SEP 725: Project Management

Winter 2014

Literature Review
Due: 12-Mar-2015 (11:59 pm)

Background
A literature review is an evaluative report of studies found in the literature related to
your selected area. The review should describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify
this literature. It should give a theoretical basis for the research and help you
determine the nature of your own research. Select a limited number of works that
are central to your area rather than trying to collect a large number of works that
are not as closely connected to your topic area. A literature review goes beyond the
search for information and includes the identification and articulation of
relationships between the literature and your field of research.

Assignment
Project management reaches every part of our academic, professional and personal
lives. As such, a thorough understanding of some of the key areas in project
management can improve many facets of our daily lives where project management
is required.
Recent economic challenges and technical innovations have changed the landscape
of project execution. You are to select one of the topics below and present a 5-6
page literature review of current industry practices related to these emerging
methodologies as well as a critique of them.
1. Organizations will continue to call for strong project leaders but will focus on
investments in hard skills
2. Agile implementation will be viewed in some organizations as a failure, but
for the wrong reasons
3. Project management is not just for project managers anymore
4. Large projects pose unique challenges that are increasingly tough to
overcome
5. PMOs will focus on proving their worth and driving innovation
6. The U.S. government will upgrade its PM certification in the face of rising
criticism

SEP 725: Project Management

Winter 2014

7. Improving vendor management practices will top the list of skills for project
managers
8. Continued poor project performance in many organizations will result in more
PMOs being terminated
9. Portfolio management will take on a greater role as funding continues to
tighten and the number of projects grows
10.Organizations will adopt Agile to accelerate time to market but what they
ultimately achieve may be a different story
11.Outsourcing Exacerbates Other Problems
12.Increase in the adoption of online collaboration tools

Guideline:

You are to locate at least 10 sources on your topic. Half of your sources must
be journal articles or books
You may use credible web sites as well as interviews.
You are to write a 5-6 page literature review based on the sources you have
selected.
Papers should comply with APA citation style throughout.

Outline for writing your literature review:

1. Introduction (without this heading)
Write an introduction paragraph for your review. This paragraph
a. states the topic and inquiry questions for this review
b. tells the reader specific information on how many articles you
reviewed and how you sorted the articles into common themes
based on findings (results).

2. Body (without this heading)

Before you begin this section, be sure that you have sorted your articles into
different themes based on the articles findings (sometimes called results).
After you sort your articles, it is important to give your sorted groups a
descriptive name. The names of the sorted articles will become your headings

SEP 725: Project Management

Winter 2014

for each of the paragraphs that you write in the body of your review. The
body of your literature review will include,
a. Theme 1: a paragraph or several paragraphs that describe the first
theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the
articles youve selected.
b. Theme 2: a paragraph or several paragraphs that describes the
second theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or
connect the articles youve selected.
d. Theme 3: a paragraph or several paragraphs that describes the
third theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or
connect the articles youve selected.

SEP 725: Project Management

Winter 2014

3 Summary
This is the last paragraph of your literature review. In this paragraph, it is
important to briefly summarize the main findings from the articles that you
reviewed and to point out how your inquiry questions were answered or not
answered, what the gap is (what if my questions are all answered you then
need to identify new inquiries so that you will contribute to the field)..

4. References
This is the last pages of your review. It serves as a listing of all references
that you mentioned in your paper. Please make sure that only references
cited in your drafts will be listed here. Other references that you earlier
found/read but not cited will be listed in your bibliography. Please use APA
style when completing this list.