PMGT5871 Project Planning

How PMGT5871 is assessed

The graded rows sum to 100%, and the Early Feedback Task carries 0%. The unit outline marks the Final Exam as a hurdle task and states that submitting all assignments is compulsory; students who fail to submit all assignments may fail the unit. Students are expected to attend at least 85 percent of timetabled activities, and failing this minimum attendance requirement may result in a fail grade. An earlier Canvas assessment page for this unit stated a 90 percent attendance expectation and used a 20% Week 13 online quiz in place of the final exam, so rely on the Semester 2 2026 outline and check Canvas for any update.

What PMGT5871 covers

The guide follows the weekly schedule of the unit: traditional planning from project types, scope and the work breakdown structure through scheduling, cost, quality, MS Project, human resources, procurement, risk and stakeholder communication, then Agile planning with Scrum, user stories and Jira.

The unit outline describes project planning as a key element of successful delivery and promises the tools a planner needs in a traditional project: the work breakdown structure, the precedence diagram, Gantt charts and the critical path, used to plan time, cost and resources and to manage risk. It also introduces software used in industry. The weekly schedule follows that promise closely.

After an introduction to project types and planning approaches, Weeks 2 to 8 each build one part of a project management plan: scope, time, cost and quality, a schedule in MS Project, human resources and procurement, risk, and stakeholder engagement and communication. Weeks 9 to 13 turn to Agile planning, first the Scrum framework and its artefacts, then Scrum planning in Jira.

Tutorials apply each week's tool to a case study, so the group assignments are assembled piece by piece rather than written at the end. The Semester 2 2026 assessment combines a 30% final exam, which is a hurdle task on Weeks 1 to 8, with two group assignments worth 25% each, a 10% individual reflection on Agile planning, 10% for class participation and a 0% early feedback task.

The outline makes submission of all assignments compulsory, and students who miss this may fail the unit. Students are also expected to attend at least 85 percent of timetabled activities, and failing that minimum attendance requirement may result in a fail grade. This guide follows the same order, with original worked examples for every planning tool.

Worked example · free

Find the critical path of a six-activity network

Key terms

Project

A temporary undertaking that produces a unique product, service or result, unlike repeating operational work.

Work breakdown structure

A hierarchy that unpacks the project deliverables into increasingly detailed items of work, inclusions only.

Scope creep

The incremental expansion of a project's scope by requirements that were not part of the initial plan.

Critical path

The chain of activities with no float, whose delay would delay the project end date.

Float

The time an activity can slip without delaying the project end date, found as late start minus early start.

Contingency

Money set aside in the estimate for unknown work such as overruns or issues, not for new scope.

Time-phased budget

A week-by-week or month-by-month spread of direct costs that places each cost in the period when its work is scheduled.

Cost of quality

The sum of the cost of conformance and the cost of non-conformance.

RACI chart

A responsibility matrix that marks who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed for each work item.

Fixed-price contract

A contract whose total price for a defined product or service is set at the outset.

Risk exposure

The financial impact of a risk multiplied by its probability.

Power and interest grid

A stakeholder map that places each party by its power to affect the project and the degree to which it is affected.

Product backlog

The prioritised list of features, defects, issues and infrastructure needed to deliver the final product.

Velocity

The mean number of story points, or hours, a Scrum team finishes per sprint, used to forecast the rest of the backlog.

PMGT5871 FAQ

Questions students ask in each PMGT5871 chapter

What separates a project from operational work?

A project is temporary and creates something unique, with a team assembled for one objective, limited funds, a fixed timeframe and high levels of risk and opportunity. Routine operations such as a fortnightly payroll run repeat indefinitely, even when they have deadlines. Chapter 01 · Project Types and Planning Methodologies

What goes into a scope statement?

The slides list objectives and success criteria, deliverables and acceptance criteria, inclusions, exclusions, constraints and assumptions. Together they document the project boundaries and progressively elaborate the charter and the requirements documentation. Chapter 02 · Project Scope, Requirements and the WBS

How is float calculated?

