Category: Project management

Coca-Cola Company Case Study 

Read the case study and answer the project management questions (1,100 words).

Assessment Information
This assignment is designed to assess learning outcomes:
1. Evaluate and apply modern project management techniques to real projects in the business
environment.
2. Critically analyse the different tools and techniques used in project management.
This assignment is an individual assignment.
This assignment requires you to prepare a Project Initiation Document (PID) base on the following case study:
The Curzon Street Masterplan outlines proposals for the 141 hectare area of regeneration. It covers the area
that will house the HS2 Curzon Street station in Birmingham city centre, along with multi-million pounds
investment into the surrounding area. It envisages the creation of 36,000 new jobs. 4,000 new homes and
600,000 square metres of commercial development.
The HS2 Curzon Street station project is part of this development and will include the construction of seven
high speed platforms and a taxi ramp. It will also include the installation of IT and train control systems, and
the training staff on the use of the new systems. A project Feasibility Assessment and Environmental and
Social Impact Assessment has been completed. Also, a Business Case has been prepared and a budget of £2.1
million has been approved by the HS2 Project Board. The project is to be completed within a year and six
months.
The new station will not only be for high speed rail passengers. It will be a brand new public space and
gateway into Birmingham city centre. The existing Moor Street station is at one end, the Millennium Point
development and historic Curzon Street station building are to the north of the site and the existing
Birmingham to Rugby railway line runs along the south side. The station will be fully integrated into an
extended tram network, as well as offering pedestrian, cycle, taxi, bus and conventional rail connections to the
rest of the city and the wider West Midlands.
(Adapted from HS2, 2019)

You have been hired as the project manager to oversee the planning and development of this project. Your
first task is to prepare a project initiation document (2000 words), drawing on appropriate project
management theory and frameworks, to present to the Project Sponsor.
Your report MUST contain two sections.
Part 1: Project Management Plan.
The plan should consider the following aspects of the project:
• The project scope statement, including a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) The project schedule
including a Gantt chart and your project milestones.
• An initial assessment of stakeholders (minimum 8) by identifying, analyzing, planning and providing
recommendations on how these stakeholders should be managed to maximize the chance of
achieving the project objectives.
• An initial assessment of risks (minimum 8) presented by the project and the response strategies
proposed.
Part 2: Contemporary Knowledge and Skill Requirements in Project Management
You are expected to read the following research article on Contemporary Knowledge and Skill
Requirements in Project Management (please see link below). Drawing on the findings that indicates that the
selected project management textbooks put the strongest emphasis on project planning and control,
relationship management, and resource management, and leveraging on other credible academic sources,
critically discuss how these three competencies can aid success in your project.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pmj.20122
A copy of the article is also available on your Moodle page (Assessment Section)
NOTE
You are required to research and apply project management theory in order to successfully complete this
assignment. In order to pass, you will need to use a minimum of 10 separate sources, including a minimum of
5 textbooks and/or scientific journal articles. DO NOT copy the research article without providing critical and
academically sound analysis.
Report recommended structure: Your assignment should be presented as a report, using the following
structure:
Part 1 Project Management Plan
1. Introduction
2. Project scope statement (including inclusions, exclusions, assumptions, objectives, deliverables and
constraint, and a WBS)
3. Project schedule with a Gantt chart and milestones
4. Project stakeholder assessment
5. Risk management – threats and opportunities assessment
Part 2: Contemporary Knowledge and Skill Requirements in Project Management

Word Count
The word count is 2,000 words
There will be a penalty of a deduction of 10% of the mark (after internal moderation) for work exceeding the
word limit by 10% or more.
The word limit includes quotations and citations. Tables, figures, appendices and the final references list are
omitted from the overall word count. You must state the number of words used on the front cover of the
assignment.

You’ll see, for instance, that you get up to 30% for “Understanding of the relevant module
materials” and 20% for “Additional reading & application of workplace experience” so you can
see that although the balance between theory and practice is weighted toward the former it is
important to demonstrate the application of theory to practice. Even more so when you consider
that another 30% is for “Critical discussion & synthesis of ideas / reading”. Please note there are
other criteria as well.

