nformation on a project of their choice to carry out a critical analysis on the documented ‘business case’ of that project. Your task is to consider whether the business case developed by the project reflects ‘best practice’ as defined by the project management literature. Students should choose a project as early as possible after reading the requirements of assignment 1. The same project can be used for both assignments 1 and 2. Assignment 2 for this course is a report and requires students to obtain sufficient information on a project of their choice to carry out a critical analysis of the ‘project management plan’. Students should choose a project as early as possible after reading the requirements of assignment 2. Students may use the same project for assignment 1 and assignment 2, or they may choose different projects. Note: there is NO examination for this course so the assignments carry a heavy weighting. Assignment 1 Word count: 2000 words approximately (excluding figures, tables and reference list) The structure of your essay document is as follows: Assignment Mark Sheet (download this from the Assessment tab on the study desk) Title page (course details, author details, due date, etc. in the style of a professional document) Essay The focus of this essay is the 'business case'. Make sure you clearly understand what a project business case is, and its contents, before you try to complete this assignment. Using a wide variety of academic literature, in the form of an essay critically analyse whether your project’s chosen business case fulfils the purpose of a project business case as stated by the Association for Project Management (2006, p. 129): It has been suggested that a project business case provides ‘justification for undertaking a project, in terms of evaluating the benefit, cost and risk of alternative options and the rationale for the preferred solution. Its purpose is to obtain management commitment and approval for investment in the project. The business case is owned by the (project) sponsor’. (Source: Association for Project Management 2006, Body of Knowledge, 5th edn, APM, UK) Justify your critical analysis using evidence from the literature (the literature includes text books, journal articles etc. that have some ‘academic validity’). The body of your essay should compare the content recommended for a project business case (as per the literature) with your chosen project business case. It is expected that you would provide an introduction, the body of your essay, and conclusion and recommendations in this section. You may use headings for sections if you wish. Even though assignment 1 is an essay format, you may use diagrams and tables if necessary to reduce word count and to communicate your analysis more clearly. Appendices would not normally be expected with an essay. If you have any appendices, they should be attached to the essay after the list of references. They should be numbered sequentially, e.g. Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc. Note: You do not need to include a copy of your project’s business case with your assignment submission. Reference list It is recommended that you use at least 15 quality references in your critical analysis. These should be resources you have actually cited in your essay. All referencing in your assignment should comply with USQ Harvard. Refer https://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing/harvard-agps-referencing-guide Formatting As a general guide, you can follow the formatting guidelines for essays as outlined in the Communication Ss Handbook: Summers, J & Smith, B 2014, Communication ss handbook, 4th edn, John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd, Brisbane. What is an essay? For assistance in writing essays, there are many guides on university websites. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/students/learning/alludocuments/EssayWritingVisualGuide.pdf http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/writing/writing-essays-tour http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/general/essay/index.xml http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/essay-writing