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 theoretically 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 for their OPM implementation practices, and the implications for potential ethical issues and organizational results stemming from these implementations.
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.
- Assessing OPM implementations and interpreting assessment reports from these implementations.
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 OPM implementation
- 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.
Two to three of the teaching hours in this course are dedicated to CSR, ethics, social and environmental issues.
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 students should work in groups to assess one of the group members’ immediate organization for the level of integrated OPM. This is done in two steps:
1. Assessment of the way OPM is implemented in the organization. For that an online assessment tool will be used. The link to to this assement tool will be provided in class. The assessment tool generates a semi-automated assessment report.
2. The student group will analyze this assessment report to conclude on the strengths and weaknesses of the particular OPM implementation of the assessed organization. For that they develop a set of suggestions for improvement and the reasons for them.
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 depth of the analysis of the assessment report and the scope and depth of the improvement suggestions for the assessed organization.
The assessment should be done in groups of 3 to 5 students, assessing one of their companies. The analysis of the assessment report must address all layers of the model in the following order:
- OPM philosophy
- OPM approach
- OPM governance
- Business integration
- Organizational integration
- Project governance
- Project management
The analysis report should be a max. 1,000 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 analysys of the assessment report, including some recommendations for the assessed organization, and the reasons for these recommendations. The assessment report is to be copied in the Appendix of the analysis report and does not count for the wordcount of the analysis report. Hence, the group's deliverable is an anasysis report, with the assessment report attached to it.
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%.
In all BI Executive courses and programmes, there is a mutual requirement
for the student and the course responsible regarding the involvement of the student's experience in the planning and implementation of courses, modules and programmes. This means that the student has the right and duty to get involved with their own knowledge and practice relevance, through the active sharing of their relevant experience and knowledge.
Granted admission to the BI-Fudan MBA programme. Please consult our student regulations.
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
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 24262 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade 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 24262 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade 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.