Subject Code & Title : 31272 Project Management And The Professional
Length: Approximately 9,000 – 10,000 word report plus 10 minute video
Background: The CEO of PMP Consultants Pty Ltd has been in dialogue with members of the newly formed Southern Golf Group (SGG) regarding their intended initiative to amalgamate and modernise facilities within their Sydney eastern suburbs golf clubs. Consequently, PMP Consultants (with their solid reputation for project competence) has been invited to prepare a project management briefing paper for the SGG Board covering development planning for their new Member Management System (MMS). If the anticipated report is clear, detailed and complete SGG have suggested that this could not only form the basis for an initial engagement but potentially lead to a profitable ongoing business arrangement for PMP including:
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
A well-received report would have two direct (and major) benefits for PMP itself:
1.A proposal for the two companies to jointly develop the MMS and associated software. A success with this initial venture could prompt a long-term partnership offer for PMP to help SGG fulfil a range of other (still confidential) projects. These significant joint activities would become a lucrative (and high profile) income stream for PMP over the next 5 years – plus give a competitive advantage over rival consultancies still unaware of the aggressive scale of SGG’s intended expansion or richness of their client list.
2.A highly regarded submission has potential to see the PMP CEO offered a non-executive Directorship on the SGG Board of Directors. As a keen golfer he regards this as both a prestigious appointment and an excellent opportunity for personal networking among the high-status peer group of the golf/business fraternity.
3. SGG’s parent company, Recreation Amalgamated Holdings (RAH), is considering a ‘preferred supplier’ arrangement with a proven information technology consultancy. The chosen firm would not only provide services to one subsidiary (such as SGG) but act as primary technology consultant/advisor to the entire conglomerate. This is an opportunity potentially worth tens of millions of dollars for the enterprise selected. Exhibiting superior proficiency in working with SGG could make PMP eligible for the appointment.
Needless to say, professionalism and thoroughness of the project management briefing report is important for both the future of PMP Consultants and to its CEO personally.
Tasks:
(This assignment is based upon the project scenario on page 6 and also links to tutorial workshops)
This task is composed of two major deliverables: (a) project planning/briefing report; and (b) accompanying video ‘pitch’ presentation. These must both be submitted to the PMP CEO (or member of his executive team) by the time/date nominated. Failure to meet deadline means your CEO will not be able to, in turn, deliver them at SGG’s November Board meeting where he has been invited to speak. This would be highly embarrassing for him – and with possible ‘career-limiting’ repercussions for the PMP team members involved!
The project planning document must address the following deliverables (although others can be added):
Section 1 – Business Overview
1.Document introduction, purpose and background;
2.Objectives of the Member Management System (MMS) and key success criteria;
3.Short discussion of the project’s Measurable Organisational Value (MOV) and potential benefits;
4. Outline of project scope (including specific requirements traceability, clear identification of out-of- scope items, project assumptions and potential constraints).
Section 2 – Specific Project Management Planning and Control Strategies to Adopt (Hint: refer to lecture notes and tutorial workshop activities for guidance)
a.Stakeholder management and communication plan (including stakeholder registers);
b.Discussion of system development approaches for creating the MMS (i.e. Waterfall vs Agile) and respective advantages/disadvantages for this project. A well-reasoned recommendation is made;
c.Risk management strategy and initial planning (including a preliminary project risk register);
d.Approach for monitoring Project progress, keeping work aligned to scope and controlling change;
e.Quality management strategy and initial planning for same.
Section 3 – Preliminary Project Management Activities and Estimates
- High-level work breakdown structure of key tasks in MMS project
- Task sequencing using activity-on-node (AON) network dependency diagram. Place a high-level summary NDD in the report body with more detailed supporting AON PERT in an appendix;
- Task scheduling on a Gantt chart (must reflect both the WBS and the detailed PERT). Place a high- level summary Gantt in the report body with more detailed Gantt in an appendix;
- Identification and discussion of key project milestones (should be at least 10 but more are OK);
- Discussion of identified critical path dependencies;
- Best estimate of time (with reasoning) needed to complete the project from start to final handover.
