MBA 2426 Project and Change Management
MBA 2426 Project and Change Management
The World Bank expects about 25 to 30% of all money spend in the World to be spend on projects. The popularity of ‘doing work by projects’ is often attributed to the versatility of projects as a mechanism for turning ideas into reality. In other words: to bring about change. A project is a temporary organization embedded in a wider and more permanent organization, which simultaneously prioritizes, selects, plans, and executes many projects, as well as coordinates among them. How is that done? Which units and roles are needed for this and how is it all coordinated? How are projects managed, and how are they embedded in the larger permanent organization? These questions are addressed through the concept of Organizational Project Management (OPM), which is practiced in this course by use of a related model that allows to understand OPM both theoretical through OPM theory, as well as practically by observing organizational reality.
This course takes an organization-wide perspective. The student will learn what projects are, how they are embedded in their wider parent organization, the prioritization, selection, integration of projects in the organization’s workflow, the different strategies for the project-based part of the organization, and how this all is governed for the achievement of organizational objectives.
After the course, the student will have:
- Knowledge about the different forms of change and how change is accomplished through projects
- Deepened knowledge about project management related concepts, theories and practices, like project-life-cycle, planning, stakeholder management, agile and traditional methodologies
- Analyzed the concepts, processes and implementation practices of projects, programs and portfolios of projects, as well as megaprojects
- Identified organization-wide strategies to govern the project-based part of the organization and the ways projects are used to present the organization in the marketplace
- Applied governance theories to practical settings, such as agency theory, stewardship theory, transaction cost economics, shareholder and stakeholder theory
- Learned about business ethics and underlying moral principles, and the ways organizations address ethical issues
- Assessed organizations and their governance structures as to their implications for potential ethical issues and their relationship with organizational results.
The student will take away a number of practiced skills, such as:
- Dealing with different types of information for the planning, estimating and follow-up in project management
- Analyzing organizations by use of existing organization and management theories and tools, to judge or consult on OPM implementations
- Using relevant and appropriate methods and theories to design OPM systems and their support institutions, such as project management offices, steering groups etc.
- Assessing governance paradigms and identifying the ethical implications and consequences of different governance structures.
After the module the student has practiced to:
- Analyze academic and practical OPM implementations and their particular issues in different industries
- Apply OPM related concepts and terminology in academic and practical context
- Reflect on organizational problem areas and develop innovative solutions for them
- Identify ethical and other issues stemming from an organization’s governance structure
- Match academic publications to real life problems in OPM
Day 1:
Organizational change with project management at its kernel. Casework on an international project.
Day 2:
Project governance and organizational integration of project work. Casework on a megaproject.
Day 3:
Business integration of projects and OPM governance. Casework with an engineering company.
Day 4:
Organizational OPM approaches and philosophies. Casework with PMO in a pharmaceutical company. Exam.
The course is a conducted as a teaching module, where the students have classes all day for four consecutive days, a total of 32 hours.
The course has several exam components and one final exam code. Each exam component will be graded using points on a scale of 0 – 100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam components will fail the course. Candidates may be called in for an oral hearing as a verification/control of written assignments.
Specific information regarding the points system and the mapping scale beyond the information in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.
Specific information regarding any aspect of student evaluation will be provided in class. It is the student’s responsibility to obtain this information. Please note that whilst attendance is not compulsory, it is the student’s responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/ITSlearning or textbook. Homepages and/or ITSlearning are not designed for the purpose of students who choose not to attend class.
The course is a part of a full MBA and examination in all courses in the MBA programme must be passed in order to obtain a certificate for the MBA degree.
The course exam is a multiple choice test, consisting of 40 questions, mainly designed to test the understanding of the concepts, theories and processes addressed in the course. The passing mark is 30% correct answers.
The course assignment aims for a practical application of the theories and models addressed during the course.
For that, the student should work in groups of 3 to 5 classmates and assess one of the group members’ immediate organization for the level of integrated OPM. That is, the way OPM is implemented in the organization. This is done through an assessment report, which shows the student’s understanding and assessment of each of the 22 OPM elements of the OPM model and its integration in the assessed organization. The report should conclude on the strengths and weaknesses of this implementation and possibly provide suggestions for improvement. The degree of presence of OPM elements in an organization has no impact on the grade of the assignment. The grade is based on the assessment of ALL elements of the model, the quality of the element definition, and the scope and depth of the assessment within the organization.
The assessment should be done in groups of 3 to 5 students, assessing one of their companies. The assessment must address ALL elements of the OPM model (at least with a definition), and follow the layered model from the outer layer to the inner layer. Hence the order of assessment in the report is:
- The organization’s underlying OPM philosophy
- OPM approach
- OPM governance
- Business integration
- Organizational integration
- Project governance
- Project management
Not all of the 22 elements of the model can be found in all organizations. However, all elements must be at least defined (no matter if they exist or not in the organization) and, if they exist, assessed to the extent they are implemented in the organization.
The assessment should be reported in a max. 2,500 words document in form of a report to management. That means, it should start with a half page Executive Summary, followed by a brief description of the organization and a subsequent detailed assessment report. The report shall finish with some recommendations for the assessed organization. Higher grades will be given to reports that link empirical findings to existing literature (e.g. the course literature) through references. Referencing should be made in Harvard style. In the interest of space and word-count, possible Tables of Content, Tables of Figures, or Lists of Tables should be omitted.
The passing mark is 30%.
Granted admission to the BI-Fudan MBA programme. Please consult our student regulations.
Bachelor degree or equivalent, 4 years work experience, managerial experience and good written and oral knowledge of the English language.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 60 Grouping: Individual Duration: 2 Hour(s) Comment: Individual multiple choice test, counting for 60% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24261 Grading scale: China Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 40 Grouping: Group (3 - 5) Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: The students are evaluated through a group assignment, counting for 40% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24261 Grading scale: China Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 4 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 110 hours.