Tutorial for Week 7
1. Readings:
Mandatory Readings
• Kerzner Chapter 1.8-1.10, & 10 & 11.25;
• PMI Implementing Organizational PM Chapter 3;
• PMI Managing Change Preface, Chapters 1, 2 & 3;
Make sure you have done the readings.
2. Answer following Questions to reflect and assist in your Portfolio
“Success is like as three-legged stool. What does this mean?
What must the project manager provide in order to develop a solid project
plan?
For projects that are done for external sources, the project manager is first
viewed as starting out with a pot of gold and then as having to manage the
project so that sufficient profits will be made for the stockholders. Why is this
the case? Explain.
Should age have a bearing on how long it takes an executive to accept project
management?
How should a project manager react when he finds inefficiency in the
functional lines? Should executive management become involved?
Should project managers be permitted to establish prerequisites for top
management regarding standard company procedures?
Does a project sponsor have the right to have an in-house representative
removed from his company?
When does project management turn into over management?
What does a program manager bear final responsibility for?3. Now prepare your Portfolio for Week 7
Remember to use the template.
You will need to create weekly portfolios in your tutorial and submit them online. At
the end of the term, you will also need to submit a consolidated portfolio.
Use the answers to your Questions above to provide evidence of previous and
current experience.
Your task is to write a weekly portfolio reflecting upon your learnings from the prior
week. In your portfolio you will identify:
the learning outcomes and module/topic of the course,
a description of your experience, including reading samples or records,
your learning from your experiences, and
any supporting documentation of prior or current learning.
You will notice that the questions that I have asked you in the tutorial help you to
create this portfolio.
You will use the portfolio template provided on the Moodle web site for this weekly
portfolio. You should upload your completed weekly portfolio to the Moodle web site
after the tutorial.
Your portfolio should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the
academic literature related to the project management topics for each week. You
should also include a weekly reference list formatted in the prescribed Harvard
style. You are also encouraged to include a bibliography.
This assessment item involves researching the topics to enhance your
understanding of each concept through an utilisation of academic literature and
secondary sources. Whilst you must use the recommended textbooks and web
links, you should also refer to other sources on the Moodle web site and additional
relevant peer reviewed academic journal articles of your choosing.
Your weekly portfolio can be as long or as short as you want it to be. It is your
portfolio and shows your development of understanding during the course.
Naturally, this will make the portfolio different for everyone. Each student’s
background, education, current and past work experiences is what makes it
different. Each student’s personal researches will be different.
What you need to do is to give yourself enough time to reflect and show how you
have thought and come to grips with the ideas that address the learning outcomes
of the course. The amount of time you should be allocating to the course is 12 to 16
hours per week (which includes writing the portfolio). So there should be a fair bit oftime for you to make the reflections and reach a depth of insight that will make the
portfolio meaningful.
With each weeks portfolio that you submit you do not include the writing that you
made for a prior week. Instead you use the same portfolio template using only the
section for the week you are writing about. In other words each week’s portfolio is a
reflection upon that week. You should however, revisit the whole of the course
learning outcomes each week. The portfolio for any previous week is a reflection of
your insights and thoughts for that week. Once you upload the portfolio then leave it
for that week. Over the duration of the course you will find that there is a
development and change of your ideas as you study the material. You will then
have opportunity at the end of the course to consolidate everything and show how
you have gained the insights that the course is seeking to provide. At the end of the
course you should review your weekly portfolios and consolidate them into a single
submission. You should make a personal reflection in this submission. This is the
assessment that gets marked.
It is to your benefit to have the personal discipline to make sure that you do not get
behind. If you are allocating 12 or 16 hours per week for the course then there is
plenty of time for the portfolio. If you find that one week you slip then ok, but the
course is fundamentally planned so that you need to allocate 12 to 16 hours each
week. Two hours lost in one week means that you need to do 14 to 18 hours the
next!
The course is straight forward, but there are lots of web sites to visit and material to
download. The text books are only part of the story and you won’t be able to do the
course with just the text books. Unfortunately, much of the material is written from a
North American perspective. You will need to consider other industry sectors and
also to be able to translate the learning outcomes into an Australian or other cultural
perspective. Therefore, you will need to download other files and visit web sites to
be able to gather the material you need in your portfolio.
There are no bonus points for getting the portfolio perfect from the first week! In fact
the portfolio for the first week is much more likely to be an amateurish attempt. It is
unlikely that you’ll really know what you’re doing in the first and second week, and if
you pretended you do then it would be hard to believe you anyway! Understanding
and familiarity will only develop over time. As you do the portfolios’ each week and
keep revisiting the learning outcomes and adding the course material then you will
gain insights required. Unless you do that on a weekly basis you won’t have the
appropriate perspective to make the journey and reach the destination by the end of
the course.
Ensuring you have accurate references is important and will allow the marker to
easily identify where your portfolio maps to the course or other peer reviewedmaterial. Also you need to show how you have made critical reflection on the
material and added your own unique insights.