MER Development Plan Guidance – Additional Tasks

1. Introduction
These instructions are for Management Entry Route (MER) candidates who need to show additional
information about their capability in up to three Themes/segments of the CIPS Global Standard to
prove that they have demonstrated the required level of Professional Competency to be awarded
MCIPS.

2. How your work will be assessed

The Assessor will be considering how effectively you have:

• Met the task requirement and addressed the selected components within it, by producing
a logically organised piece of work within the word count, in an appropriate business format
and writing style.

• Provided evidence of a wide range of recent, relevant and appropriate

reading/learning/application, and accurately used appropriate technical theory/models.

• Reflected critically and thought about the application of new practices and included
example(s) of application in your report.

3. The Task
For each Theme/segment where further evidence from you is needed, you are required to write a
2,500-word report (+/- 10%). The specific requirements for each Theme/segment for which you
have to write a report are given on the relevant task sheet.

Your submitted report needs to show conclusively that you have addressed the identified gaps in
your capability, and that you now demonstrate the Professional Competency Level within the
associated segment(s) of the Global Standard for Procurement and Supply. It should demonstrate
your awareness and understanding of the associated subject matter, your personal experience
and appreciation of the relevant segments of the CIPS global standard at the Professional
Competency Level and serve to evidence your capabilities at that level.

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4. Approaching the task

a) Reviewing the feedback from your MER report

The MER report indicates the Themes/segments where there is insufficient evidence from the MER
assessments that you have reached the required Professional Level in the CIPS Global Standard.
Consider the feedback offered by your CIPS assessor post your MER interview. Reflect on your
personal experience and focus in particular on the capability column on each of the segments and
the identified gaps in your skill sets based on these.

b) Research, reading and development

Undertaking the additional task(s) provides you with the opportunity to refresh and update your
existing knowledge, and to source and acquire new knowledge. You can then show, through your
written work, what knowledge and insights you have gained and how you can use this knowledge
in your professional practice.

Research and reading around the theme area(s) of the report(s) will help to build your confidence
in your knowledge and understanding. This activity will also contribute to your individual
development; aiding your learning in terms of comparing, contrasting, reflection, etc.
Understanding and applying analytical tools will enable a better articulation of the subject being
presented. Carrying out this research and reading for the purpose of the report may also help you
identify your further personal learning and development needs for the future.

Wherever possible, you should analyse the theme/ subject area and then set out how you would
implement your newly acquired or refreshed knowledge in your own organisation. Where that is
not possible, you can review a case study example or a recent news item using CIPS news/ Supply
Management Magazine or website, or an organisation you are familiar with.

c) Structuring your argument and discussion

You should preface your work with a short introduction, summarising your approach to the task.
You don’t need to repeat the detail of the task.

In selecting the theories or models to underpin your response to the task, you should consider:

• the strength of the model for the task

• the quality and depth of information contained within
• Appropriateness for the subject matter.

In the written content, you should explain the reasons for selecting one or more specific models,
tools or techniques, identifying appropriateness, strengths and weaknesses, and your personal
findings drawn from practice, about the value brought to the workplace.

You need to consider how to position graphics/illustrations etc., within your text, to achieve a
balanced final version with both a good visual impact, and a coherent flow to your
discussion/argument, which the reader can easily follow.

Obviously, models and theories, as well as other sources, need to be appropriately referenced (see
below), and you will need to consider which material should be included in the main work, and

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 which is best dealt with by way of appendices (see 6 below). Marks will not be given for the
description of the models/theories, as it is the application of them in a work-related context which
is the focus of assessment.

d) Presenting your work

Your work should be presented as a business report, and should be in font size 12, with double line-
spacing.

The completed report(s), and any associated reference lists and appendices, should be combined
as separate documents within into a single pdf document for electronic submission, with your name
and membership number clearly indicated.

All candidate work is treated by CIPS with utmost care, so it is quite safe for you to identify
organisations, individuals, etc., in your work as needed. Once assessed, all assessment material is
destroyed under secure licence, and all assessors, who are under contract to CIPS, are bound by
Non- Disclosure Agreements.

5. Referencing, Reference List and Bibliography

To avoid plagiarism, whenever you use someone’s words directly, or make reference to the ideas
or work of others, you must reference this appropriately using a recognised referencing system,
such as the Harvard system of referencing. The following points will help you cite sources of
information appropriately within the body of your submitted work.

