General Overview

You will research a civil/environmental project based on personal interests. Projects related exclusively to business, retail, or manufacturing will not qualify. For example, a project about building a Tesla manufacturing facility would meet the requirements; a project about the manufacturing challenges resulting in the delay of releasing Tesla vehicles would not meet the requirements. A project about managing the environmental review process for a rail project would meet the requirements, but a project about the business challenges of designing the rail cars for the project would not.

Your project selection does not have to be about a project that went wrong, and failure analyses are not suitable projects (e.g., FIU pedestrian bridge collapse, Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, etc.). You may choose a project that came in on time and under budget. Your project selection should be a project that has been completed at least 6 months prior to the start of the semester.

The project must be well documented in public literature; no current or “on the job” projects without prior approval from the Instructor. Your research sources may include print (books, newspaper articles, journal articles, organization records, etc.) and electronic (video recordings, television programs, radio programs, etc.). Your research resources must include some professional/trade publications; refereed journals are welcome but not mandatory.

Your project selection does not have to be unique – multiple students may choose the same project. However, this is an individual assignment; no group efforts.

Your research assignment will be completed in five parts:

Project Selection -This assignment is to determine that your final project is on the path to success. Proposed projects will be evaluated for alignment with course objectives and the likelihood of obtaining sufficient resources to successfully complete the final presentation. Students will receive an approval decision from the instructor, or they will receive feedback about the proposed project selection and be asked to resubmit. Students who do not have their projects approved by the instructor proceed at their own risk and hazard low grades on all subsequent related assignments.
Project Bibliography -In this assignment, you will submit an annotated bibliography of the resources that you have preliminarily identified for use in your research project assignments. The purpose of this assignment is to determine that an appropriate type and number of resources will be available for you to successfully complete the final project. Lack of resources is the most common reason for students changing their project selections.
Project Overview - In this assignment, you will submit a project overview that discusses the project's:
- history and significant features
- stakeholders
- sponsor(s)
Project Management Process Analysis - In this assignment, you will discuss:
- what worked
- what did not work
- tradeoffs and their impact
Lessons Learned - You will discuss what you learned about project management and how to apply those lessons in your own projects.

Assignment Content, Organization, and Grading Rubrics

Each individual assignment contains more detail regarding expectations and grading rubrics. Review the following to prime your thinking on the research project. Understanding the expectations for each component of the assignments will inform your project selection.

History & Overview:

Provide a narrative history and overview of the project:

Provide a timeline (written or graphic) of the overall project and major milestones/events.
Begin at planning or design phase and summarize key events throughout the project life cycle.
Describe significant project features.

Stakeholders:

Stakeholders are individuals and organizations actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected as a result of project execution or completion. Stakeholders may also exert influence over the project and its results. For your project:

Identify stakeholder groups.
Discuss their activity, interest, and/or influence.

Do not include the engineer, designer, constructor, or the organization or agency funding the project. Address people and communities affected by the project.

Sponsors:

Project sponsors are typically high-ranking managers – or public officials – who champion and support a project. Most – but not all – projects will have a sponsor that can readily be identified from the project literature. The project sponsor is not the project manager. All projects will have a readily identifiable project manager and person or organization funding the project: these are not sponsors. Sponsors are typically high-ranking people within the project manager's organization who do not have management responsibility for the project, but who take the project under their wing to ensure its success. Sponsor are occasionally outside individual or organizations.

Did the project have sponsors who played a significant role in the project’s success?
If “yes,” how did the sponsor(s) contribute to that success?
If “no,” did a group of individuals or organization fulfill that role? Or was there simply no one who filled that role?
Or, was the literature quiet on the topic of sponsorship?

What Worked:

Even in projects that have significant challenges and problems, something went right, went as planned, or was a fortuitous event.

What were the major project management successes or victories? Go beyond whether the project performed as planned or expected and discuss the project management process.
Were there project “heroes”? If “yes,” identify the people or organizations that made a significant positive difference and describe their impact on the project.

What Did Not Work:

Even the most successful project has challenges and problems.

Where / how did the actual field experience not meet original plans and/or expectations? Go beyond project features and discuss the project management process.
Address how these challenges were successfully or unsuccessfully managed.
Were there any “villains” of the project? If “yes,” identify the people or organizations that made a significant negative difference and describe their impact(s) on the project.

Tradeoffs:

Were there any tradeoffs in the course of the project for scope, time, or cost?

If “yes,” provide information/analysis about how the tradeoff decisions were made. Go beyond identifying what the tradeoffs were and discuss the impact on the project management process.
If “no,” provide information/analysis about why tradeoffs were unnecessary.

Insights/Lessons Learned:

What are your personal takeaway lessons from this project?
How can you and other project managers apply these insights?

Literature / Resources:

Include all resources relied upon in developing the assignment. Use an endnote (not footnote) format.

Assignment Resources

Log in at libraries.ou.edu for full online access to many resources.
Examples of professional/trade/industry publication that are not refereed include: Engineering News-Record, Roads and Bridges, Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain’s New York Business, Construction Dive. The OU research librarians can help identify profession/trade publications.
Most regulatory organizations (NCHRP, FHWA, FEMA, etc.) publish case studies.
The National Academies Press is also a great resource: nap.edu