- Validation of the $800,000 proposed budget: (a) an initial ‘top-down’ budget must be realistically allocated to key project phases/activities/deliverables; (b) a ‘bottom up’ estimate must be undertaken for the same tasks; (c) outcomes of the cross-validation are to be discussed and recommendations made (e.g. are there differences? Is initial budget too high/low? Should a formal request for budget increase/decrease be made? Should a contingency fund be established? Etc.);
- Human resourcing estimate (i.e. Key roles needed? How many people? For how long?).
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
Section 4 – Conclusion
1.Summary of major points and relevant approvals required for key project areas;
2. Recommendations, suggested next steps to get the project underway plus concluding remarks.
Section 5- Additional Criteria – Professionalism, Presentation and Accountability
1.Report is well-presented and looks professional. This document is suitable for submission to senior executives with appropriate title page (with student names/numbers, tutorial number, tutor name, lodgement date), executive summary, table of contents, list of figures, heading/page numbers, etc.;
2.Communicates well. Has an easy-to-read report structure, good language flow with appropriate punctuation and grammar. It is clear, concise and well edited with minimal repetition or verbosity.Report formatting, style and treatment of data is internally consistent throughout the document;
3.Includes, in an Appendix, a table covering major line items from the Table of Contents along with the initials of the team member owning responsibility for that item (e.g. 2.5 Risk Management Strategy (GM)). This will allow PMP management visibility of individual work contribution;
4.Satisfactory provision to your tutor of peer assessment forms per instructions on page 3.
Note that the product for this engagement is a professional-level Project Briefing Report for Board-level consumption. PMP is, as yet, only contracted to provide this one deliverable. Arrangements for more in-depth planning and development of the actual MMS are still pending (although PMP hopes to be involved and a good impression with this initial report will be central to that happening).
C-level Project Video Presentation
The briefing paper must be accompanied by a 10 minute recorded video presenting key messages and outcomes. The video is to be a condensed ‘pitch’ suitable for senior management demonstrating PMP’s acumen as a consultancy (Power point presentation file with recorded narration is acceptable),communicating in a way that the client would wish to continue a relationship. Areas of focus:
1. Introduction, purpose and background of the submission;
2.Objectives of the Member Management System (MMS) proposal, potential business significance/benefits to SGG and key measures of success as understood by PMP;
3. Major scope items to be met; recommends how a well-planned project would fulfil them;
4. Presentation tells a story, is consistent with the associated report and is enjoyable to watch;
Encourages the client to want a relationship – establishes enthusiasm for getting the project started.
Report Marking Scheme:
Remember, this is a professional document for senior management and should look and read as such.
Section 1 Business overview
Section 2 Project management planning and control strategies
Section 3 Major project activities and estimates
Section 4 Conclusion 2 Marks
Additional Overall professionalism of report plus completed Peer Review forms 6 Marks
Video presentation Summary and executive ‘pitch’ of key messages from the Report
Group Work and Peer Assessment Instructions
The assignment will be undertaken by groups of four to six students and peer assessment forms are required to be submitted along with the report. The whole group is responsible for team performance and meeting deliverables. If you have trouble with group organisation or colleagues within the group (including members not contributing) it is important you settle these issues early. If conflicts persist then arrange to meet with your tutor (ideally as a whole group) as soon as possible.
Team member contribution should be addressed via the Peer Assessment process. Using the Peer Assessment form found at the end of this assignment allocate a mark from five (5) down to zero (0) for each member of the team (including yourself) along with an appropriate comment. Ratings should only use whole numbers: rating five shows the person is an effective/efficient member of the team, deserving of the full report mark as assessed; zero indicates the person has not contributed at all to the team effort. If all members of the team have contributed equally then a rating of five should be given to everyone.
