Practical Assignments

Throughout AMC's online courses, there are several practical assignments to help you learn to apply the skills developed in the course. These assignments are submitted to the course instructor, who will review, comment and grade the assignment as evaluation of your skills. The following is an example of an assignment.

Project Charter Assignment

Guidelines

A project charter is a document that formally authorizes a project and it defines the requirements, objectives, high-level estimates of the project, and the responsibilities and authority of the project manager. The purpose of this assignment is to provide an opportunity for practical application of initiating processes. To be most applicable, you will be required to select a project from your own experience or in your field of interest. Here are some guidelines to help you make your choice:

1. Select a project that you understand very well.
2. The project should be between 6 months and 1 year in duration.
3. The project budget should be more than $75,000.
4. The project must require a team of at least four people, and at least three of those people must have a cost associated with them (i.e. you can't have an entire team of volunteer resources).
5. If you are choosing to use an event as your project, it must be at least a 7-day event, and weddings are not allowed.  If you have questions, contact the instructors.
6. If you are choosing a renovation project, it must be a large renovation.  Renovating a few rooms in a single house is not large enough.  If you have questions, contact the instructors.
   

These are guidelines. The idea is to have a project that is large enough for you to apply all of the concepts you will be learning in the entire program, but not so large that the project size makes completing your assignments too difficult. If you have a project in mind that you really want to use, and it does not fit within these guidelines, email the instructors a description of the project before you do this assignment.

Important note: You may use historical information to create your project, but you must develop your own files demonstrating the concepts from the course.

If you are having difficulties selecting a project, contact the instructor as early as possible to help you pick an appropriate project.

Instructions

1. Select a project on which you have worked in the past, which does not already have a project charter. Or, make up a fictitious project that is similar to a project that you would work on.
   
2. Use the Project Charter Template provided to complete a charter for your selected project. Remember that the purpose of a project charter is to define the requirements, define the project objectives, authorize the project, and define the authority and responsibilities of the project manager. It should only contain high-level project information.
   

Deliverables

1. Completed Project Charter (.doc)
   

Length

The charter should be appropriate to the scale of the project but not so detailed as to limit the options. Therefore it should not be more than 3 pages long.

Tips for Completion

Consider the following tips to help you with this assignment.  First, you only need to complete a charter for this assignment.  You don't need to complete all of the provided templates.  Be sure to review the comments in the sample Lab Build Charter to improve your own document.

Background and Requirements:

• The Background section should explain the situation clearly without stating the problem or opportunity provide the context for the need.
• The Need/Requirements section should state the problem or opportunity that created the project.

Objective statement:

• The Objective must always start with "The objective of this project is to..."
  
• The performance statement comes before the outcome.

High-Level Time and Cost Estimates:

Responsibility and Authority of the Project Manager:

• You are the project manager for your assignments.
• Use the information provided in the template as it is.  Just enter in the name of the Project Manager (you) and the % and $ values where required.

Sponsor Information:

• The sponsor needs to be an individual, not an organization.
• Remember to include a signature at the end with the sponsor's name.  If you want, you can go to http://www.onlinesignature.in/ to create a cursive signature.

Finally, relax and have fun with this by using funny stakeholder or company names.  Each week you will be learning something new and you'll develop the skills to answer some of the questions that you can't right now... we promise.

Submission

This assignment is due on the due date stated below. It is your responsibility, as project managers, to meet the schedule constraint defined for all assignments. Late assignments will be deducted by 10% for each day they are submitted late. All documents should be submitted by uploading the files in .doc format.

Evaluation/Grading

The pass mark for this assignment is 60% and it will be evaluated based on the following criteria: