Building Workplace Skills with a Team Project
Overview
Students work together as a project management team to complete a semester-long case study.
Why Use This?
This activity helps students build essential workplace skills in communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. It also gives them concrete examples they can reference in interviews for internships, new jobs, or promotions. Through the project and its targeted assignments, students demonstrate their ability to collaborate effectively and produce common project management deliverables—just as they would in a professional setting.
⭐What Students Say
Students consistently praise the assignment’s realism, noting that it feels like “actual project work” rather than an academic exercise. While the occasional team members groups to address issues professionally. Overall, students report greater engagement, stronger teamwork skills, and a deeper understanding of the analyst’s role across the project lifecycle.
How Does It Work?
Early in the course, students introduce themselves in a team discussion area and draft a team charter that outlines their roles, communication methods, and how they will handle non-participation. This contract sets expectations for how they will work together throughout the semester.
Each week, students complete assignments that mirror real-world project management tasks, such as writing a project proposal memo, creating a Gantt chart, compiling a risk register, developing a stakeholder plan, and maintaining an issue log. Many of these assignments require students to collaborate on professional-style written communication, such as a memo or email, just as they would do in the workplace.
By the end of the semester, students will have worked together to advance the project and apply a variety of project management tools to realistic scenarios.
Review project components by clicking on the tabs:
Purpose
This is the first assignment in a semester-long term project (Lessons 3 through 14). Teams will be comprised of three or four members. Your teams are randomly assigned on opening day, and team rosters will be announced via Announcements in a few days.
This assignment explores the following learning objectives:
Begin forming activities in your assigned team.
KEY DELIVERABLE
Discussion posts in Canvas
Instructions
First, review the Team Overview Video & Expectations page.
Next, post your introduction in the Team Discussion Area. I am expecting you to communicate with each other in the Team Discussion Area in Canvas. Subscribe to this discussion board for each lesson to receive an email and/or a Canvas app notification when new comments are posted.
You should also start to review the Lesson 3 Team Assignment: Team Contract. You can start to discuss this assignment in the Lesson 2 Team Discussion Area as well.
I have set up a Zoom meeting for each team. This is optional but a great way for teams to stay connected. To access it, click the Zoom link in the left navigation menu.
NOTE Your team should be able to complete the team assignments throughout this course using the discussion boards and other agreed-upon tools. There is no requirement (unless stated in the activity) that you must meet with your team at an assigned time. If your team decides to use web or phone meetings, your team must use an agenda and take minutes (i.e., notes) for those meetings. These items are required to be posted on your team’s discussion board.
Other Agreed-Upon Tools
In addition, teams may agree to use the following tools:
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft OneDrive
Google Drive (Google Docs, etc.)
Types of Assignments
During Lesson 2, you will start to get acquainted with your team via the team discussion area in Canvas. You will start to work on the team contract that is due during Lesson 3. For the rest of the course, you will work on assignments that are both practical and applied. These come from the actual projects you will be working on! These assignments include:
Project Proposal Memo
Project Charter
Gantt Chart (Microsoft Project)
Scope Validation
Change Control
WBS
Cost Assumptions
Quality Standards
Pareto Chart
Organizational Chart
RACI Chart
Communications Plan
Status Report
Risk Register
Risk Response Strategy
Select Vendor Proposal Using a Weighted-Scoring Approach
Stakeholder Register
Issue Log
Most of these assignments will require your team to collaborate to complete a memo. In your professional life, you can use either an actual memo or an email that serves the same purpose. This clear writing style is a valuable skill required by employers.
Note on Quality of Work
The quality of work should represent three individuals working together. QUALITY SHOULD BE GREATER THAN IF COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY. In other words, don’t assign sections to each member and cut and paste them together. I expect all teams to collaborate and work together to generate high-quality work. In other words, to quote Aristotle, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
(Image: Aristotle with quote: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”)
Team Expectations
Just a quick reminder of my team expectations that are addressed in this video:
Communicate proactively.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Use the Canvas discussion space.
Use Google Docs or Microsoft Drive to co-create.
No social loafing.
Can’t contribute? Own it!
Address nonparticipating or under-contributing group members! (Fired members complete all work on their own and earn 50%.)
Keep In Mind
- Remind students that the quality of their written work should reflect a true team effort. It should be cohesive, rather than written individually and cut and pasted together.
- Consider recording short videos for students to explain communication expectations, preferred document formats, and how to handle group members who are not participating.
- Use existing case studies or AI tools to create scenarios with complexity and realistic details that engage students and align clearly with the course content and learning objectives.
- Align each week’s learning objectives with specific assignments so students can immediately practice what they’ve learned.