You must also indicate on the form whether you prefer to have Peer Assessment applied or not. Peer Assessment will only apply if 50% or more of the team vote in favour. Thus, by assignment deadline each individual team member should upload a completed form to the peer assessment area under‘Assignments’ tab (do not include peer forms into the report document itself – these will be regarded as invalid).
1.Groups responding YES to Peer Assessment (50% and above) will have the report outcome modified by Peer Assessment rating to give an individual result for each student member. Be aware that while individual marks cannot go above the report’s original assessment, if low peer ratings are applied to team member(s) then their individual outcomes will be lowered in ratio.
2.Groups responding NO to Peer Assessment receive the report same mark for all team members.
Repeating Students:
If you previously attempted 31272 during Spring 2020 or Autumn 2021 then you may re-use your mark from that time in place of undertaking this assignment. If so, you MUST email the subject coordinator with your request by Return confirmation should be kept. Failure to obtain written approval by this date means the assignment is to be undertaken normally.
Submission Requirements:
Assignments are submitted online via ‘Assignments’ tab of Canvas by time
1.Only one copy of the report and one copy for the video should be uploaded per team (i.e. one group member submits on behalf of a team with all participating student names/ids noted on report/video title page). Make sure to confirm upload has been successful and keep submission receipt in case later verification is required.
2.Peer Assessments from each individual in a group are to be uploaded in Canvas. Use file name format ‘Assignment 2 Tutxx – name’ where xx is tutorial number and name is student name.
Assignment Return
Assignment feedback sheets will normally be uploaded to each report in Canvas by completion of the end-of-term Exam period. The submitting student should then distribute to relevant team members.Individual student results will be shown in Grade Centre once peer assessment has been determined.
Expected Standard of the Work:
You are expected to conceptualise the problem or issue, find relevant references for context, facts, theory and examples, come up with a point of view and support that point of view with discussion and citation where appropriate. Documents generated within tutorial workshops can be used to assist in building a report foundation but should also be further tailored to provide a more insightful final work.
Your submitted report/video should be composed as a business submission to a business audience (and not simply attempting to satisfy an academic course requirement).
Also, students are reminded of the principles laid down in the “Statement of Good Practice and Ethics in Informal Assessment” (in the Faculty Hand book). Unless otherwise stated in a specific handout, all assessment tasks in this subject should be your own original work. Any collaboration with another student (or group) should be limited to those matters described in “Acceptable Behaviour” section of the Handbook. Students should pay particular attention to the recognition of “Plagiarism” as described in that section of the Handbook. Any infringement by a student will be considered a breach of discipline and will be dealt with in accordance with Rules and By-Laws of the University. Penalties such as zero marks for assignments or subjects may be imposed.
Background:
In early 2018, a collection of venture capital investors and small-to-medium sized recreation firms decided to create an umbrella company for easy management of large-scale health and holiday resorts around Australia. The subsequent merger launched Recreation Amalgamated Holdings (RAH) – a major publicly listed corporation dedicated to the provision, management and growth of recreation services around the country. From this origin, and by progressively adding numerous later acquisitions of high-value firms in target markets, the parent corporation now has five autonomous and substantially-funded enterprises within its holding: Pacific Resorts Group; Snowy Mountains Resorts Group; Everyday Fitness Group; Southern Golf Group; and Vista Events Group. Although strategic directives and annual
profit targets are issued by RAH, each division has its own Board of Directors, internal operations structure, independent decision making and profit/loss accountability – thus, operating as wholly-owned commercial subsidiaries within their individual industry segments.
