How this will be graded:
Structure, Organization, Ease of reading, Grammar: 2.5 Points
- This Assignment had a very, very specific structure. Identify 2-4 issues. Come up with solutions for those issues and summarize them briefly. Provide a table with Pros and Cons for each, and wrap it all up with an overall (but brief) recommendation – what could have been done to help prevent this disaster from a PM perspective. DID YOU FOLLOW THIS STRUCTURE?
- Did you follow the advice given in the lectures and From Your Instructor about the format?
- Did you follow rules of English grammar, spelling, and syntax? Did you fix errors pointed out via Word’s editing capabilities (e.g. squiggly blue or red underlined text)?
Content: 8 Points
- Is it clear from reading your assignment that you read the case and understood what happened that led up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion?
- Did you ‘dig deeper’? Some people identify very technical issues – did you find the underlying reasoning that may have driven decisions to go a certain way technically?
- Did you keep your writing concise and to the point? Part of the intent of this assignment is an exercise in expressing important ideas in as efficient a way as possible.
- Was there a logical flow from your Issue Identification to your Proposed Solutions, to your Pros and Cons and to your conclusion?
- If you did have ‘extra’ information to exhibit, did you put it in an Appendix rather than in the body of the text? Again, the focus is on a concise, crisp presentation of your arguments.
References and resources: 1.5 Points
- Did you provide several relevant references that helped make your points? Of course you can use the main MIT/Sloan case as a reference, but did you reach out and find out more about the Deepwater Horizon from other sources?
Other things to consider:
- Did you add value from your own professional and/or personal experience?
- Did you make appropriate use of figures and tables in an appendix? Don’t substitute quantity for quality here – one good, relevant, and meaningful small table is worth 100 randomly inserted graphs and charts.
- Did you really take on the viewpoint of a project leader here, and consider the way the team was motivated, the way the different stakeholders communicated (or didn’t), the culture of the different companies?
