MUNI ECON Foundations of Business Projects (spring 2023) Student Guide Lecturer: Ing. Petr Smutný, Ph.D. E-mail: Petr.Smutny@econ.muni.cz Department of Corporate Economy, 5th floor, door No. 538 Office hours: see https://is.rnuni.cz/auth/osoba/20527?lang=en;setlang=en#vyuka Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration Lipová 507/41 a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic T: +420 549 49 1710, E: info@econ.muni.cz, www.econ.muni.cz Bank account: KB Brno, Ref. No.: 85636621/0100, ID: 00216224, Tax ID: CZ00216224 1 /9 Please quote the Reference Number in your reply. Dear Students, Thank you for your interest and enrolment into the course. I will do my best so that you learn new valuable things. Hopefully, you will still regard your decision to take this course to be a good one at the end of semester. At Masaryk University, we are committed to ensuring an excellent working and learning environment. Achieving this is a continuous process which includes continuous improvement process. You can help us. Part of this process includes receiving feedback from students, analysing the feedback, and using it to make improvements where necessary. For this reason, please take the time to make your views known. Your opinion is very important, thank you for your input. Good luck, PS 2/9 Course objectives This is elementary course of project management. The main objective of this course is to provide students with sound foundations of managing projects in a business environment through certified structured approach to managing projects. At the end of this course, you will be familiar with the characteristics and context of a project and the benefits of adopting PRINCE2 (6th Edition). You will have basic understanding of the purpose of the PRINCE2 roles, management products, principles, themes and processes. After finishing the course, you should be able to: Have a basic comprehension of the PRINCE2 methodology and the ability to be effective project team member. Have a basic knowledge of Product Based Planning and the ability to utilize the technique for all plans specified in the course. Have a basic understanding of what it takes to start a project including the ability to create a project brief. Have a basic understanding of project planning and the ability to develop a full-scale project plan. 3/9 Course schedule Semester week Dates Seminars Self study Reading 1 13.11 14.11 15.11 16.11 17.11 Videol - Introduction, Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 1 - Chapter 4, pp. 1-40 2 20.11 21.11 Video 2 - Business Case, Organization Chapter 5 - Chapter 7, pp. 41 - 76 Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) 22.11 Introduction to the course, Seminar project assignment 23.11 24.11 3 27.11 28.11 Video3 - Quality Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 8, pp. 77-92 01.111 Consultations of Project Brief 02.111 03.111 4 06.111 07.111 08.111 09.111 10.111 Video 4-Plans Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 9, pp. 93 -118 5 13.111 14.111 15.111 16.111 17.111 Video 5 - Risk Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 10, pp. 119 -136 6 20.111 21.111 Video 6 - Change Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 11,pp. 37-146 22.111 Feedback about Project brief 23.111 24.111 7 27.11 28.11 29.11 30.111 31.11 READING WEEK (no classes) 8 03.1V 04. IV 05.1V 06. IV 07.1V Video 7 - Progress Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 12, pp. 147 -156 9 10.1V 11. IV Video 8 - Starting up a Project, Directing a Project Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 13 - Chapter 15, pp. 157-194 12. IV Consultations of Project Plan 13.1V 14.1V 10 17.1V 18.1V 19.1V 20.1V 21.1V Video 9 - Initiating a project, Controlling a Stage Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 16 - Chapter 17, pp. 195-234 11 24.1V 25.1V 26.1V 27.1V 28.1V Video 10 - Controlling a Stage, MPD, Closing a Project Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 (6th Ed.) Chapter 18 - 20, pp. 235 - 270 12 01 .V 02 .V 03.V Presentations of Project Plan 04.V 05 .V 13 08.V 09 .V 10.V Mock-up exam ll.V 12 .V Important deadlines: 15/03/2023 Uploading your Course Project Brief into the homework vault in the IS. 28/04/2023 Uploading your presentation slides into the homework vault in the IS. 10/05/2023 Uploading your Course Project Plan into the homework vault in the IS. Please note that uploading the above-mentioned documents is mandatory. All vaults close at 23:59 on the respective dates. Late deliveries are not accepted. Documents can be handed in through the vaults ONLY. No other means of delivery are accepted. Course grading Your final grade will consist of several partial results you will get throughout semester from graded activities. Some of these graded exercises will be individual, some of them will be teamwork. That means that your final grade will be influenced by your individual effort as well as by your ability to cooperate within a team. Just like in the real life. Graded activities in this course are as follows: Graded exercise Form Type Weight Project Brief written team 15% Presentation of the Project Plan oral team 10% Project Plan written team 35% Exam written individual 40% Overall grade 100% Important! Please note that your eligibility for a re-sit of graded activities is governed by Study and Examination Regulations of Masaryk University. You are only eligible to re-sit attempts that you had missed for a good reason (typically health issues, illnesses, etc.) which provide for granting an excuse. Please note that for example pre-scheduled travel DOES NOT constitute such a good reason. You will not be allowed to re-sit missed attempt which had not been excused prior or immediately after the scheduled date (for scheduled weeks see course schedule table above). Please note that Masaryk University is very serious about enforcement of ethical standards in teaching and examination. Any copying, keeping a record of tests or carrying the tests out, using forbidden aids including any communication devices or any other breach of objectivity of the exam is regarded as a failure to meet the obligations of the subject and as a serious breach of study regulations. Consequently, the teacher grades the student with "F" and the dean is allowed to initiate a disciplinary action, which might lead to the termination of the studies. 