Recently, due to the wide-ranging disparity of systems and capability inherited from its mergers and acquisitions, RAH has prioritised the development of a suitable integrated infrastructure to administer the day-to-day needs of patrons and staff and to better monitor and provide services to its chain of resorts, health centres and golf courses. The subsidiary covering its golf courses and golfing getaways,Southern Golf Group (SGG), has been given the go-ahead as the first of the divisions to be modernised. To meet the timeline issued by their parent company, SGG feel that design of the appropriate information systems architecture (and development of associated tools) should be outsourced to an experienced consulting group with a record of successfully integrating diverse information needs with the latest technological advances. The selected consulting firm would lead the upgrade program under SGG oversight – and potentially access other RAH divisions once the initial program with SGG has been deemed successful.
SGG has three golf courses under management. Of these, the New South Wales Golf Club is the long-time primary property. Situated on the northern tip of Botany Bay its golf links boast panoramic views of both the bay and the Pacific Ocean, making it one of the most prestigious and exclusive sports clubs in Australia. More recently, and as part of the aforementioned amalgamation, SGG has also taken control of both the neigh bouring St Michael’s Golf Club (catering for the serious local golfer via private member-only access) as well as the nearby public Coast Golf Course (offering a more general course and day-fees for the casual player). Although mostly operating as independent entities at the day-to-day level, as the newly enlarged Southern Golf Group they can collectively take advantage of economies of scale in the maintenance of the three courses, share grounds-keeping resources when needed and offer a much more comprehensive service to both serious and casual golf patrons. It would also potentially allow them to have a stronger voice with the local community, City of Sydney local government and the NSW State Government in regard to environmental submissions, development applications and urban planning for Botany, Sydney eastern suburbs and surrounding areas that may have impact upon Southern Golf business interests.
Viewing itself as unique, SGG has decided that a bespoke development project (as opposed to purchasing a package) is its best alternative. However, they openly state that they are not information systems project experts. Thus, as a starting point, they have engaged PMP Consultants to prepare a Briefing Paper outlining work estimates, resourcing and preliminary planning for building a robust Member Management System (MMS) using typical project management disciplines. While it is understood that the firm contracted for actual development may have their own methodology for ensuring successful delivery, SGG hope that this initial Briefing Paper will allow their oversight of that process to be an informed one. A preliminary budget of $800,000 has been allocated to the MMS project, however the SGG Managing Director has emphasised that money is less important than quality– the system must be fully developed, well-tested and easy to use.
Currently, SGG has 3 x 18-hole golf courses under management (2 x private and 1 x public), 310 employees, 3420 registered members for its private courses and hosts 15,000 players annually. On the basis of its proposed extensive systems and course upgrades SGG have begun development of a submission to the Professional Golfers Association of Australia Limited to have its premier private property, NSW Golf Course, included in both the PGA Tour and Pro-Am circuits for 2026.
Objectives for the Proposal:
To improve the player experience by automating and simplifying a number of manual processes currently requiring human intervention and/or where the existing service is inconsistent across the different golf courses. This includes:
1.Making member applications, verification and renewal simpler and more convenient;
2.Allowing members to easily review personal information, account details and activity history;
3.Providing golfers remote purchase of golfing equipment with a range of payment and collection/shipping options;
4.Allowing members and visitors to more easily reserve golf tee-off for available dates/times on the courses and with suitable equipment, golf buggy or caddy hire where available (note: the public golf course does not offer caddies);
5.Reduce tee-off wait times (especially on the public course) via a fast/simplified player check-in process at tee-off times and before beginning play;
6.Allowing patrons to book golf lessons and personal tuition with a professional tutor;
7.Allowing SGG to schedule competitions simply and effectively over any of the three courses;
8.Allowing sponsorship details for competitions to be easily captured, maintained and managed for the different golf courses and simplify leader-boards and grounds advertising associated with special events.
