MANG6537 Project Management

This is an individual coursework (cw) of 2000 words, worth 100% of your total mark for this module. The coursework aims to assess the depth and breadth of your appreciation, reflection and critical analysis of management of a real project using the PM aspects discussed throughout the module. You will choose a large project from your own country to analyse. It should have several main stakeholders (e.g., the government, major companies, public, etc.) and the product or service of the project should serve the whole country (e.g., developing a new higher education system in the country) or a considerable part of the country or a region (e.g. a highway connecting east to west, improving agricultural systems in part of the country, etc.). The project should be widely known in your country for its failure in delivering the product, system or the service it was supposed to deliver or have delivered a product, system or service, but the stakeholders hold very controversial views (e.g., some have benefited from the project and deem it as success but others disagree and deem it as failure). 2. Aims of the Essay The essay aims at evaluating your capabilities in: identifying what a project is; describing a large project through valid sources of information; critically analysing the project from the PM aspects taught in the module; identifying weaknesses and strengths of management of the project and assessing full or partial success or failure of the project. Ultimately, the essay evaluates the depth and breadth of the (dos and don’ts) lessons you learned from the project analysis and your reflection on how these will affect your approach to the management of projects in the future. 3. Overall Expectation of the Essay The essay should be developed as an ‘academic' piece of work, which entails developing strong analytical and critical discussions and reflections. Throughout the essay you need to use the concepts, tools and techniques learned in this module for description, discussion and analysis. Essays that are purely descriptive and are based on intuitive explanations (e.g., very long/detailed project historical or technical specifications and common-sense discussions) do not attract high marks. Throughout this essay you should clearly demonstrate that you have used formal and academic project management knowledge and information from the valid project sources (e.g., project or company websites, formal news agency or international organisations’ websites) in developing any of the above items. These should all be fully and carefully cited. You will gradually build up the required knowledge for developing a good essay through attendance in the lectures and engagement with the contents; participating in exercises and case study discussions; besides enough independent background studies.