5/9 Course project Nowadays, projects are everywhere. You will be part of a project team at some point during your career, likely earlier than later. Therefore, your competencies related to cooperation within teams will be of utmost importance when you will be looking for the job. Your course project within this course aims to facilitate both: improving your knowledge base in the area of project management; improving your cooperation competencies as you will be working on the paper with your fellow students. Course project assignment The goal of your course project will be to provide a plan for a fictitious or real-life project of your choice in such a way that meets basic quality criteria of project planning. A project plan provides a statement of how and when objectives of the project are to be achieved, by showing major products, activities and resources required for the scope of the plan. The course project will have the final form of a written project plan. Word/pdf documents are to be uploaded in the vault through IS. You will develop the plan for your project in two steps: Project brief Project Plan A. Project Brief Project Brief is used to provide full and firm foundation for the initiation of the project and is created during starting up a project. Project Brief includes the following: Project definition - explains what the project needs to achieve. It covers the background, definition of project objectives, desired outcomes, project scope and exclusions, constraints and assumptions, and project tolerances. Outline business case - covering the reasons why the project is needed and the (business) options selected. Project product description - explaining quality expectations and acceptance criteria. Project management team structure - describing the role of those in the project management team. The Project Brief is to be delivered via a homework vault no later than the deadline set in the course schedule. It has the form of a written paper with following formal arrangements: Cover page including paper title, authors' names and UCOs, word count without reference list, total word count. 6/9 Minimum length: 5 pages (excluding cover and list of references and annexes), Arial 12, margins 2 cm, line spacing 1. Pictures and charts larger than 1/3 of a page will be included in annexes and referenced in the text (annexes do not count into total number of pages). B. Project Plan The Project Plan provides a statement of how and when objectives are to be achieved, by providing the major products, activities and resources required for the scope of the plan. It identifies the management stages and other major control points. A plan should cover not just the activities to create products but also the activities to manage product creation. Project Plan includes the following: planning assumptions - assumptions upon which the plan is based; products description - description of the products to be delivered within the scope of the project, inc. quality tolerances for each product; tolerances - time, cost and scope tolerances; budgets - time and cost budgets, including provisions for risk and changes; schedule - incl. a Gannt chart and product breakdown structure; monitoring and control - details how the plan will be monitored and controlled. The Project Plan is to be delivered via a homework vault no later than the deadline set in the course schedule. It has the form of a written paper with following formal arrangements: Cover page including paper title, authors' names and UCOs, word count without reference list, total word count. Minimum length: 10 pages (excluding cover and list of references and annexes), Arial 12, margins 2 cm, line spacing 1. Pictures and charts larger than 1/3 of a page will be included in annexes and referenced in the text (annexes do not count into total number of pages). Course project evaluation Both parts of your course project (Project brief and Project plan) will be evaluated against the following criteria (covering both quality of content and formal aspects): documents include all expected information (see above); the content quality and rigour of presented material; cover page is according to assignment; formal quality of the document (language, typos, formatting); the paper meets the criterion of minimum length. PLEASE NOTE that papers which will not meet the minimum required length will be deducted % of the points gained; the paper was handed in due time. PLEASE NOTE that papers which will not be handed in within due deadline will be deducted % of the points gained. Course project presentations Presentation skills are important for every manager. That is why oral presentation of your paper is normally included in the course schedule. The goal is to facilitate presentations skills development. All that in English, which for most of us, is only our second language. Presentation evaluation Oral team presentation is part of the team project and will be evaluated as the separate graded activity (see Course Schedule). Visual aids (slides) for presentations will be prepared and uploaded in the vault through the IS within the set deadline. Oral presentation will take 10 - 12 mins. Shorter or longer presentations will face points deductions during evaluation process (see evaluation criteria below). Every member of a team MUST take part at the oral presentation. The presentation will be evaluated against the following criteria: verbal an non-verbal communication o verbal communication is clear and fluent o presenters DO NOT read their text o they have an eye contact with audience; visual presentation guidelines (slides); o slides help audience to understand; o slides are clear and easy to read; o graphical tools are used where helpful, presentation structure o goal / aim is presented and is clear; o structure of the presentation is clear; o structure is relevant to the goal/type of the presentation; o audience do not get lost, team cooperation o every member of the team takes part in oral presentation; o members of the team cooperate during presentation, improvisation skills; ability to address questions; presentation respects given time limit (not less, not more). 8/9 Course materials Main textbook Managing successful projects with Prince!. Sixth edition. Norwich: Axelos, 2017. 327 s. ISBN 978-0-11-331533-8. 9/9