Syllabus

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The students will have both theoretical and practical knowledge of consulting and project management. The students learn how to work on a real world assignment and how to manage a small consulting project and present the project results to clients.

Credits: 6

Schedule: 01.11.2021 - 09.12.2021

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Matti Rossi

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):

Matti Rossi, professor

matti.rossi@aalto.fi

Ekonominaukio 1 Room V209

Office Hours on agreement via email

http://people.aalto.fi//matti_rossi

CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):

Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):

Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English

CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD

Content

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Roughly 50 % of the lectures deal with issues in project management and 50 % about consulting. The project management part deals with advanced issues of project work.
  The students are expected to actively participate in classes and assignments during the course. All the assignments will be done in groups.
  A project management software is used in the exercises to manage the consulting assignment.

• applies in this implementation

  Contents of the course:

  • Introduction to project management
    
  • Project selection and initiation
    
  • Project planning
    
  • Executing and controlling projects
    
  • Project quality and risk management
    
  • Introduction to consulting practice
    
  • Problem solving process, consulting ethics
    
  • Expectation management and disaster recovery
    
  • Special consulting topics 
    
  
  

Assessment Methods and Criteria

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  The course evaluation contains of several assignments, such as a project status report, a final project report, a consulting assignment report, learning diary and peer review reports on two other groups assignments.
  
  Weights
  50 % assignments and final report
  45 % learning diary
  5%    peer review reports

• applies in this implementation

  • Lectures 12*2 hours = 24 hours
    
  • Final group project deliverable (50% of the grade). 
    
  • Learning diary (50% of the grade)
    

  ASSIGNMENT AND LEARNING DIARY

  The assignment is a combined project management and consulting assignment. Project management assignments include a project plan, consulting assignment report and a self-analysis of the project. The assignment is to be returned by 10.12.2021 at midnight via MyCourses.

  The learning diary consists of weekly 1-2 page reflections on what has been learned last week. There will be no learning diary for the first week. The diary must be returned by 18:00 on each Friday during the course. The learning diary entries should contain:

  • Key issues for the week
    
  • Reflections on learning that week
    
  • The progress of your project that week
    
  • The issues with your project and group work that week
    

  How to write a good diary entry, see for example:

  https://mycourses.aalto.fi/mod/resource/view.php?id=646779

  
  

Workload

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Lectures = 24 hours
  Class preparation = 20 hours
  Exercises = 116 hours
  Total = 160 hours (6 credits)

   

DETAILS

Study Material

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Materials on the course home pages in MyCourses.

Substitutes for Courses

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Substitutes for Courses

Prerequisites

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Prerequisites

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  In academic year 2020-2021 this course substitutes the cancelled course 57E00700 Capstone: DigitalISM Challenge and is accepted as Capstone course in the degree for certain Master's students. If you wish to substitute Capstone course with this course, please check your programme studies on Into to make sure this course is accepted as Capstone course in your programme.

  Students are required to be present in the final presentations of the course results.

   

  Teaching Period:

  2020-2021 Autumn II

  2021-2022 Autumn II

  
  

  Course Homepage: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/search.php?search=37E01500

  
  

  Registration for Courses: In the academic year 2021-2022, registration for courses will take place on Sisu (sisu.aalto.fi) instead of WebOodi.

Details on the schedule

• applies in this implementation

  PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE – LECTURES AND EXERCISES 

  All classes are delivered by Zoom and they run between 15:15 and 16:45.

  LECTURES

  #	Date	Topic
  L1	Mon 1.11.	Course essentials and introduction
  L2	Wed 3.11	Project initiation and planning
  L3	Mon 8.11.	People Issues
  L4	Wed 10.11.	Agile project management and Best Tools / Laura Sivula
  L5	Mon 15.11.	Project quality and risk management / Jari Ruokolainen
  L6	Wed 17.11.	Executing and controlling projects
  L7	Mon 22.11.	Introduction to consulting
  L8	Wed 24.11.	Consulting ethics

  L9	Mon 29.11.	Large projects / Juri Matinheikki
  L10	Wed 1.12.	Being a successful consultant / Niina Mallat
  L11	Mon 6.12.	No class, Finnish independence day
  L12	Wed 8.12.	Expectation Management, Wrap-up

  EXERCISES

  #	Date
  E1	Thu 4.11. (10:30-12)	Introduction to EY-Parthenon’s case exercise and team formation.
  E2	Thu 11.11. (10-12)	Students do the exercises independently.
  E3	Thu 18.11. (10:30-12)	Case exercise checkpoint with EY-Parthenon.
  E4	Thu 25.11. (10-12)	Students do the exercises independently.
  E5	Thu 2.12. (10-12)	Status check for projects.
  	Fri 10.12. (23:59)	Final report delivery.
  E6	Thu 16.12. (10:00-13)	Top 5 case presentations to EY-Parthenon.

  
  

Description