The rules of the game: writing work based projects for assessed courses

Over the years I have marked many "work based projects", and the main difficulties I have had in finding ways to pass candicdates have been because candidates just haven't followed the "rules of the game". Here they are.

Separate your "job" from the "project" . Your job, it is to be hoped, will go on long after the project you are reporting on. The challenge is to avoid distorting your job to produce your report, or to attempt to produce a project report that is simply "What I do at work". The project must be an identifiable and complete piece of work in itself.

So you need to select something as a project that can be defined as "finished" at the right time to report on it for your programme. In probability, given the time restraints, this will be a phase or sub-set of something you are working on, rather than the totality. You may have got as far as identifying the forces preventing change, or the problems that arise in the current situation. You may also have done some work on possible solutions. But it is unlikely you will have "finished". So define the project clearly for your marker as an identifiable part of the work you are doing that will be "finished" in the time scale. It never does any harm to specify your intended outcomes tightly, which also reduces the opportunities for people to say it's "unfinished".

The project also needs, absolutely needs, to demonstrate your application of the learning of the programme you have been on. It follows therefore that you really mustn't:

• Submit a project that contains large amounts of work which was done before the course commenced. Ideally, the project will be something you started towards the end of the programme.
• Submit a project that doesn't demonstrate what you took the initiative for and did yourself. It cannot be about what the team did, although it can be about how you managed the team.

The project is not just "what is going on inside your head", (fascinating though that may be). Do show the use of information sources other than yourself, including other stakeholders in the problem, the solution, and its implementation. And although you should feel free to float any theories you form, you need to be able to show evidence of consultation, data collection, and "triangulation" of your ideas [the cross checking of each important fact where possible against two other indicators]. These are essential if your work is not later to be shot down by your own organisation, let alone by your marker!
Do basic research. Really. You ought to know the major widely accepted and well known models, purely so that it isn't obvious you don't know them! You will find the internet is a fantastic source of useful information. And remember, it's only theft if you quote big chunks, quote without references, or claim as your own work that was actually done by a team at Wisconsin Hamburger College.
(Also useful can be to do an advanced Google search putting "files of type .ppt" in the box. This will return to you PowerPoint presentations from a wide range of organisations and managers who have worked on and presented to others in the area you are searching for. They are therefore effectively peer reviewed. You might not find the "Iowa State Library" relevant, but there will be in the presentation some basic, underpinning knowledge slides. And maybe some useful models and diagrams too. Another source is Wikpedia, but do be careful. The articles are not moderated, and can contain inaccuracies. Always triangulate Wiki articles with other sources. A final thought; enter "Training Course my search term" in the Google box. You will find in the online training catalogues programmes that give you a very good picture of the main issues a topic needs to cover. )
Remember you are on a Management or Leadership programme and your project has to reflect management and leadership work. You have to be really careful of the "technical expert problem". It is not a management project to describe the installation process for a citric acid plant in Selby. It is a management report if you are describing the people-management issues affecting your allocation of work, the contracting procedures you devised, the cost-benefit analysis you performed of locating the plant in Selby. (OK, the last is a bit far-fetched. York then.)
Do plan. A flipchart is helpful. When you set out your word count is like the first twenty minutes on the drive from London to Aberdeen, a long and daunting road. If you plan it, you will find it is actually made up of manageable sections, some quite short. It isn't really that horrible . But markers get as fed up with overlong reports as with underlength ones.
Get hold of the marking scheme. When the marker is trying to make sure they are neither favouring you nor being unfair, they will turn repeatedly to the scheme to validate the mark decisions they make. If the marking scheme says there are 5 marks for "Demonstrates understanding and application of motivational theories", then write a paragraph that clearly does this. Don't just write, "In establishing the process I used Maslow's Hierarchy of needs". Do write instead, "As many of the staff were feeling insecure, I addressed their concerns (at the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy) by stressing that the new processes would help to secure their jobs, and so protect their incomes". If the scheme says you should give targets and standards, give them, however feeble they may seem. Otherwise it will seem to the marker that you didn't bother. IF it says "Describes the candidate's role", describe it. "I am track hygiene officer at New Street staion" does not describe the role.

Ask. Ask. Ask. You have been given the luxury of tutor support for this piece of work, and say what you like about the tutor's strange taste in ties and the historical and distant past in which these poor creatures were students themselves, they do KNOW, you know? And on the whole, they like to help. Not to write the report for you, you understand, but to give you a nudge in the right direction, help out with a suggestion or two, point you to an idea. Ask them!