Although initially targeting golf courses under SGG management, an ideal solution would also be adaptable (with some tailoring) to the membership operations of other resort venues
Initial Scope:
Southern Golf Group has been in recent talks with a number of advisory bodies about plans for its expansion. They have resolved to issue a Request-For-Tender for a new state-of-the-art, automated and integrated Member Management System (MMS) to largely replace disparate individual methods used at each of their three clubs. They envisage the new system will allow:
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
1)Integrated/online membership application, approval and subscription. This will permit accepted individuals to join the private clubs using a number of different fee structures. Club membership payments are made via credit card or periodic deposit to the nominated SGG merchant account. (Note: private golf courses are member-only venues usually offering restaurant, private dining, spa and other luxury amenities besides the golf course itself. In contrast, public courses are open to casual visitors who pay a greens fee per game. SGG offer regular visitors to their public course an
option for opening an SGG account to cover per-use cost of standard on-site resources).
2) Integrated account management. Operating as an abbreviated customer relationship management (CRM) system it would allow members/visitors to check account balances, update personal details and be notified of club events as well as particular member benefits, discounts and offers that might be available. It would also allow SGG to monitor trends around member/guest/visitor use of facilities/services which could then be used for marketing, mailing lists and events planning.
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
3) Online store. An online website through which golfers can purchase golfing equipment and merchandise from the SGG catalogue. This module should accept a variety of payment and shipping options and use stored account details where appropriate. A simple ‘point-and-click’ style user interface is desired to maximise patron convenience.
4) Booking of services and equipment. Patrons can online-book golf tee-off for selected dates/times on any of the 3 courses, nominate details of member-invited guests on the private golf links and arrange hire of equipment (including golf carts) if needed. Personal caddies are also available for NSW and St Michaels golf courses. The system should also allow players to pre-pay online for both reservation times and hires in a similar way to that of equipment purchasing.
5)Simplified check-in. Touch-screen kiosks where golfers can simply check-in at tee-off times before beginning play. If successful, the system might be extended at some future point to cater for other additional golf courses that may be added to the Group.
6)Booking of specialist staff. Patrons can online-book personal golf lessons and tuition for selected dates/times on any of the courses. On the Coast Public Golf Course generally only 1 professional tutor is available 9 am-5 pm on weekdays; NSW and St Michaels courses have 3 tutors each, available 9 am-6 pm seven days a week and private bookings can be arranged outside these times on special request and lighting/weather conditions permitting. Lesson fees vary from course to course.
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
7) Competition management. Automating management of competitive events including event details,prizes, player registration, record of player scores and handicaps, ranking of players in order of merit for both team and individual events and with appropriate results presented and produced on demand. If competitions are covered by the media then progressive scores and individual player ranking and history information should be directly available to news crews. For major tournaments this module should also record any ‘big name’ players issued special invitations and who may have accepted to ‘headline’ an event.
8) Sponsorship and advertising management. Sponsor ships for various competitions should be managed for the different golf courses including tracking of available sponsorship categories,sponsor(s) details and leader-boards and grounds advertising associated with special events. If media coverage is arranged then media support locales and roped off areas (e.g. camera placement, power supply, media commentator locations, etc.) should also be included.
9) Data Analytics. A series of reports should be generated covering events summaries, financials information, audience numbers, ticketing demographics, etc. These reports should be informative and useful in helping measure the degree of event success and/or identify areas needing attention for future events of this type.
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
10) Maintenance. The whole Member Management System must be easily up grade able, robust and scalable. It is anticipated that the system should be easily extendable to other properties that may be added to the SGG portfolio in future.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. PMP Consultants should include any supplementary scope items in their report if such are judged essential to the Visitor Management System final product.
Currently, preparation for issue of the SGG Request-for-Tender is not complete. SGG anticipate the Request-For-Tender document will be released to a list of information/consulting firms by 1 December 2021 with selection of a winning bid by mid-March 2022. The appointed provider should have the project underway no later than April 2022 with a system handover and ‘go live’ targeted for late October of that year. If the MMS is successful within SGG then tailored variants may be approved for use by other recreation divisions within the RAH corporate family.
