BSS060-6 Project Management

Academic Support & Information Searching

 Session Objectives

• To know what academic understanding and skills you are required to

demonstrate in assessment 2

• To understand how you could plan your assignment and structure your
assignment

• To be aware of how to conduct some basic academic skills

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 What Are You Aiming To Achieve?
The Purpose of Writing At MBA Level

• To demonstrate understanding of relevant topics

• To provide evidence of skills (including writing reports and researching

information)

• To provide evidence of being able to analyse information critically

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 Assignment 2
• You should write a report, informed by research building on your knowledge and
experience of planning the project from Assessment 1, justifying the use of Waterfall or
Agile for managing the project in the given project mandate
• Your report should consider how your recommended methodology/approach would
support the project, identifying specific features and processes of the methodology which
could enable the successful outcome of the project.

• The report should also identify any anticipated issues with using the methodology for the
project, contrasting where an alternative approach/methodology might offer better support.

• Your analysis and justification, must be supported by evidence, from the literature
(relevant books and journal papers).

A master’s level report, will evaluate the methodology rather than describe it. You will make a critical
judgement of the benefits and limitations of your chosen methodology. 4
 Why Do We Plan Assignments?

• Planning saves time

• Creates a framework
• Assists in building an argument
• Gets the sequence of ideas right
• Helps you to be concise and to the point (Keep to the word allocation)
• Helps identify points are prioritised or if they are all equal
• Helps to create links made between different points. It helps the assignment to flow

Define it/ Design it/ Do it/ Develop it

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 Planning Your Project

AREA REQUIREMENTS ACTIONS

Define What is required in the brief/ Read the brief/ mandate and assessment criteria.
assessment criteria? Set yourself targets to complete each task.
What do you need to know? Research background information on methodologies

Design Know the PAD report structure. Plan out your Introduction, Main Body, Conclusion, Recommendations
Numbers your sub-sections as you go along
Do it Write your report Choose sections and write them
Complete your title page, reference list, page numbers and contents page
Do you want to add appendices?
Develop it Complete you report and finish it Read it. Write your Executive Summary
Proof-read it.
Does your argument make sense?
Using the assessment criteria – mark it.
Amend it.
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 Stage 1 - Define Your Project

• Background reading
Project Brief (including assessment criteria)
Project Mandate
Guided Learning (including reading list)

• Search for Additional Quality Resources on Project Management

• Use academic search engines e.g. Discover/ Scopus/ Google Scholar

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 Stage 2 - Design Your Project

• Some of these  On a separate page (must follow faculty guidelines)

elements of your Title page
 Typically includes report title, your name, student ID number and the unit code
report, may be
written or refined at
the end

 Details sections and subsections (and page numbers) – including appendices (if appropriate)
Contents page
 May include separate list of graphs, figures and tables (including their labels and page numbers)

 A short statement (usually 100 – 150 words)

Summary / Executive summary  A brief explanation as to why the report was written (this may include references)

 Details of key issues / findings / conclusions

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 Stage 2 - Design Your Project

• 1. Introduction  Sets the scene for your reader (general statement about topic)
You could introduce your
 Builds on the themes (in general statement) with relevant facts or
methodology and any key terms
statistics (referenced)

• 2 Main Body Introduction

 Leads into a rationale (why report is important and needed)
Your report needs to be
informed by your research.  Provides an overview of how the topic is covered in the report
Summarise the words of
 May be useful to revise once the whole report is written
different authors and come to
your own evaluation.
You might decide to have the Divided into a number of key sections, which are
following parts of this section:
2.1 Benefits of using your  Presented in a logical order
methodology in the Project Main Body
 Discusses each issue/ Divided into sub-sections
2.2 The limitations of this
method or any anticipated issues  All relate to the main topic of the report
using it in this project.
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 Stage 2 - Design Your Project

 Ties together the main points

• 3. Conclusion  Demonstrates how points collectively relate to report purpose

Conclusion
A summary of benefits and  Does not simply repeat the already discussed areas
limitations.
A justification for your choice  Suggests further steps
of methodology.

• 4. Recommendations
How this methodology and/
 Should be based on your findings and flow from your conclusion
or other methodologies
could be used in this and/or Recommendations
 May be written in a list format (backed up by explanation)
other projects
 Should be relevant, realistic and supported by evidence

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 Stage 2 - Design Your Project

• Reference List
Use the Harvard UOB system.
 Check your the guidelines on BREO
These are all the sources of information that
you referred to in your report. Reference list  Reference list = all references you used in text
Check the assessment criteria for the and/
recommended numbers. bibliography  Bibliography = all references in text plus any
additional reading that is not featured in the
main text
• Bibliography
To achieve 60% + in your report you should
include sources of information that you didn’t  Appropriate but not necessary
refer to in your report, but that you read and
they influenced your opinion.  Include supporting material (for example, larger
tables of data that underpins your discussion)
• Appendices
Appendices  Referred to in the relevant parts of text in the
These are useful as they can enhance your report
argument, while enabling you to keep within
the word allocation. You must refer to it  Clearly labelled
though.
E.g. You could add a diagram of your  Named on the contents page
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methodology.
 Stage 3 – ‘Do-it’
Write Your Project

• To maintain your energy, focus and enthusiasm for your report it is recommended that
you write each section, one at a time:
Introduction
Main Body
Conclusion
Recommendations
Numbers your sub-sections as you go along

• (Your Executive Summary is usually written last)

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 Stage 3 – ‘Do-it’
Write Your Project
Reminders

•Paragraphs
These help to organise your work. They often contain a new topic
• TII
High TII scores will result in further investigation.
Remember even information from the brief and mandate will add to your score
• Paraphrase
Put the words of authors into your own words
• Reference/ In-text Citations
Acknowledge the work of others within your report

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 Stage 4 – ‘Develop it’
• Read it

• Write your Executive Summary

• Proof-read your report

• Spell check using UK English

• Does your argument make sense?