Float is the late start minus the early start, which equals the late finish minus the early finish. It is the time an activity can slip without moving the project end date, and activities with zero float form the critical path. Chapter 03 · Activity Scheduling and the Critical Path

What are the three cost sub-plans?

The project cost estimate states the total cost, the time-phased budget spreads that cost over the periods in which work occurs so it can be monitored and controlled, and the cash-flow plan shows when access to funds will be needed. Chapter 04 · Cost Estimates, Contingency and Budgets

What is the difference between quality and grade?

Quality is how far a deliverable's inherent characteristics fulfil its requirements, in other words whether it is fit for purpose. Grade, by contrast, is a class of deliverables with the same use but different technical features. A low-grade product can be high quality. Chapter 05 · Quality Planning and the Cost of Quality

Why does a task not move when its predecessor changes?

It is probably manually scheduled, so it keeps typed dates and ignores the logic. Changing it, or the default for new projects, to Auto Scheduled makes the software recalculate it from durations and predecessors. Chapter 06 · Building a Project Plan in MS Project

What does each letter in RACI mean?

Responsible is the person who does the work, Accountable gives approval and sign-off, Consulted contributes to the work, and Informed must be kept up to date. A RACI chart is one form of the responsibility assignment matrix. Chapter 07 · Human Resource Planning and the RACI Chart

When is a fixed-price contract the best choice?

When the scope of work is known and risk is low. The buyer must specify the product or service, its scope and its quality requirements precisely, and payments are usually tied to milestones with penalties or rewards for timing and performance. Chapter 08 · Procurement Planning and Contract Types

How is risk exposure calculated?

Where the impact of a risk is quantified financially, it is multiplied by the probability to give the exposure. Summing the exposures of the high-priority risks gives the pre-treatment profile, and repeating the calculation on residual risks gives the post-treatment profile. Chapter 09 · Risk Identification, Assessment and Treatment

What are the two questions on the power and interest grid?

Power asks to what extent a stakeholder can affect the project. Interest asks to what extent the stakeholder is impacted by it. The position on the grid decides how much engagement each stakeholder needs and how often. Chapter 10 · Stakeholder Engagement and Communication Plans

Does Agile reject documentation and planning?

No. The four values rank individuals and interactions, working product, customer collaboration and responding to change above processes and tools, documentation, contract negotiation and following a plan. The slide is explicit that the lower-ranked side keeps its worth, so documentation and plans still exist in Agile projects. Chapter 11 · Agile Values and the Scrum Framework

What is the user story template?

As a [persona], I want to [goal], so that [benefit], followed by acceptance criteria. The want-to part describes intent rather than interface features, and the so-that part explains the overall benefit the user is trying to achieve. Chapter 12 · Product Backlogs, User Stories and Estimation

How does Scrum track progress without status reports?

Progress is tracked continuously through the daily scrum and the sprint review, supported by the task board and the sprint burndown chart. Deviations are corrected immediately under the principle of inspect, adapt and learn. Chapter 13 · Sprint Planning and Agile Control in Jira

How to study for the exam

Treat each week as one section of a project management plan and keep a single running case for all of them.

After the Week 2 scope statement and WBS, sequence the same items into a network in Week 3, cost them in Week 4, write their quality criteria, load them into MS Project in Week 5, assign them with a RACI chart and procurement plan in Week 6, register their risks in Week 7 and plan who hears about them in Week 8. Seeing one case flow through every tool shows why each plan depends on the one before.

For the exam, build a short sheet of rules that are easy to reverse: the highest early finish at a merge and the lowest late start at a burst, QA versus QC, one accountable person per row, fixed price for known scope, and transfer versus mitigation. Then rework each calculation in this guide with new numbers, timing yourself against a one-hour paper, and check every answer with the arithmetic test given beside it.

For the Agile weeks, practise writing stories with acceptance criteria and forecasting sprints from velocity, because both feed the Jira assignment and the reflection.

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