31272 Project Management and the Professional Assignment 4 Spring 2025

Guest Hospitality System (GHS) Project

Marks:  See Subject outline

Submission Components (one per group):

•    Report

•    Project Responsibilities spreadsheet – will be used when marking the report

•    All team members must sign the submission sheet

Final Report Submission Due (via Canvas):  See Subject outline

Length of report: See subject outline

Group work: The report will be marked on an individual basis. It is expected that a group report will be submitted with individual work clearly identified (see the Report assessment scheme section below).

1    Background

See the separate case study document.

2     Tasks

This assignment is based upon the separate case study detailing the project scenario and consists of a report and a set of slides.  The interim reports form a basis for your Project Briefing Report.

2.1     Project Briefing Paper (Report)

This assignment is based upon the case study, the project scenario below and information from the tutorial interim reports.

This task is composed of one major deliverable:   a project planning/briefing report and associated slide deck; This must be submitted to the PMP CEO (or member of his executive team) by the time/date nominated. Failure to meet deadline means your CEO will not be able to, in turn, deliver  them at SMR’s December Board meeting where he has been invited to speak. This would be highly embarrassing for him – and with possible ‘career-limiting’ repercussions for the PMP team members involved!

2.1.1    Team roles

The following roles are needed and should be defined in your team charter

•    Team Lead (coordinates the team, lodges final document in Canvas)

•    Quality assurance Controller (checks for consistency across sections of the document)

•    All team members (research and answer allocated questions, advise other team members of any dependencies, assumptions etc.)

The whole group is responsible for team performance and meeting deliverable deadlines (defined and monitored in your team charter and weekly updates.)

Allocated roles and responsibilities should be documented in the team charter. If you have trouble with group organisation or colleagues within the group (including members not contributing) referring to the charter or to agreed updates should help.

Your Group should be self-governing but, if differences are not resolved, (it is important you settle these issues early) and conflicts persist, then arrange to meet with your tutor (ideally as a whole group) as soon as possible. You will be expected to provide appropriate metrics.

2.1.2     Report

The project planning document must contain the following sections (although others can be added): Section 1 - Business Overview

•    Document introduction, purpose and background

•    Objectives of the Guest Hospitality System (GHS) and key success criteria

•    Short  discussion  of  the  project’s  Measurable  Organisational  Value  (MOV)  and  potential benefits

•    Outline of project scope (including requirements traceability, identification of out-of-scope items)

•    Project assumptions and potential constraints

Section 2 - Key Project Management Planning and Control Strategies to Adopt

•    Stakeholder management and communication plan (including stakeholder registers)

•    Discussion of system development approaches for creating the SDLC (Waterfall, Agile or Hybrid) and respective advantages/disadvantages of each for this project. A development approach is chosen (with reasoning for your choice).

•    Risk management strategy and initial planning (including an initial project risk register with a minimum of 15 risks)

•    Project progress monitoring, scope management and change control strategy

•    Quality management strategy and initial planning for same

•    Hint: refer to lecture notes and tutorial workshop activities for guidance in this section

Section 3 - Major Project Management Activities and Estimates

•    High-level work breakdown structure of the GHS project (120 – 150 tasks) i.e. you need to identify enough tasks to create an executable plan

•    Task sequencing using activity-on-node (AON) network dependency diagram. A link to an external diagram can be provided for clarity, however the report should be able to be read and understood without accessing an external links.

•    Task scheduling on a Gantt chart (must reflect both the WBS and selected SDLC)

•    Identification and discussion of key project milestones (should be at least 8 but more are OK)

•    Discussion of identified critical path dependencies

•    Best estimate of time (with reasoning) needed to complete the project from start to final handover.

•    Validation of the proposed budget:

(a) the initial (top-down’ budget must be realistically allocated to key project phases/activities/deliverables.

(b) a (bottom up’ estimate must be undertaken for all tasks within each phase.

(c) Outcomes of the cross-validation are to be discussed, and recommendations made

(e.g. are there differences? Is the initial budget too high/low? Should a formal request for budget increase/decrease be made? Should a contingency fund be established? Etc.)

•    Human resourcing estimate for the project (i.e. Roles needed? How many people? For how long? Daily charge rate?)  (note, charge rates are the daily rates PMP charges its clients (it is not annual salary / cost of employment to PMP).

Section 4 - Conclusion

•    Summary of major points and relevant approvals required for key project areas.

•     Recommendations suggested next steps to get the project underway plus concluding remarks.

Section 5 - Slide pitch

•    A set of approximately 5 slides giving a summary of major points from PMP to the customer. (note – we do NOT expect you to actually give a presentation, just for the slides to be submitted as part of the report).