• Have you been critical? What is not good about your chosen method?

• Using the assessment criteria – mark it

• Amend it

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 Academic Skills – The Basics

• Paraphrasing

• Searching For Information Using Discover

• Referencing

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 Academic Skills – Paraphrasing (1/2)

Paraphrasing is reproducing information in your own words. It is important because

it;

• Demonstrates your understanding of the source

• It helps you to provide evidence from a range of academic sources

• It helps you to avoid plagiarism

• It helps you to emphasise a particular point from information found in a source

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 Academic Skills – Paraphrasing (2/2)

• When paraphrasing you should change the vocabulary you use, change the word
form such as changing the tense, and change the structure of the sentence or
paragraph.

• Be careful not to rely on just one technique; use a combination of techniques

For example, paraphrasing a direct quote:

“Using a standardised methodology to define project quality ensures deliverables
are fit for their intended purpose”.(Steinman et al., 2017, p.7)

Steinman et al. (2017) argue that by adopting a recognised project management

methodology enables the project team to complete the project successfully.
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 Academic Skills 3– Using Discover (1/5)

• Click on discover

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 Academic Skills 3 – Using Discover (2/5)

• Identify keywords and enter them

• Full sentences are not
recommended

• For example;
Project Management
Methodologies
or
Project Management
Methodologies Prince 2

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 Academic Skills 3 – Using Discover (3/5)

• Resources that have

been identified
• Type of resource it is
e.g. ‘electronic
resource’, ‘a book’
or ‘a journal’

• In this search nearly

2 million items have
been identified

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 Academic Skills 3 – Discover
Refine Your Search (4/5)

• On the left of the screen

there are options to
refine your search you
can:
a) change the year by
entering the year in the
box or using the slide
b) you can reduce the
your material types to
only journals and E-books
by ticking the boxes
c) keep refining these or
by one of the other
options such as by
language (English) or by
subject (Business)

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 Academic Skills 3– Using Discover (5/5)

• Keep making small

changes until you
are happy with
your results

• You can then order

your results by
date or relevance

• Page options
allows you to see
more or less of
your article

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 Academic Skills – Referencing (1/4)
Why is Referencing Important?

• Show academic integrity

In the academic world it is illegal to steal ideas and present these as your own (this would
be plagiarism). Referencing makes it very clear what are and are not your own ideas.
• Strengthen your argument
Using references effectively will help you to construct better arguments. This is crucial in
order to write good assignments.
• Development of ideas
Without referencing it would be impossible to tell what a piece of 'good' or 'bad' quality
information really is. Referencing also ensures that it is possible to see how scholarly
thinking has developed over time.
• Improve your grade
Your ability to reference correctly will contribute to your grade for the assignment.
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 Academic Skills – Referencing (2/4)
Reference List Basics

• As well as referencing sources in text you will need to include the full details of every source you have
used in a reference list at the end of your assignment.
• Journal:
Author’s Surname & initials, year, Article title, journal title, volume number, issue number, 1 st page – last
page

Salter, M. (2009) ‘Project Management in the 21st Century’, ‘Harvard Review', Group Analysis, 42(3),
pp.250-271.

• Book:
Author’s Surname & initials, year, book title and sub-title, edition of the book, place of publication

Maylor, H.(2010), Project management. 4th Edn. London Prentice Hall

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 Academic Skills – Referencing (3/4)

Bookmarking and Referencing

• Bookmarking allows you to
keep the source for easy
reference.

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 Academic Skills – Referencing (4/4)

Referencing
• Clicking on ‘view as citation’
allows you to view the citation
in your required format.

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 Advice for Assignment Submissions

• Make sure you have left yourself plenty of time to make your submission and do not leave your submission
until the last moment.
• There is information in BREO on how to submit your assignment

• There is also information:

how to view your provisional grades
how to view written feedback from your marker

Additional Sources of Help

• Cite them right online - this resource explains how to reference properly
• StudyHub@Beds - the University's study support service

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 Session Review

• To know what academic understanding and skills you are required to

demonstrate in assessment 2

• To understand how you could plan your assignment and structure your
assignment

• To be aware of how to conduct some basic academic skills

28
 Top Ten Tips

1. Be clear on the assessment criteria

2. Start preparations early and plan your timescales and your report
3. Look at the feedback from A1. Are there any mistakes you can avoid making twice?
4. Be clear on the report format
5. As soon as you include a quotation in your assignment text, add this in full into your
reference list – do not write the assignment and then try to create a reference list.
6. Number your pages
7. Number your sections
8. Include a bibliography
9. Put your name and personal identifier on each page
10. Proof-read your report, is it clear, does your argument flow well? Have you used spell-check?
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 Guided Learning

• Read the academic resources provided in BREO and the Guided

Learning

• Watch assignment 2 video

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