Planning and managing organisations/PMAN103/Assessment

PMAN 103 course assessment

Summary:

This comprehensive PMAN103 assessment requires you to demonstrate your understanding of the PESTLE and S.W.O.T. analysis tools and implications for planning. It is graded out of 100 marks and consists of two parts: Part A (80 marks) is worth 80% and requires you to prepare a strategic business report based on: an analysis of the needs of a chosen organization, developed goals and objectives, and organizational decisions. Part B (20 marks) is worth 20% and requires you to complete a business report reflection based on Part A.

3 hours (excluding study of supporting resources and / or prior work experience).

Assessed learning outcomes:

• Describe methods to establish and achieve organizational goals.
• Explain the different steps involved in the decision-making process.
• Recognize different organizational structures and their different management needs.
• Describe what needs and skills the future may bring for management and managers.

Note: If you are completing this course for formal credit towards an academic qualification, you must complete and submit this assessment to a conferring institution for grading. Remember, you will need to meet the normal university admission requirements of the conferring institution (e.g. language proficiency and school leaving certificates etc.) and pay the required fee before your assessment will be graded. Before starting work on this assessment, make sure you refer to the PMAN103 Assessment Marking Rubric provided to get an idea of the criteria that will be used to determine your grade for PMAN 103.

PART A: Strategic Business Report (80 marks, 80%)

Part A of this assessment will allow you to further explore S.W.O.T. analysis and what you learned about choosing goals and objectives using the SMART method. You must first choose an organization, either one you have personal experience with or that you have read about in the news media. Conduct a S.W.O.T. analysis of your chosen organization. Once you complete the S.W.O.T. analysis, you must then prepare one strategic goal and three related objectives using the SMART method. Your final step is to identify and justify the two most important decisions the organization will need to take within the next year and to reflect on the implications for resource allocation.

Create a strategic business report that contains the following:

1. A title page with important identifying details such as specific title, course name, date, your full name etc.
2. An introduction that outlines the purpose and objectives of the strategic business report.
3. Several paragraphs telling the reader about the organization you have chosen. If it is one from the news media, please provide links (properly cited) to articles. If it is one you have personal experience with, please provide enough context so the reader understands the organization.
4. A complete S.W.O.T. analysis of the organization. Make sure you back up and link your analysis with citations to course theory.
5. A paragraph explaining the strategic goal and one each explaining the three related SMART objectives.
6. Several paragraphs identifying and justifying the two most important decisions and implications for resource allocation.
7. A conclusion
8. A bibliography

When preparing the essay, you must consult and cite at least five (5) sources such as relevant books, book chapters, or journal articles. These books and journal articles may be sourced online. Remember to look at the ANU e-Press, of Open Access Journals or the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine when researching your assignment. (For information on finding open access resources, you can consult the OERu course, Digital literacies for online learning.)

• Your report should be 1250 words maximum and use APA referencing style.

Part B: Business report reflection (20 marks, 20%)

Part B of this assessment requires you to write a learning reflection based on the business report from Part A. In your reflection, you should:

1. Describe the two most important things that you learnt from Part A of this assessment (think about WHAT you have learned and also HOW you learned it).
2. Explain how this new knowledge integrates with previous knowledge and experience, i.e. how does theory relate to practice?
3. Explain how the two most important things you have learnt would impact the kind of strategic business report you would prepare in the future.

• Your reflection should be 500 words maximum.

Submission: Save your file with both parts of this assessment using formats such as MSWord (.docx) or an open file format such as LibreOffice (.odt). Name your saved file PMAN103assessment_[your name]_[date]. Submit your assessment for grading as instructed by your conferring institution.

NOTE: Once you have submitted your PMAN 103 assessment for grading, consider completing PMAN 101 and PMAN 102 (if you have not done so already). Remember PMAN 101, PMAN 102 and PMAN 103 together cover a first year university level Principles of Management course of study.