• When a reference is made in your task to a particular document, the author (or editor,
compiler or translator) individual or organisation and year of publication are inserted in
brackets:
• e.g. Agriculture still employs half a million people in rural Britain (Shucksmith,
2000).
• If the author’s name occurs naturally in the sentence, only the year of publication is given:
• e.g. … concept is discussed by Jones (1998)…
• When referring to more than one document by an author published in the same year, these
are distinguished by adding lower case letters (a, b, c) after the year:
• e.g. (Watson, 1999a)
• If there are two authors, the names of both should be given:
• e.g. (Lines and Walker, 1997)
• Where there are more than two authors, cite the first author, followed by ‘et al’:
• e.g. (Morgan et al, 1998)
• Quotations - Short quotations may be run into the text, using single quotation marks.
Longer quotations should be separated from the rest of the text by means of indentation
and optional size reduction and do not need quotation marks. When citing quotations,
include the page number of where the quotation can be found in the source document.

The source materials you use should be included in a reference list, which is essential to ensure that
the works of others is acknowledged and to avoid the risk of plagiarism issues. References should
be arranged alphabetically by author’s name (or title, if no author) which has been used in the body
of the text and should be presented in the following way:

• Book references - include where possible, the following information in the order listed here:
o Author(s)/Editor(s) - Surname first, followed by first name(s) or initials (be consistent).

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 o Include all names if there are two or three authors; if more than three, use the first name
and then et al.
o For editors, compilers or translators (instead of author), give the abbreviation ed/eds,
comp/comps or trans following the name(s): e.g., Peckham, T. and Smith, G. (eds.)
• Year of publication – e.g. (1996)
• Title - capitalise the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns; use bold, italics or
underline (be consistent); include any sub-title, separating it from the title by a colon
• Edition - only include if not the first edition
• Series - include if relevant.

When researching the task area, you may read widely, but not all you read will be relevant to the
task you are working on. However, this work should not go unrecognised and more importantly, a
bibliography records earlier reading that may be useful later when researching for future activities.
If you have documented your reading, this can be located again with ease.

6. Appendices
Core material – which is defined as text that the assessor would need to read in order to understand
and appreciate your work fully – should NOT be placed in appendices. An appendix is not a “catch-
all”, or a substitute for effective writing and editing of your work to meet the word count. You do
not have to use appendices. Information that is not essential to your report, but validates the
content of it, provides confirmatory evidence or provides information or material that the assessor
would not otherwise be able to access, should be placed in an appendix. Documents that are
available in the public domain should be referenced, in accordance with a recognised referencing
system, rather than including them as appendices.

Examples of things which could be useful as appendices to a report include:

• Supporting evidence – feedback, testimonials, stakeholder interview outcomes etc.

• Technical information presented in tables and graphs – organisational charts, statistics etc.
• Supplementary data which adds useful information or insight but is not essential to the
understanding of the main text – including organisation – specific material (ensure
appropriate permissions have been sought for use outside your organisation).

Appendices should be presented in the order they are mentioned in the main text and it is essential to
refer to each appendix within the text of your task. You should NOT include something as an appendix
if it is not discussed within the task, nor should you include any material which is readily available in
the public domain – it should be referenced in the text of the task using a recognised system of
referencing.

Appendices do not form part of the word count for your report.

7. Word Count
The word count for each development report is normally 2500, and CIPS allows a tolerance of +/- 10%.
The word count excludes any front pages, executive summary, contents page, models, tables or
diagrams, reference list, bibliography and appendices. You should state the actual word count for your
submission at the front of each report. Work outside the word count and tolerances will not be
assessed.

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8. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is submitting someone else’s work as your own when you are not the author. The attempt
to pass-off the ideas, research, theories, or words of others as one's own is considered to be a serious
academic offence. Most people know when they are intentionally plagiarising, for example, copying
an entire essay out of a book or buying a paper off the Internet. However, it is possible to be tripped
up by unintentional plagiarism – not giving proper credit for others' quotes, facts, ideas, or data. A
good rule- of-thumb is to always give credit for any ideas that are not your own by citing your sources.
The most common forms of plagiarism are:

• Cutting / copying and pasting material from a website

• Copying the work of another student (past or present)
• Copying course material or lecture notes
• Copying material out of a textbook or journal.

You must take care that the work you submit is your own. You are permitted to reproduce short
extracts, diagrams, tables and illustrations from other publications, but these must be clearly
referenced and the source acknowledged. CIPS treats plagiarism very seriously and if your work is
found to contain unacknowledged third-party content you may be failed, and the possibility of your
being admitted as a member may be jeopardised.

In order to avoid plagiarism, whenever you use someone’s words directly, or make reference to the
ideas or work of others, you must reference this appropriately using a recognised referencing
system, such as the Harvard system of referencing.

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