MBA 2426 Project and Change Management
MBA 2426 Project and Change Management
The World Bank expects about 25 to 30% of all money spent in the World to be spent 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? How are project-based initiatives leveraged for organizational change? These questions are addressed through the concept of Organizational Project Management (OPM) and Change management, which are parallelly practiced in this course by understanding both theoretically through OPM and change management theory, as well as practically by observing organizational reality.
This course takes an organization-wide perspective. The students will learn what projects are, how to manage projects, how they are embedded in their wider parent organization, the prioritization, selection, and 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. Meanwhile, students will also learn how to implement change, how to understand resistance to change, and how to institute change through projects.
After the course, the student will have:
- Knowledge about the different forms of change and how change is accomplished through projects
- Knowledge about the resistance to change, and how to cope with bottom-up resistance and overcome organizational inertia
- 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:
- Planning and implementing organizational change, identifying resistance to organizational change, developing strategy to cope with resistance
- 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 project management and organizational change 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 the competence to:
- Analyze academic and practical organizational project management in different industries
- Analyze academic and practical organizational change management in different industries
- 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 project and change management
Day 1:
Organizational change, planning organizational change, resistance to change.
Day 2:
Implementing change through projects, and introduction of project management. Casework.
Day 3:
Plannning, scheduling, governing, and business integration of projects and OPM governance. Group presentation.
Day 4:
Organizational OPM approaches and philosophies. Case-based game. 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. 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. 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 students are required to submit a course assignment. The course assignment aims for a practical application of the theories and models addressed during the course in form of a report.
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: School Exam Form of assessment: Structured Test Exam/hand-in semester: First Semester Weight: 60 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 1 Hour(s) Comment: Individual multiple choice test, counting for 60% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24263 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Submission PDF Exam/hand-in semester: First Semester Weight: 40 Grouping: Group (3 - 5) Duration: 4 Week(s) Comment: The students are evaluated through a group assignment, counting for 40% of the final grade. Exam code: MBA 24264 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
All exams must be passed to get a grade in this 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.