2. You have to decide which theories, concepts and models from the first half of the module are
relevant to the assignment. Obviously, you are ultimately limited on how much you can write by
the word count limit of 2500 words. What to include is a matter of judgement on your part. So
please read the assignment brief very carefully for any pointers.
3. Avoid generalisations and substantiate any claims by including relevant citations; otherwise,
you are expressing personal openion only. You may find it helpful to review some academic
journal articles to see how authors handle this. Make explicit relevant underpinning theory on
Project Management concepts.
4. When you explain how organisational goals can be integrated from the business case into the
project plans, and what difficulties and challenges are there in this element? Use a business
case (i.e. project) that you are familiar with, either one from your own experience, or a wellknown case – through which to demonstrate your understanding. Then discuss how projects form
a portfolio and identify the dif  ference between a programme and a project.

5. Structure the assignment appropriately. This should take the form of an academic report, using
an Introduction, body and conclusion. Use Headings and sub-headings to guide your train of
thought. Think about the logical flow of your paragraphs. Make sure that you proof-read your
work against the assignment question when complete to ensure that you have fully answered the
assignment question.
6. Make sure that you cite academic sources appropriately using the Harvard referencing
convention.
7. Make sure that your work is formatted well, has a clear structure and flow. Write in 3rdperson,
so you make your writing more formal and objective.
Assignment
Meredith (2017) states that ‘The eight-step project portfolio process is an effective way to select
and manage projects that are tied to the organisation’s goals.’ (Chapter 2 – summary, p 55)

Explain how organisational goals can be integrated from the business case into the project plans.
What difficulties and challenges are there in this element?
Discuss how projects form a portfolio and identify the difference between a programme and a
project.

 How can a project manager plan for effective stakeholder engagement while planning the project’s scope?

– Please outline 2 requirements elicitation tools you (as PM) would use to gather stakeholders’ requirements.

– Please describe the MoSCoW technique used for requirements/deliverables categorization in the project scope process.

– Please also give an example of a categorized requirement/deliverable

Please answer each question in turn

Discuss how you might utilize some of the project management scheduling tools discussed in
this unit in your final project. Discuss the progress you are making on your project (due in Unit
VII) and presentation (due in Unit VIII). What resources have you found most useful when
preparing your project?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words. No references or citations are necessary

Description:

Prepare and submit a project management plan for a hypothetical project. The PMP is to be done by groups of 3-4.

Task Aim
The aim of this assignment is to:
 Examine understanding of the importance of preparing to manage a project
 Prepare a comprehensive document that would facilitate management of a project
 Examine understanding of the PMBoK knowledge areas
 Participate in group work simulating an industry project team

Task Description
You will be allocated to a group of 3-4 students from within your tutorial. You are not permitted to
form their own groups (please don’t ask, the answer will be no). Forming groups with people you
do not know is intentional; it is designed to simulate the experience of working as a team member
on a project, producing group synergy that will assist in the development of a sense of common
purpose, identify and use individual talents and expertise, encourage problem-solving and address
interpersonal issues and conflict management, and allow members to identify with the team and
encourage personal growth through experience. It also means you meet new people.
Once you have been allocated to a group, you are encouraged to elect a project manager who will
coordinate the individual member’s work into the final report. Although election of a project
manager is optional, your group is required to have a spokesperson.
As a group, then select your project. Each of you presented a project in the earlier charter
assignment. Your final project should be selected from one of those charters completed. The charter must have received at least a 50% pass mark, you might be tempted to just pick the charter
that got the highest mark – don’t do this. Instead, look at the project ideas and pick one that
everyone is interested in. A charter that received lower marks will also have some feedback that
can easily be used to improve the basic idea in the next assignment.
Your group should finalise your project name (which will also be your group name) and use it to
identify your work. This assignment is about taking that earlier charter, and now producing a more
detailed project management plan (PMP).
Your PMP should include the following sections, along with a suggested page limit per section:
1. Scope Statement and WBS (max 20 activities) – 3 pages
2. Time Management – 1 page + 1 page Gantt chart
3. Cost Management – 2 pages
4. Procurement – 1 page
5. Human Resources – 2 pages
6. Stakeholders & Communications – 1 page + 1 page register
7. Risk (max 5 risks) – 1 page
8. Quality – 1 page
Real PMPs often include many other sections, and are often much longer. So this assignment is
more like a mini PMP where we have streamlined the content and given you a strict page limit.
Additionally, your small weekly assignments cover some areas of a PMP, so we have decided not
to include these in the major assignment, just to avoid double-up and to lighten your assignment
workload where possible.
A cover page, which includes things like your (made-up) company name, project name, document
name, date and perhaps a nice project image or logo, should be included. A table of contents
should also be included. The cover page and table of contents are not included in the 14 page
limit. As an example, your whole assignment could be a total of 17 pages, with the suggested
structure included at the end of this document. A short introduction should be included, preferably
on the table of contents page. An executive summary should not be included. A conclusion is also
not required.

