PPMP20009 Leading Lean Projects
Assessment Specification
Group Assessment (40%)
Due Date: 23:55 AEST Week 12, Wednesday (6 Feb, 2019) Length: 2500 – 3000 words (excluding references and appendix) Assessment Case study: Australian Engineering Works Private Limited (AEW) 2 diminishing profitability
General Assessment Criteria
Incomprehensible submissions. Assessments provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to achieve the required standard. To do this, assessment responses need to be both clear and easy to understand. If not, the University cannot determine that students have demonstrated their knowledge and skills. Assessments will, therefore, be marked according to the marking criteria (accompanied by the marking rubric). Failing to meet the requirements may result in 0 (zero) marks where relevant.
Do not reproduce statements from PMBOK or PRINCE2 or any other references without proper context.
Example 1:
Leadership is knowledge, skills, and behavior required to guide, motivate and direct a team to achieve its business goals (copied from page 56 of PMBOK), as this is considered plagiarism, instead you must show how you would apply that statement to your case.
Example 2:
PMBOK version 6 constitutes 10 knowledge areas, 5 process groups and 49 process activities or
PRINCE2 consists of 7 Principles, 7 Themes and 7 Processes.
Produce your answers for the case in question. DO NOT write about the theory or explain what PMBOK, PRINCE2, DMAIC methodology, etc covers. That will not attract any marks. You should demonstrate the application of the best practices not the theory.
Discuss with your lecturer / tutor if you need help.
Word count limit (excluding references and appendix). Your submission should be made using Microsoft WORD document of 2,500 - 3,000 words. Text length less than 2500 words will be penalised by 5% of the total available marks while text beyond the 3000 word limit shall attract a penalty as follows:
• 3001 - 3300 words: 5 marks
• 3301 - 3600 words: 10 marks
• more than 3601 words: 15 marks
Late penalty. Late submissions will attract penalties at 5% for each calendar day or part thereof that it is late of the total available mark for the individual assessment item. This means that, for an assessment worth 40 marks, the mark that you earn is reduced by 2 marks each calendar day that the assessment is late (including part-days and weekends). See s4.58 in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Check with marking criteria. Before submitting your assignment you should check it against the assessment criteria and the marking rubric included in this specification to ensure that you have satisfactorily addressed all the criteria that will be used to mark your assignment.
Academic language. All submissions should be thoroughly proof-read for spelling, typographical or grammatical errors before being submitted. Do not reply on the ‘spell-check’ function in your word processing program. If, for example, ‘affect’ is substituted for ‘effect’, your program may not detect the error.
Academic Integrity
All assignments will be checked for plagiarism (material copied from other students and/or material copied from other sources) using TurnItIn (TII). If you are found to have plagiarised material or if you have used someone else’s words without appropriate referencing, you will be penalised for plagiarism which could result in 0 (zero) marks for the whole assignment. In some circumstances a more severe penalty may be imposed. The link to the University’s Academic Misconduct Procedures is available in the unit profile.
Useful information about academic integrity (avoiding plagiarism) can be found at:
CQ University referencing guides
https://www.cqu.edu.au/student-life/services-and-facilities/referencing/cquniversityreferencing-guides
Submission requirements
Who to submit?
Since this is a GROUP submission,
• One and only one student in the group will be elected to upload and submit the designated documents on behalf of the entire group. You decide which group member will upload.
• Other members shall click the SUBMIT button in your respective Moodle Assessment 2 submission page. The process for submission is as follows:
• Assuming the group has 3 members
• Member #1 uploads the assessment
• Member #2 and #3 will get a notification that Member 1 has uploaded and submitted
• Member #2 and #3 must log in to Moodle, review and submit the assessment
• Once all three members have submitted, only then the assessment submission is considered COMPLETE.
• Else it will STILL be in DRAFT status. Your assessment will not be graded.
What you will see in Moodle?
Once your group detail has been finalised (you need to liaise with you lecturer / tutor), your respective groups will be created in Moodle. Once created, you are not allowed to change group members (any errors in group formation will result in you having to complete the assessment individually).
In week 9, on your Moodle Assessment 2 submission page, you should see the link for submission as shown in the screen grab below (Figure1):
Figure 1: Correct submission link
However, if your screen appears as below (Figure 2), you should immediately email your lecturer/tutor/ unit coordinator to rectify the problem.
Figure 1: Incorrect submission link (error “Member of more than one group”)
IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CHECK AND NOTIFY US IF YOU HAVE ANY ISSUES WITH THE SUBMISSION LINK FOR ASSESSMENT 2.
No Zipped files. Students must NOT zip the MS Word document or submit it as one single zip/compressed file.
