In this unit you are required to complete a weekly and consolidated portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous and cu
ent experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this unit. Your portfolio will provide an account of your learning based on your practice and your critical reflection.Further information is available on the Moodle site.
Task
Your task is to write weekly portfolios reflecting upon your learning from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify:
· the learning outcomes and module/topic of the unit,
· a description of your experience, including reading samples or records,
· your learning from your experiences, and
· any supporting documentation of prior or cu
ent learning.
Purpose
The primary purpose of this assessment item is to help you to develop skills for undertaking research and translating, via your technical and creative skills, underpinning concepts about project management methodologies. The secondary purpose of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to enhance your analysis, critical thinking and written communication skills; particularly in the areas of thinking about and reflecting on different project domains and project management methodologies. Developing a portfolio, as a result, makes your learning more explicit as you translate your workplace and personal experiences into documented evidence. You can then learn to critically examine the nature of your learning on this unit in relation to specific experiences in your project management practice and demonstrate that you have learned from those experiences and how you have achieved or maintained your professional competence as a result.
The assignment will also give you the opportunity to enhance your analysis and written communication skills; particularly in the areas of rigorous structured assignment writing.
Structure
You will be provided on the Moodle web site with a template for the weekly portfolios. You should use this template to structure each weekly portfolio and then upload weekly portfolios to the Moodle web site as directed (Portfolio Submission 1 contains portfolios for weeks 1 to 4, Portfolio Submission 2 contains portfolios for weeks 5 to 8 and Portfolio Submission 3 contains portfolios for weeks 9 and 10). At the end of the unit you will consolidate your portfolio submissions into a single document and upload an overall consolidated portfolio submission.Your portfolio should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature related to the project management topics for each week. You should also include a weekly reference list formatted in the prescribed Harvard style. You are also encouraged to include a bibliography.
This assessment item involves researching the topics to enhance your understanding of each concept through an utilisation of academic literature and secondary sources. Whilst you must use the recommended textbooks and web links, you should also refer to other sources on the Moodle web site and additional relevant peer reviewed academic journal articles of your choosing.
Weekly Portfolio
Each weekly portfolio is to be no more than 4 pages long.The portfolio shows your development of understanding during the unit. Naturally, this will make the portfolio different for everyone. Each student’s background, education, cu
ent and past work experiences is what makes it different. Each student’s personal researches will be different.What you need to do is to give yourself enough time to reflect and show how you have thought and come to grips with the ideas that address the learning outcomes of the unit. The amount of time you should be allocating to the unit is 12 to 16 hours per week (which includes writing the portfolio). So there should be a fair bit of time for you to make the reflections and reach a depth of insight that will make the portfolio meaningful. With each week's portfolio that you submit you do not include the writing that you made for a prior week. Instead you use the same portfolio template using only the section for the week you are writing about. In other words each week’s portfolio is a reflection upon that week. You should however, revisit the whole of the unit learning outcomes each week.The portfolio for any previous week is a reflection of your insights and thoughts for that week. Over the duration of the unit you will find that there is a development and change of your ideas as you study the material. You will then have opportunity at the end of the unit to consolidate everything and show how you have gained the insights that the unit is seeking to provide. At the end of the unit you should review your weekly portfolios and consolidate them into a single submission. You should make a personal reflection in this submission. This is the assessment that gets marked in detail.
