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PPMP20012 - Program and Portfolio Management Information Systems

General Information

Unit Synopsis

The unit introduces systems thinking, systems engineering and systems management principles, concepts, tools and techniques for project, program and portfolio managers (PPPM). Systems thinking offers a powerful perspective to help design clever enduring solutions to meet organisational strategic goals. Through their study of the PPPM process students will learn how to effectively apply systems engineering and systems management to organise complex projects and identify the implementation of systems to create outputs, manage information flow and support effective knowledge management and decision making. Students study how these PPPM application systems may be implemented as a mix of manual processes or electronically (through applications such as Oracle Primavera, SAP ERP, Microsoft Project, or IBM Maximo). Contemporary developments using international standards and knowledge bases as well as modelling and simulation techniques are studied to allow 'what if' questioning to occur in the project, program and portfolio environment. If you have successfully completed unit PPMP20003 you cannot take this unit.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level 9
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites There are no pre-requisites for the unit.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2018

Term 2 - 2018 Profile
Brisbane
Distance
Mackay
Melbourne
Perth
Sydney
Term 1 - 2019 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 2 - 2019 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 1 - 2020 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 2 - 2020 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 1 - 2021 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 2 - 2021 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 1 - 2022 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 2 - 2022 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Perth
Sydney
Term 1 - 2023 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney
Term 2 - 2023 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney
Term 1 - 2024 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney
Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Portfolio 35%
2. Written Assessment 20%
3. Online Quiz(zes) 10%
4. Online Test 35%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2021 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 4.1 (on a 5 point Likert scale), based on a 42.11% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student evaluation survey
Feedback
Assessment feedback should be provided early.
Recommendation
- Tutors and lecturers emphasise that their comments in the group discussion activity in the weekly tutorial are assessment feedback. - In Assignment 1 (biweekly portfolio submission on Moodle forum from week 2-10), the course coordinator summarises the student responses and gives some hints weekly.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Student evaluation survey, student comment during the class
Feedback
Limited learning support. The course is about portfolio management information systems but there are not any applications and software to use.
Recommendation
- The lectures and tutorials will provide students with templates, examples about portfolio management and also introduce different software and applications for practice.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Assessment calendar
Feedback
Overloaded at the end of the semester There are 4 assessments in total. Assessment 1: consolidated portfolio submission (early week 10) - 35% Assessment 2: Quiz (week 6) - 10% Assessment 3: group report (week 11) - 30% Assessment 4: Online test (Exam week either week 13 or 14) - 25%. Starting from week 9, students would be overloaded with the amount of the assignment submission while the tutors would also be overloaded with the marking.
Recommendation
- The new proposal will exclude the online exam ( assessment 4- 25%) as online exams no longer align with recommendations from the CQU Renew.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Lecture and tutorial slides, student feedbacks
Feedback
The lecture content does not align with the learning objective in the unit profile and the name of the course. While the unit is about portfolio management information systems, the focus of the lecture is on system engineering.
Recommendation
There should be a major change in the content of the unit to make it align with the learning objectives of the unit.
Action Taken
The unit has been redesigned. The content aligns well with the learning objectives. It is designed based on the portfolio management framework. The slides are added with visualisation such as short media clips, images, diagrams, and tables, etc to make them more engaging.
Source: Assignment materials
Feedback
The portfolio assignment has too many submission components ( the submission is due every week). Although the task in this assignment requires students to reflect and align what they learn each week with the learning objectives, it provides little support in helping students review and develop their knowledge and skills in portfolio management.
Recommendation
A major change to the assignment is expected with the tasks being more practical and better aligned to the learning objectives.
Action Taken
The assignments have been redesigned. The assignment calendar ensures a relevant and adequate timeframe for students to complete the task. The portfolio assignment has a scaffolding structure allowing students to gradually accumulate the mark while being informed about their performance status. Forum discussion is integrated into the assignment to encourage peer-to-peer discussion and more interaction among students. A question bank is built for assignment 1 (Quiz) and assignment 4 (Online test). This allows students to be flexible in accessing and taking the test. It also ensures that the test for each student is unique, thus, it helps reduce the chance of collusion. Group assignment provides authenticity with a practical case study. It is designed as a scaffolding assignment. The task in the group assignment is integrated with the tutorial activity. This allows early feedback from the tutor upon the students' groupwork.
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Explain the relevance of systems thinking to the project, program and portfolio manager.
  2. Identify different systems thinking tools and techniques to aid project managers solve project problems.
  3. Assess the relevance of systems engineering to project cases.
  4. Describe how systems engineering concepts and methodologies can help a project, program and portfolio managers organise a project.
  5. Explain the importance of appropriate selection of project management (PM) application systems in regards to meeting the internal and external objectives of a project.
  6. Describe how the use of project management (PM) application systems can lead to effective PM knowledge management and decision making.
  7. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of different manual and electronic project, program and portfolio (PPPM) application systems within each PPPM knowledge area over the life cycle of a project, program or portfolio.
  8. Identify how project, program and portfolio (PPPM) application systems can assist project managers to monitor performance and manage changes within a project.
  9. Propose appropriate project, program and portfolio (PPPM) application systems to support successful project, program and portfolio execution in different industry domains.
  10. Discuss contemporary developments in the use of project, program and portfolio (PPPM) application systems.

The unit contributes to the required number of academic study units for students wishing to undertake profession certification with the Project Management Institute's (PMI) professional qualifications, such as CAPM or PMP.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Portfolio • • • • • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • • • • •
3 - Online Quiz(zes) • • •
4 - Online Test • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Advanced Level
• Professional Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Knowledge • • • • • • • • • •
2 - Communication • • • • • • • • •
3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills • • • • • • • • • •
4 - Research • • • • • • •
5 - Self-management •
6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility • • • • • • •
7 - Leadership • • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Advanced Level
• Professional Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 - Portfolio • • • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • •
3 - Online Quiz(zes) • •
4 - Online Test • • • •