Peer Review
As part of this assignment you need to complete a peer review for your fellow group members.
There is a proforma for this on Blackboard. It should be completed by all group members
confidentiality, ie you shouldn’t discuss your peer review with anyone.
You need to download the word document, fill it out and then upload it to the link in Blackboard.
This should be done at the same time as the final assessment being submitted, ie by 5pm Friday
26 May. Your honest peer review feedback will enable us to give marks which are reflective of the
effort and input put in by each individual. The point of group work is not to let students ‘coast’ along
on the work of others, so please take the peer review seriously and provide honest and fair
feedback.

Formatting Notes
A PMP is a professional industry document – as such it is not expected to be pages of text in long
paragraphs. Instead, many items are best presented in table format, or a combination of short
paragraphs and dot point lists. The short page limit is intended to force you to be succinct and not
to ‘waffle on’. You can fit a lot of good content on a single page if you are clear and short with your
words, and if you choose the right way to present the info.
We do not encourage you to look online for templates, we find that this often confuses students
and unfortunately leads to lower marks. However, if you decide to look online for templates, you
are warned not to take any template as 100% correct, each template should be reviewed for its content to check if it includes all requirements and also that it doesn’t add unnecessary sections.
Only the 8 sections listed earlier should be included. There are no extra marks given for extra
sections, and pages beyond the 14 page limit will NOT be marked.
Particular attention should be paid to the use of:
 Appropriate graphics and tables
 Appropriate use of dot points
 Clear, concise and simple language
 Consistency throughout each section
 Headers and footers
 Table of contents which includes page numbers
Appendices should not be used in this assignment, they will not be marked.

As a project manager, write a project management report for a project you are supervising.

Cover the following aspects.

• Introduction
• Performance planning.
• Monitoring of Employee Performance.
• Evaluating employee performance.
• Employee Development
• Employee Recognition.
• Conclusion

Continuing from the previous assignment, it is now important to consider your approach to leading and managing your HR project. Tightly structured projects tend to restrict cross organizational communication. As such, objectives originate at the top of the project, and are subdivided as they are passed down, resulting in little opportunity for creative contributions. Effective leadership and managing of the project can greatly improve communication and team contributions.

Write a five to six (8-10) page paper in which you:
Review and understand the types of project manager power listed and defined in the textbook
and select and define any two (2) you feel would be relevant to your current project and explain
why. Be specific.
Identify and briefly discuss a minimum of four (4) outcomes (possible issues) resulting from
managing projects and address how you might resolve the issues. Be clear with your rationale.
Discuss some increased challenges a project manager may face when leading virtual or global
project teams. Recommend a few strategies to deal with the challenges.
Identify and explain your overall plan for communication management during the project. The
plan must be comprehensive and at a minimum address (1) structure, (2) purpose, (3) method,
and (4) timing.
Go to library to locate at least three (3) quality academic (peer-reviewed)
resources in this assignment.