Tips on how to answer the assignment question.

The individual assignment question asks you to produce a management report outlining how you would plan to implement your proposed change in order to obtain approval for your proposed change to proceed. In order to do this you need to identify the activities that you need to undertake to move the organisation from their current way of working to your new preferred method The sort of details that you need to identify for your proposed change are: What is it you are trying to achieve (aims and objectives of activity); Who needs to be involved (resource use); How long do you think it will take to complete (duration); What are the benefits for the firm of undertaking the activity (e.g. financial, culture, efficiency); What are the likely costs of undertaking the activity (order of magnitude if possible); Does anything need to be done before you can start (such as training); You now need to build your activities together into a project plan, using the successor / predecessor relationships and identified constraints as a starting point to determine the sequence. In order to make the project plan easier to manage, it is usual to break it up into discrete chunks, called milestones. You will need to consider which are the key steps to success, or milestones. A milestone is a decision point, and you can create a separate plan for each milestone if you like. The aim of the individual assignment is to produce a practical management report and needs to concentrate on what you are going to do, the timescales, the costs, and benefits to the company. Good Luck! The marking guidelines are as follows: Criteria Overall Fail Unsatisfactory with some serious shortcomings with some attempt at meeting the requirements of the questions but the answers are unclear or not of sufficient detail. Little evidence of knowledge or understanding shown. Fundamental misconceptions. Learning outcomes not met. Little or no evidence of wider reading or research. 1 Pass Good in most respects with the majority of answers being clear and relevant to the questions and scenario. Excellent Excellent in most respects with full, clear, concise and correct answers, considering all facts relevant to the questions and scenario.

Knowledge and application

Some display of relevant knowledge and understanding at an appropriate level.

Thorough display of relevant breadth and depth of knowledge, at the appropriate level.

Research and reading

Evidence of satisfactory research and reading, using

Evidence of wide and varied reading, from up-to-date and relevant

Evaluation and synthesis

Little or no critical evaluation - mostly descriptive.

Summary & conclusions

Presentation

High standard of critical analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Few or no Good evaluation of conclusions. findings, appropriately summarised. Poorly presented. Clear and Excellent Content mainly recognisable format presentation of unstructured and a with logical work- clear failure to structure. structure and communicate ideas. logical development of arguments.

mainly recommended sources. Attempt at critical evaluation, with appropriate conclusion. Some appropriate conclusions.

sources. Wider research apparent.