PPMP20011 - Contract and Procurement Management

General Information

Unit Synopsis

This Contract and Procurement Management unit will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and techniques required for acquiring external products, results, and services to meet the needs of the company and to achieve the project goals. It also offers you the opportunity to identify, apply, and develop different negotiation strategies as well as assessing and responding to the potential risks encountered during the procurement. You will study contract types, procurement standards, legal and ethical aspects of commercial contracts as well as project tendering and awarding. On successful completion of this unit, you will have the capacity to apply the appropriate practices for managing contracts, conflicts, delays, claim, and disputes.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level 9
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Co- requisites: PPMP20007

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2024

Term 1 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney
Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Brisbane
Melbourne
Online
Sydney

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Online Quiz(zes) 10%
2. Practical Assessment 40%
3. Group Work 50%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 86.36% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 33.33% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student evaluation
Feedback
Learning from this unit was a good experience. Instructions, guidelines and teaching from the unit coordinator and tutor was good.
Recommendation
The teaching team will continue to provide outstanding academic support for the students and give them a better education and learning experience at CQU.
Action Taken
The instructions and guidance are regularly checked to ensure that instructional quality remains high.
Source: Student evaluation
Feedback
Very supportive and great skills to communicate.
Recommendation
This practice will be continued with a continuous improvement goal for more effective communication.
Action Taken
Continue fostering open communication through more interactive platforms, such as Teams and drop-in Q&A sessions, where students can engage directly with instructors.
Source: Student evaluation
Feedback
When it came to reviewing a submitted assessment or class task, some students believed that more attention and focus response time to emails could have been more timely.
Recommendation
The teaching staff, including the Unit Coordinator, will reply to students' queries and give them sufficient feedback on time in the future.
Action Taken
The teaching team considers weekly online drop-in sessions where students can receive immediate feedback and support.
Source: Teaching team
Feedback
There was a peer assessment practice item on Moodle. However, most of the students did not practice enough, which impacted their submissions and gradings.
Recommendation
The peer assessment practice session must be continued. The unit coordinator can make a video on how to do the peer assessment. The tutors can have a session or a part of a session where students will practice the peer assessment tasks in the tutorial session. 
Action Taken
A more detailed marking rubric was provided to students to help them better understand the criteria for conducting peer assessments for this assignment component.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
Students felt that the Unit provides broad practical applicable learning on procurement strategies which is perceived as useful for future project managers.
Recommendation
More real-world case studies and industry examples will be incorporated into the curriculum, enforcing internalization of theoretical knowledge and improving industry-readiness in students.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Feedback
Students deemed tutorial classes more effective and comprehensible than lectures.
Recommendation
More interactive learning opportunities will be incorporated into lectures, such as group discussions, case studies, and problem-solving exercises, to complement the theoretical content and foster greater student engagement, recognizing that tutorial activities are already aligned with active learning principles. Workshop format may be considered in future.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate an integrative understanding of the key theories and concepts underpinning buyer-contractor relationships as well as the concepts of project contracts and procurement standards
  2. Analyse different commercial negotiation strategies and demonstrate an ability to creatively negotiate project plans, conflicts, delays, and incentives in commercial projects
  3. Employ risk management planning and identification and assess the risk encountered over the procurement process
  4. Negotiate and analyse the principles of tendering, pricing and awarding techniques and to utilise the negotiation approaches in commercial contracts
  5. Evaluate and develop clear legal, financial and technical components of project contracts
  6. Develop a project budget and an expenditure forecast as control mechanisms and link time, cost and resources to the project framework.

The unit contributes to the required number of academic study units for students wishing to undertake profession certification with the Project Management Institute's (PMI) professional qualifications, such as CAPM or PMP.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Online Quiz(zes) • • •
2 - Practical Assessment • • • •
3 - Group Work • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Knowledge • • • • • •
2 - Communication • •
3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills • • • • •
4 - Research • • • •
5 - Self-management • •
6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility • •
7 - Leadership • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 - Online Quiz(zes) • • • •
2 - Practical Assessment • • • •
3 - Group Work • • • • •