Means of submission. All assignments must be submitted electronically in Moodle. The submission links can be accessed through the Assessment block on the Moodle unit website. Physical copies/Email submissions are not accepted.
Auto-submission. Moodle implements an auto-submission process for those items uploaded and left as drafts before the original deadline. However, any assessments uploaded after the original deadline must be manually submitted by the students.
Please note that auto-submission process does not work for assessments which have extensions. Auto-submission only works where the original deadline of an assessment has not changed. If you are submitting after the deadline (original or extended), you must complete the Moodle submission process. Further details on completing the submission process are available via the ‘Moodle Help for Students’ link in the SUPPORT block of your Moodle pages.
Warning. Having said that, however, you should not completely rely on Moodle’s autosubmission functionality because it has not been proved to be reliable in the past. Each student should make sure they submit their assignment before the deadline by manually clicking on the submission button.
Complete and correct submission. Assignments, once submitted, are FINAL and therefore cannot be modified. Students bear all the onus to ensure that their submissions are correct (correct files in correct format) and complete before submitting to Moodle.
Introduction
Australian Engineering Works Private Limited (AEW) is an original equipment manufacturer specialising in plastic moulding parts for the telecommunication industry. They have been servicing the industry for almost 30 years and their customers include major telecommunication service providers. Due to its reputation, AEW have become a very successful company.
The crack is appearing
However, as this industry is seen as a very lucrative market, many new suppliers have begun to emerge. This is having serious implications for AEW. It is more difficult to win new contracts as their customers are able to explore options with other suppliers. Additionally, the competitors are also providing better pricing than AEW. These factors combined have eroded AEW’s profitability by almost 45%. As more suppliers are flooding the market, many of AEW’s experienced employees have opted to join the new players.
Management response
AEW’s senior management are concerned with the recent developments and are looking at ways to improve and once again become the preferred supplier to their customers. To this effect, AEW has engaged your company to provide some advice on overcoming the above issues. The management team is willing to provide all necessary support to turnaround the situation. They want all issues to be resolved within three (3) months.
Your tasks
This assessment item requires you to work in a group (no more than 3 students). You and your team (including members from AEW) have only three (3) months to correct the situation. As the project manager, you are required to produce a REPORT to be submitted to AEW senior management team.
Questions:
1. Identify the root cause(s) that lead to the problems using appropriate tools and techniques.
2. Develop a risk management plan to ensure the problems and issues are not repeated.
3. In your opinion what leadership style should be adopted to help bring about the necessary changes?
Important Information
You must show evidence of using at least seven (7) tools and techniques that you have learnt from this unit to address question (1) above.
You may refer to the Project Risk Management from PMBOK, PRINCE2 or any other resources to devise your risk management plan – (question 2)
Formatting. The report should be presented in 1.5 line spacing, 12 point Times New Roman font. Report section headings and numbering 1.0, 1.1.2 etc. is expected.
Supporting diagrams / figures may be presented in other formats - Excel, PowerPoint
slides, PDF documents, as part of the appendix and will not count towards the essay’s word limit. The reference list will also not be included in the word count.
Tables should be placed in the report. It should be labelled correctly (Table 1, Table 2 etc) and shall be included in the word count.
The submission should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature on the project management topics in question. The literature review should be integrated into the essay, not a separate section. Do not include an executive summary or an abstract.
This assessment item involves researching your assigned topic to enhance your understanding of lean project management concepts and utilisation of academic literature. Whilst you use the recommended textbooks and lecture materials, you may also refer to relevant peer reviewed, academic journal articles. A reference list (comprising between 5 – 10 references) formatted in the prescribed APA style is compulsory.
Assessment Criteria
Marking Criteria:
Your assignment will be assessed on the extent and quality to which it meets each of the following criteria:
No Attributes (%)
1.0 Introduction 2
2.0 Problems Identification
2.1 Identification of root cause(s) of the problems along with the assumptions o Choice and correct application of tools and techniques (12 marks)
o Assumptions made (3 mark)
? 2 assumptions will attract 1 mark
? 4 or more assumptions will attract 2 mark
? More than 4 assumption will attract 3 marks 15
3.0 Risk Management Plan o Risk Register (2 marks)
o Qualitative / Quantitative risk analysis (2 marks)
o Risk responses (2 marks) o Implementation of risk response (2 marks) o Monitoring of risk responses (2 marks) 10
4.0 Leadership style appropriate to bring about the change
6
5.0 Conclusion 2
6.0 Clarity of expression, grammar, spelling and correct APA style referencing 5
Total 40
Reminder:
Assessment Due Date 23:55 hrs AEST Week 12, Wednesday (6 Feb, 2019)
Type Group Work
Weighting 40%