It is to your benefit to have the personal discipline to make sure that you do not get behind. If you are allocating 12 or 16 hours per week for the unit then there is plenty of time for the portfolio. If you find that one week you slip then ok, but the unit is fundamentally planned so that you need to allocate 12 to 16 hours each week. Two hours lost in one week means that you need to do 14 to 18 hours the next! The unit is straight forward, but there are lots of web sites to visit and material to download. The text books are only part of the story and you won’t be able to do the unit with just the text books. Unfortunately, much of the material is written from a North American perspective. You will need to consider other industry sectors and also to be able to translate the learning outcomes into an Australian or other cultural perspective. Therefore, you will need to download other files and visit web sites to be able to gather the material you need in your portfolio. There are no bonus points for getting the weekly portfolio perfect from the first week but marks will be awarded for timely submission (as per the schedule) and for content that generally addresses the tasks for weekly portfolios listed above. Understanding and familiarity will only develop over time. As you prepare the portfolios’ each week and keep revisiting the learning outcomes and adding the unit material then you will gain insights required. Unless you do that on a weekly basis you won’t have the appropriate perspective to make the journey and reach the destination by the end of the unit.
Consolidated Portfolio
Since you’ll have made your own journey studying during the unit then the material that you will want to include in this portfolio will be unique for you. Your final portfolio will explain how you have developed your understanding of the learning outcomes and the topics with each week’s study.You final portfolio MUST be made as a single submission. For example:-
· You could merge all your submissions into one and provide a single big file.
You must NOT use an index and numbering system to identify material from prior week’s leaving each portfolio on the unit web site. Whatever way that you do it, the consolidated portfolio submission is the important one! It’s important that you make it clear to the marker what your consolidated portfolio refers to otherwise you may not get the marks you expect. An analogy for the final portfolio is that you can imagine that you are going before an examination board at the end of the unit and presenting to them a complete portfolio of your journey through the unit. You will hand each board member a package that they should then be able to read and from it appreciate everything that you have done and learned during your work life and the unit.
Referencing
Ensuring you have accurate references is important and will allow the marker to easily identify where your portfolio maps to the unit or other peer reviewed material. Also you need to show how you have made critical reflection on the material and added your own unique insights. Referencing should be made according to CQU’s Harvard referencing guide. To locate the guide then Google “CQU Harvard referencing” and download the PDF file for the cu
ent year.It is as a consequence of your references and academic proficiency with critical analysis that you will be able to gain MAXIMUM MARKS.
Exemplar 20009_ Weekly Portfolio
1 of 7
Weekly Portfolio Learning Table
Topic and reading
samples.
Your personal learning
outcomes from this course.
Learnings from your experience. Supporting
documentation
including your
prior learnings.
i) Lecture Slides PMO function
Ethics
(Note: Week4 Lecture Slides covered
in Portfolio 3)
My cu
ent organisation does not have a PMO as such rather a Project Team made up of
a Capital Manger and Contracts Superintendent who I report to. The Contract
Superintendent ensures all the Project Processes are adhered to. These include but not
limited to:
• Monthly Project Report to Board
• Progress Payment Certificates
• Issue of Final Certificates
• LDs
• Project database administration
• Determination of Tender Type
• Bank Guarantees
There is a fine line between acceptances of gifts as a token of thanks for continued
usiness vs favourable selection for a pending tender. There is constant exposure to
suppliers offering small tokens of gratitude in our business. We have a policy requiring the
declaration of gifts based on monetary value.
ii) Recommended
Readings
Kerzner : Chapter 9,
11.34
Project success is often measured by
the “actions” of three groups: the
project manager and team, the
parent organization, and the
customer’s organization. (Harold
Kerzner, 2013)
The listed actions in Kerzner that stimulate Project Success are relevant in my limited
experience.
With regards to my cu
ent role I have found the success of the project relies heavily on
the accuracy of the initial specification i.e. ensure that both parties understand the scope
of works. Equally important is that through past performance you can be assured that the
successful tenderer can deliver on the specification.
I had an experience with a project where the selection was based on budget and although
the product was delivered, at no time during the project I was comfortable of success
ecause the reporting was inadequate.
I can also relate to the disruption Project work can cause the functional teams.
Having used Electrical resources from a functional team on a recent Project I was very
aware that my success could have directly affected the delivery of the maintenance
schedule. In other words if my schedule of allocated hours was inco
ect it would mean
Exemplar 20009_ Weekly Portfolio
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