A Multipart Project Planning and Tracking Exercise

Project Management is an important skill for business students to develop. Although project-oriented activity is very common, the success rate for projects is poor. Many projects fail due to poor planning. This article describes a multipart class exercise used to teach elements of a project management methodology to undergraduate and graduate business students. Over the course of the eight-part exercise, student teams iteratively develop a project plan and Gantt chart, an initial and detailed project charter, a variance analysis model, and a status report. Students are taught an iterative top-down planning process using a technique we term the ODW (Objectives-Deliverables-Workplan) model. Students are introduced to Microsoft Project and use the tool to develop a project plan that becomes part of a more detailed Project Charter. In the final stages of the exercise, students collect results, update their plan, and produce a project status report.