premise and pile on scenarios from each of the knowledge areas.
This will allow them to understand and apply the concepts more efficiently since they can figuratively visualise the entire process (given that it's their interest area).
Of course, there's a good chance that there won't be one single interest area across your class. But maybe two interest areas can cover the entire population - and your exam could ask them to choose between two project scenarios (one for each interest area). Saving Changes...