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
Out of Scope Components (i.e. not to be addressed in your Project Briefing Document)
While some items might need to be later considered for the actual project when it is commissioned, they are not of immediate interest to the Board. Therefore, for the purposes of the Briefing Paper, the following items are known to be out of scope:
A.Buildings, space and general office fit-out for the Project and its staff;
B. Administration staffing and support personnel not directly engaged in Project development;
C. Back office, financial and other systems not directly related to MMS project development;
D.Sourcing of ‘non-IT’ hardware as kiosk units and scoreboards (this will be done by a separate negotiation direct with hardware vendors);
E)Provisions for issues and risk related to legislation, environment, land and governing bodies (e.g.Tax Laws, Immigration Laws, Property Development applications, etc.).
Additional Notes (some possible project considerations identified)
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
At the last monthly meeting of the SGG Board certain items relating to the proposed Briefing Paper were discussed. After the meeting, the CEO of PMP Consultants had an informal discussion with the Board Secretary and wrote down some bullet points over coffee regarding areas of importance to the Board. These notes are made available below although the PMP CEO has not assessed their relevance to preparation of the Briefing Paper – they are almost certainly incomplete, may not be relevant to immediate project decisions and are not in any set order. However, the PMP CEO has provided them to help provoke thought about activities the project plan might include:
1.Sourcing, modifying and installing the kiosk hardware;
2.Preparation of accurate list of fees for all grounds, hires and equipment purchases;
3.Finding and fit-out of a MMS project location;
4.Maintenance of SGG staff records including golf instructor shifts and schedules;
5.Negotiations with the Board of Randwick Golf Course are currently progressing and an agreement-in-principle for their golf links to join the Southern Golf Group is expected by October 2021. This would potentially put a fourth golf course under SGG management by early 2022.
6.Planning, development and integration of:
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
1.Smart swipe cards to store player information;
2.Appropriate fall back procedures to replace or bypass faulty kiosk terminals;
3. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning for any potentially catastrophic event;
4. A mobile phone application (mobile app) to easily check player tee-off reservations (and possibly other details for private members);
5.Co-existence with, or replacement of, the three current golf course websites;
6. Integration with State government systems to confirm status of pensioners, senior citizens, students, veterans, etc., who might be offered player discounts;
7.Back-office accounting systems, including HR and payroll for project staff;
8.Backup processes for all data captured in relation to the MMS;
9.Data mining and modelling software for ongoing system analysis and improvement;
10.Robust security and system software to protect the entire operation.
7.Set up contracts for ongoing maintenance of hardware and software once the project is complete;
8.If the NSW Golf Course is included in the PGA Tour or Pro-Am circuits for 2026 then upgrades to transport facilities (e.g. parking, public transport and access), visitor management and grounds security for that course will have to be planned. These should potentially tie into – and share data with – the proposed Member Management System;
31272 Project Management And The Professional Assessment – University Of Technology Sydney Australia.
9.Complete testing of all components to analyse reliability, ease of use, repair and replacement;
10.Alternate data processing sites (i.e. a fallback in case the main processing site fails);
11.Satisfactory testing of the disaster recovery plan;
12.Legal liability for injury to members/visitors whilst on SGG property.
13.A low-rise, 100 room, 5-star hotel is planned by SGG on vacant land near the northern entrance to Botany Bay. This would turn the SGG properties into a golf resort of international standard. An environmental impact study for the location is nearing completion and preparation of a development application is currently underway. Hotel guest facilities would likely connect into the new Member Management System for items such as tee-off booking, equipment hire, etc. as well as a new provision for free shuttle bus transport between the hotel and selected golf links. In addition, discussion is still ongoing as to whether the proposed hotel should have a helipad.This would facilitate quick air travel of VIP patrons and their guests to other nominated golf courses within the Sydney/Newcastle/Wollongong area with whom SGG may, by then, have established reciprocal relationships and confirmed provision of suitable helicopter landing facilities.
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