GUIDANCE NOTES FOR FORMATTING INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS
Individual Research Report – Project Failure, Basics of Project Planning & Alternative Scheduling Software Tools & Techniques
1. What are the main reasons why projects are delayed?
2. Why is a customer/client needs analysis important in terms of developing more effective project planning?
3. Propose how the effective use of project management software can help an organisation manage its projects throughout each stage of the project life cycle.
4. Discuss the tools and techniques that project managers can use to ensure knowledge and lessons learned from previous projects are not lost, and can be shared for the benefit of future projects.
5. Define briefly project baseline and say how it can be used. What different types of baselines are there on projects and how are they related?
6. What do we mean by project visualisation and provide three common methods that can be used?
7. According to the Project Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) there are 6/7 phases in designing a schedule. Briefly state what these are. What would you say are the characteristics of a useful project schedule?
8. Briefly state why there may be problems/conflicts with using schedules on projects.
Contents
1 Cover Page – should include name, student ID, course name and code, title of assignment, submission date.
2 Contents – brief list of contents of assignment with page numbers.
3 Brief Introduction – summary of the assignment tasks.
4 Main Body of Text – sections of the assignment.
5 Concluding Remarks – brief summary of the findings of the assignment.
6 References – should include all sources of reference used including websites, books, papers, course materials etc.
Format
12 point
1.5 spaced
Page numbered
Length
Individual assignments should be a minimum of 1200 words and a maximum of 1500 words (excluding references).
The word count should be clearly stated at the end of the assignment.
Referencing – Please refer to Standard for Referencing and Citations prepared by Dr Christopher Preece
− The Reference List should appear at the end of your work on a separate page.
− Only include references you have cited in your work.
− In general, references should be listed alphabetically by the last name of the first author of each work.
Submission
Individual written assignments and PowerPoint slides from any oral presentation should be submitted in soft copy according to the schedule for the course.