Section 6 - Additional Criteria - Professionalism, Presentation and Accountability

•    Report is well-presented and looks professional – suitable for submission to senior

executives. Appropriate title page (with student names/numbers plus tutor name), table of contents, heading and page numbers, grammar, punctuation and conforming to the UTS Style. Guide (page 2 of the FEIT cover sheet)

•    Communicates well - concise/good executive summary, structure, and language flow, etc.

•    A copy of the rubric will be provided stating who is responsible for each section.

Note that the product for this engagement is a professional-level Project Briefing Report for Board- level consumption. PMP is, as yet only contracted to provide this one deliverable. Arrangements for more in-depth planning and development of the actual GHS are still pending (although PMP hopes to be involved and a good impression with this initial report will be central to that happening).

3    Report Assessment Scheme

Remember, this is a professional document for senior management and should look and read as such.

The marks will be allocated as follows:

•    Each team member will take responsibility for multiple sections in the assignment (as included in the Project Responsibilities spreadsheet and documented in the Team Charter)

•    Each section will be assigned to one and only one team member.

•    Unless a team member drops out, each section will be covered once.

•    All team members will be responsible for the document’s professionalism and consistency of content and layout (Quality Assurance).

•    Each team member will be responsible for at least one 20 mark section

•    It is expected that each team member will be responsible for approximately the same number of marks.

•    A team member’s total mark will be multiplied by the appropriate factor to gain a mark out of 40.

Please discuss any problems with your tutor and document any decisions in your reflection document. The sections and marks are available in the assignment 2 rubric spreadsheet.

4    Submission Requirements

Assignments are to be submitted online via the (Assignments' tab of Canvas by time due.

Only one copy of the report should be uploaded per team (i.e. one group member submits on behalf of a team with all participating student names/ids noted on report title page). Make sure to confirm upload has been successful and keep submission receipt in case later verification is required.

If the report needs to be submitted as separate sections (for example one student has not

completed their work before the assignment deadline) please inform. your tutor and the subject coordinator via email.

All content in the report must be submitted via Canvas.   Several files can be submitted.  There should be no external links to google drive, OneDrive or similar.

5    Assignment Marking and Feedback

Assignment feedback sheets will normally be uploaded for each report in Canvas by completion of the end-of-term Exam period.

6    Expected Standard of the Work

You are expected to conceptualise the problem or issue, find relevant references for context, facts, theory and examples, come up with a point of view and support that point of view with discussion and citation where appropriate. Your submitted report should be written as a business document submitted to a business audience (and not simply attempting to satisfy an academic course requirement).

Also, students are reminded of the principles laid down in the "Statement of Good Practice and Ethics in Informal Assessment" (in the Faculty Handbook). Unless otherwise stated in a specific handout, all assessment tasks in this subject should be your own original work. Any collaboration with another student (or group) should be limited to those matters described in the “Acceptable Behaviour" section of  the  Handbook.  Students  should  pay  particular  attention  to  the  recognition  of  "Plagiarism"  as described in that section of the Handbook. Any infringement by a student will be considered a breach of discipline and will be dealt with in accordance with Rules and By-Laws of the University. Penalties such as zero marks for assignments or subjects may be imposed.

7    Late Penalty

Overdue assignments will attract a late penalty per the Subject Outline. If the complete assignment is submitted late then every student will be given the late penalty.

Any special consideration for late submission must be arranged with the Subject Coordinator well before the deadline. NOTE: even though this assignment is marked on an individual basis, it requires teamwork to complete.   It will take exceptional circumstances for an extension to be granted.

8    Referencing Standards

All material derived from other works must be acknowledged and referenced accordingly using the APA/UTS referencing Style. The following link will help:

https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/referencing/apa

9    Use of AI technologies

For this assignment:

You are permitted to use AI technologies in an ethical and transparent manner to generate materials for background research and self-study. Only assistive use is permitted. Content generated by AI technologies or other sources and presented as your own work is academic misconduct as per the UTS Student Rules on misconduct.

1. Any use of generative AI tools must be acknowledged by citing their use through referencing in the assignment

2. Students must provide all interactions with the generative AI tool, including prompts and responses as part of the Reflection notes submission

It is your responsibility to check and verify the accuracy and integrity of the information used, and to rewrite any text provided by AI or other sources in your own words.

GenAI guidelines can be found at

https://studyguides.lib.uts.edu.au/genai

10 Additional

Improve Your Academic and English Language Skills

HELPS (Higher Education Language and Presentation Support) Service provides assistance with English proficiency and academic language. Students needing to develop their written and/or spoken English can make use of the free services offered by HELPS, including academic language workshops, vacation courses,   drop-in   consultations,   and   individual   appointments   (https://www.uts.edu.au/current- students/support/helps). HELPS is located in Building 1, Level 5, Room 25.