Assignment for CE – 514 Construction Methods and Project Management

Engr. Chevy Kaynneth E. Lagumbay, MEPM

Instructor – Civil Engineering, SMCTI

Purpose and Task.

The purpose of the assignment is to give you the opportunity to explore issues in Construction Methods
and Project Management through engaging in a project management planning and analysis. Your task will
be to produce a project management report and presentation for senior management of an investigated
project of your own choosing. Craft your submissions appropriately for this audience: this is a project
investigation report not an “academic” essay, so the tone and presentation should be appropriate for
such an audience. You will of course need to exhibit appropriate academic values in the work (e.g., with
respect to plagiarism (do not just copy paste, you need to provide citations) and quality of argument, as
these values are equally important in the project management context.

Context and Focal Issues.

The report needs to show both logical and critical investigation rather than merely being descriptive.
Planning, Managing and Organizing are issues that is usually being discussed during Project Management
courses. Consequently you will not have complete information, so you will need to make reasonable
assumptions, as well as make effective use of publicly available data and research. You may explore a
focal issue and organizational context of your own choosing, subject to approval. Note only one group per
project so get your choice approved early.

Project Teams.
This assignment is to be completed in teams of five (5) students. In this assignment, students in a group
should come up with ideas for Project Management independently. Each student will need to enroll via
the groups section of the G-Drive. Please make sure you all enroll in the same group and that you enroll
in a group that is in the correct stream. The report needs to follow different group formation stages
usually forming, storming and norming so as to reflect the changing maturity of your team.

Teamwork and Grading Principles.

Each team is responsible for managing the distribution of the workload for completing the project. Every
team member should be familiar with the entire project and able to answer questions relating to the
materials submitted by the team. Project grades typically will NOT be finalized before the exam. Individual
grades for the project will in general match team grades, unless there is consistent evidence that an
individual has not contributed their fair share to the project.1 In such a situation, at the lecturer’s
discretion, the individual project grade awarded to a student may be discounted, and the project grade
of the remaining team members may be increased. The lecturer reserves the right to request each team
member to complete a brief evaluation of the contributions of each member of their team.

1
You are advised to make use of the group facilities made available to you in the G-Drive as this can evidence a student’s
contribution. If you have concerns about a non-contributing team member raise them early.

Deliverables & Due Dates and Grading

The project is worth 20% (grading system changed) of your individual grade for the class. You will be
primarily assessed as a team. The deliverables details are as follows:

1. Preliminary Presentation in-class, Aug 7 5%

2. Middle Term Draft Monday, Sep 4 25%
3. Final Presentation in-class, October 3 20%
4. Final Report Friday, October 20 50%
100%

Electronic copies should be submitted via the G-Drive assignment tool. Submit the reports (deliverables 2
& 4) by no later than 4pm on the date specified. Electronic copies of PowerPoint presentations are due
no later than 12:00 noon on the day of your in-class presentation (i.e. Monday or Tuesday depending on
your stream). A back up copy of your presentation should be placed in the G-Drive File Exchange for your
group. Late submission of presentations will not be accepted.

Preliminary Presentation:
The preliminary presentation is your opportunity for early feedback (don’t waste it). It is not about
assessment: groups that make a reasonable effort will get full points. It is your opportunity for feedback
– don’t waste it. Groups will present three slides only: (1) will identify the project organizational structure
and the involved stakeholders; (2) examine the causes and effects of the focal issues occur in the project;
(3) will present the activities, as well as the time and cost schedule of the project to be investigated and
the most possible project management approach to address the focal issue.

Middle Term Draft

The draft submission provides an opportunity for formal feedback on the composition of your report. For
your chosen project, a major part of your task is to investigate and justify a suitable project management
approach which you will analyze in depth. Your report will thus cover elements that will ultimately evolve
into sections 3 and 4 of your final report (see below for details). Specifically this should include a brief
overview of the project management context, specification of the focal issue, and a justified selection and
definition of a project management approach to pursue for further examination (i.e. Section 3, and 4a-c).
Your draft should not exceed 1250 words excluding diagrams and tables.

Project Management Planning and Analysis Report

The report is to be succinct but thorough. The following is a template that can be used as a guide as to
how to structure your report:

1. Executive Summary (1 page max)

This should be a succinct and convincing summary; it is not simply an introduction. Write as though this
is the only information management will read (i.e. it should include conclusions/recommendations).
Write as though this is the only information that will be graded. Past experience has shown that a poor
executive summary is almost always followed by a poor report (although a good executive summary isn’t
always followed by a good report!).

