Project Management

Project Management

Year: 2018-19
Course code: MGT4017
Course credits: 15
Taught: Semester 1
Course co-ordinator: Dr James Wilson
Entry requirements: Normally admission to an honours programme in Business & Management
Available to visiting students: Yes
Contact for more information: Business Undergraduate mailbox

Course description

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the theory and practice of project management.

Aims

The aims are to introduce the theory and practice of project management:

  • Providing a comprehensive overview of the role of projects within organizations.
  • Providing a comprehensive review of the methods useful for managing projects and their usefulness:
    • Traditional prescriptive methods drawn from operational research techniques
    • Organisationally oriented methods conscious of the commercial, organisational, and social context within which projects are undertaken.
    • Approaches informed by behavioural research on motivation, power and organisational or social dynamics.
  • Identifying the broader effects of project management within organizations, considering its impact upon:
    • People, as individuals and as project team members.
    • Operations, in terms of project organisation, scheduling, workflow management and coordination; with appropriate monitoring and control systems.
    • Quality management systems and practices with both conceptual and implementation concerns.
    • Finances, in terms of assessing project cost/benefit investment decision-making and the operational impact through budgeting systems and their implementation for cost management and control.
  • Providing linkages between general and abstract considerations of management theory with their application and use within project management to specific issues and problems

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students will be able to:

  1. Recognise the characteristics of projects that make specialized management techniques necessary
  2. Identify alternative methods available for planning projects and assess the situations for which each is most appropriate
  3. Construct work breakdown structures and assess their applications in projects.
  4. Critically assess the various workload and cost estimation methodologies and show their practical application
  5. Explain the critical path method and summarise its strengths and weaknesses as a project management tool, and critically assess its appropriateness and effectiveness for various applications
  6. Recall and explain basic project finance theory and recognise specific issues arising with project budgeting.
  7. Assess the impact of risk on project management and apply the various methods that may be used to manage risks.
  8. Develop and apply analytical and modelling skills with spreadsheet tools to management problems.

Learning and teaching methods

Lectures:  2-hr lecture x 10 weeks
Students are advised to bring to class a laptop or tablet that has Microsoft Office software installed. Excel will be used in class exercises. Where students are unable bring their own device, they will be asked to share with a peer.

Please refer to MyCampus for timetable

Course texts

K.B. Brown & N.L. Hyer, Managing Projects: A Team-based Approach, McGraw-Hill, 2010

Assessment

An individual case study assignment of 3,500 words (100%)