Instructions

The primary objective is to apply project management concepts to analyze two topics from the textbook.

Picking a Topic and Submitting a Plan

You have a great deal of latitude in choosing your topics.Possible topic areas for the paper include, but are not limited to, the following issues:

• Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM): PMMMs are used to assess an organization's project management capabilities
• Project portfolio managementthe set of practices to manage all an organization's projects, ensuring that resources are allocated according to priorities
• Project Support Offices (PSOs) or Project Management Offices (PMOs)administrative groups that provide project support to an organization's various projects
• alternate project management methods and approaches
• risk management in projects
• new technologies in project management

If you currently work in an organization that does not use project management, you may want to consider a topic of potential importance to that organization (e.g., would xPM be a suitable project management method in your organization and, if so, how would you go about implementing it?).

Once you have your research topics narrowed down, draft a paper outline as a plan. Contact the Student Support Centre and arrange to speak to an Academic Expert to make sure your topics are appropriate.

Then select two current articles (published within the last 6 months) related to each topic. You should have four articles in total. You may take your articles from academic (peer-reviewed) or new sources, including project management journals, international project management journals, Wall Street Journal articles, business magazines, trade journals, interviews with employees, etc. The outcome of your analysis is a report, which is described below.

Report Structure and Content

Your report should contain the following:

a) Summary of the topics and the articles

Use the course textbook as well as the articles. Then, target the desired concepts and knowledge relevant to your analysis to summarize them. Recall that summarizing a text (i.e., an article, book, etc., in part or in whole) is to reframe or reduce it to its essential meaning with fewer words. Your summary must show that you have understood the text and you have reshaped it properly. A reader should be able to grasp through your summary the essential meaning of the original text.

In summarizing material from the textbook and the articles you have chosen, you will bypass details and examples to focus only on essential ideas. That reduction will require that you restructure the text and make sure there is cohesion and harmony among different parts. You will often need to use connection words such as however, while, therefore, especially at the beginning of paragraphs. The summary needs to highlight the strengths and the full meaning of the author's ideas or thoughts.

b) A discussion of the link between the topic and articles

Clearly demonstrate how each pair of selected articles is related to the chosen topics (similar concepts, issues approached, concrete related situations, etc.). Highlight all the implicit as well as explicit relationships. Make sure that you describe both implicit and explicit relationships clearly to support your claim of a connection between the topics and the articles.

c) Analysis

The purpose of this exercise is to apply the theoretical concepts covered in the textbook to the realities addressed in the articles. You should not confuse critical analysis with emotional or subjective assessment of a text. That means judging the value of the textbook concepts with regard to concrete facts and situations found in the articles. You need to determine whether what is said in the textbook reflects the reality of the practices. Remember that performing a good analysis implies you have read and understood the texts. Your analysis must be supported by evidence in the form of paraphrase and direct quotation from your sources.

Also, compare the two articles that you have selected for each topic. This means literally to compare the statements and the contents of the articles. It is kind of dialogue between texts, where you highlight the ideas by focusing on the similarities as well as the differences. Indicate which of the two articles is more or less related to the topic they refer to. Please feel free to exercise your judgment and make educated speculationsthe rigor of your analysis will help you to grow as a thinker and will prove useful to your future efforts.

In addition to the pages of the report, include an appendix with your reflections on what you learned from the project and how it might be useful to you in the future.

Include other appendices if you wish to present information in addition to

• the synthesis or summary of the two topics,
• the links between the topics and their paired articles, and finally,
• the analysis of the articles where you assess the link between the facts treated in the articles and the theories or concepts covered in the topic.

The report should have an introduction that states what it is about and outlines the structure of the paper. The conclusion should summarize important ideas and highlight your main message.