2. Project Focal Issues:

Write two headline news stories to convey succinctly and dramatically the project issue as follows:
a. “Pre-Action”: The outcome and impacts of the project issue if no mitigating actions are taken.
b. “Post Action”: The outcome and impacts of the project issue event if your proposed mitigating actions
are implemented successfully

Note you will not be able to write this section of your report until you have completed the work on the
other sections (e.g., so you can specify impacts and the proposed response).

3. Background Project Management Context

Describe relevant attributes of your project (e.g., project organization, characteristic informations,
structure, roles and responsibilities of involved stakeholders, time and cost schedule) and the industry in
which it operates. You should think carefully about the ramifications of your choices (e.g., is it a global or
only local; is it a major player (e.g. like a big time project manager) or minor player (e.g., like a rookie
contractor) in its industry; is it a broadly diversified project manager or a niche player).

4. Focal Issue and Specification

a. Focal Issue
Present here your definition of the selected project issue. What is the specific issue? What trends (broadly)
led you to identify this focal issue as important.

b. Driving Forces
Describe here the driving forces surrounding the focal issue. Be sure to structure these in a logical manner
(e.g. grouping as appropriate). Consider the relative importance and predictability (uncertainty) of these
driving forces.

c. Specification: Critical Uncertainties.

Present a justified selection of critical uncertainties for the focal issue and describe the causes and effects
(e.g. use FISHBONE diagram) from these uncertainties you have chosen to analyze in depth (e.g., the worst
case scenario).

d. Scope
What is the scope of application of your project management approach, what are its boundary conditions,
i.e., of the many future possibilities for this focal issue what set of possible future strategy is your
particular approach applicable to and representative of?

You may also (if appropriate) discuss factors can vary within the boundaries of you project management
plan (i.e. factors that can change without altering the applicability plan). You may also discuss here what
“values” (not necessarily numeric) you would need to determine to convert your general issues into a
specific when the “event” actually occurs?

5. Impacts
What are the impacts of the project issues if mitigating action is not taken? Describe this both holistically
for the project and in terms of appropriate risk categories.

6. Action and Responses: Mitigating the Impact of the project issues

What actions do you propose to address the issue and avoid, mitigate, control or share the risks and
impacts described in (5)? You should consider possible actions at strategic, tactical and operational levels
of analysis as appropriate to your (4).
8. Limitations and Further Analysis
Critically discuss the limitations of your project management planning and any further analysis or data
collection that may be needed to adequately evaluate and prepare for the report.
In crafting your report, recognize that it is a report on the results of your project management planning
and analysis, not a report on the process itself (except to the extent that this is necessary to justify or
explain a conclusion you have reached). Ensure your report is well laid out, easy to read, and to the point.
Do not exceed 2,500 words, you may include additional appendices if desired that will not be considered
in the word count, but likewise you should not expect it will necessarily be read.

Project Management Planning and Analysis Presentation:

You will be required to give a brief presentation to the “senior management team”, about the results of
your project investigation exercise. The presentation will be conducted in October 3. The presentation
should provide a succinct and convincing overview of the results of your planning and analysis. You should
not cover absolutely everything that you cover in the report. Time is money, and managerial attention is
a scarce resource so you want to make the most of the time of the “senior management” team to whom
you will be presenting. A critical decision that you will need to make then is what to include and what to
exclude in your presentation. Presentations must be no longer than 15-20 minutes; including question
and answer time. You will be asked questions. You will not be permitted to present beyond the allotted
time, to ensure there is time for questions. Practice the timing of your presentation. Be careful about the
number of slides you have. Don’t rush the presentation, or overload slides with content. It’s about quality
of presentation. Think about the message you are trying to convey, and stay on message! The presentation
is not simply a summary of the report; it is rather about communicating substantive and actionable
message to management,
The presentations will be graded in terms of two dimensions: content and presentation quality. Content
is what you communicate: the substance of the message you seek to convey about the results of your
planning and analysis. Presentation quality is about how well you organize and deliver the content. In
developing your presentation remember to assume your audience has not read your report – the
presentation should be fully self-contained and interpretable completely independently of the written
report.
You may nominate a single presenter to deliver the presentation but all team members should be ready
and able to answer questions related to the project. However any team member may be asked questions
about any aspect of the presentation.

A Final Note – Process Matters:

A critical success factor in this exercise will be effective teamwork to pool your collective knowledge,
research and intellect. Like much of what we have seen in project management, planning and analyzing is
arguably more “art” than as it is “science”. Mechanistic allocation of work (e.g. you write section 1, I’ll
write section 2 etc…with no effort at a team view) is thus likely to result in a less than satisfactory product.
It will take managerial skill to ensure an effective group effort, balancing between individual strengths and
group consensus (while avoiding biases like groupthink). It will similarly take good judgment to balance
the desire to rush to write things up against the need to do adequate background research, discussion and
thought.