This unit builds on the concepts explored in the Project Management unit, with a particular emphasis on the complexities involved in managing high-risk technology projects. It covers both the technical and the human side of advanced project management.

Certification:

Chifley is a registered education provider with the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA, for this project management course [R.E.P. Provider No. 2032]. This unit provides 120 professional development units (PDUs) for PMI members.

This unit aims to develop knowledge of the legal system and an understanding of the many laws which impact on the work of engineers and other technology-based professionals in both the public and private sectors. Laws such as contract and tort are covered, with specific reference to contractual responsibility, risk, liability and the detailed administration of contracts.

In addition, the very important laws of trade practices, intellectual property and employment are covered, thus developing skills in application of the principles and practice of managerial law in the workplace.

Topics:

• Introduction to the law in Australia
• Contract law—Part 1
• Contract law—Part 2
• The law of torts
• Property law
• Trade practices legislation
• Business organisations
• Employment and workplace relations law
• The law of agency
• Commercial dispute resolution

Managing people at work is the central activity in most managerial jobs. In recent years the effective management of people at work has become increasingly important due to a number of changes in the external environment in which organisations operate and changes in the nature of organisations themselves. In particular, line managers find themselves being asked to develop and apply people management skills, which in the past would have been the domain of human resource management (HRM) specialists. This unit has been designed to develop your conceptual and practical skills of the kind increasingly required by line managers.

We do not pretend that a unit like this can make you an expert in people management. Rather, our aim is to help you develop the skills you need to be a well-informed and effective manager of your staff at work.

Topics:

• What is 'people management' and why does it matter
• The legal environment for managing people
• Organisational power and politics
• Communication and negotiation in organisations
• Industrial and employee relations
• Work organisation: The analysis and design of jobs
• Hiring and dismissing and retaining staff
• Supervision and performance appraisal
• Managing organisational change
• Putting it all together: The importance of people management
• Identify emerging contemporary people management issues and trends

This unit extends the material developed in Financial Management and, to a lesser extent, Economic Decision Making. It is designed to equip you with a sufficient understanding of corporate finance to be able to discharge the financial responsibilities of a director or senior executive of a public company when making decisions and releasing information. It will also equip you with an adequate understanding of the calculations that members of the CFO's office will carry out and the evaluation processes that they will undertake when examining business proposals. This will assist you in presenting a financial case for the pursuance of business initiatives you believe a corporation should undertake.

Pre-requisites:

To undertake this unit, you must first complete Financial Management.

Topics:

• Financial statements and ratio analysis

• Sources of finance

• Valuing financial instruments and obligations

• Financial perspectives

• Project valuation

• Financial and real options

• Cash and liquidity management

• Financial markets

• International corporate finance

• Risk management

Sustainability has become a new buzz word in corporate circles and management literature, but what does it really mean? Should corporations commit to it?  How do they decide on and then implement a successful sustainability strategy? This course aims to explore these questions providing both an academically rigorous analysis of sustainability, as well as a practically useful guide to deciding on, implementing and measuring a sustainability strategy.

Corporations are impacted by, and they themselves impact, a multitude of issues that aren’t necessarily covered in their annual report or financial statements. These issues can impact the very ‘survivability’ of the corporation. Managing sustainably is managing for long-term survivability, by considering all the potential issues and impacts on a corporation. Managing sustainably questions the mantra of growth at all costs and the short-termism that has led to a focus on the next quarter, the next Board meeting and the next stock market report. This course will address the issue of whether – and how – sustainability considerations can succeed in a business environment that often rewards short-term success.

Topics:

• Understanding sustainability
• Market and regulatory context
• Environmental sustainability
• Economic and financial sustainability
• Social sustainability
• Climate change and sustainability
• Designing and implementing a sustainability strategy
• Measuring sustainability
• Reporting sustainability
• The future of sustainability

This unit focuses on management decision making from the perspective of economic principles. Students will be introduced to the nature of managerial economics and the decision making process and most importantly the concept of value maximisation. The basic valuation model is presented as the underlying economic model of the firm and all subsequent discussion will turn on the decisions to enhance the value of the firm.

The approach used in this unit is a practical problem solving treatment of economic theory and analysis, extensively supplemented by descriptive and diagrammatical presentation.

Topics:

• The goals of firms and of public institutions
• Demand and supply
• Estimating demand and forecasting
• Production theory
• Cost analysis
• Market models for pricing and output decisions
• Pricing decisions in practice
• Capital budgeting and consideration of risk
• Benefit-cost analysis
• Some important aspects of the role of government.

This unit enables participants to take advantage of formal management programs offered by their own organisation or by outside providers. The unit may consist of a single program or a combination of programs requiring a total commitment of about 160 hours. Residential programs and programs which develop interpersonal skills are preferred. As part of the assessment, participants may be required to submit a report.

The employer-based unit will enable organisations that conduct internal management training for their staff, or that wish to conduct a new program tailored to meet their needs, to allow their staff to use this training as a component of the Graduate Diploma/MBA program. This may include situations where employers sponsor their staff on externally conducted programs.

The quality of the report is included in the assessment for credit. Participants should seek approval from Chifley of a program of study prior to enrolling in this unit.

Further Information:

Prior written approval from Chifley must be obtained before enrolling in this unit. Students applying for this unit must apply during enrolment periods (November-December for Study Period 1 and April-May for Study Period 2). Further information on applying for the Employer-based Unit

This unit is intended to provide you with an overview of engineering risk management techniques. It introduces the concept of the two-dimensional nature of risk and emphasises the need for assessment of both dimensions (severity and likelihood) for ascribing priorities in directing the risk dollar. Systematic and structured hazard identification techniques are introduced with a number of illustrative examples. The focus is on low likelihood–high consequence risk events, as these cannot be assessed by using epidemiological studies or actuarial techniques.

Topics:

• The concept of risk
• Risk management overview
• Identifying hazards and potential loss events
• Estimating the severity of consequences
• Estimating event likelihood and measuring and ranking risk
• Decision making under uncertainty
• Risk management tools
• Emergency management and recovery
• Risk perception and acceptability
• Risk Communication

This unit has been structured around an initial core of seven topics that provide a knowledge foundation critical to sustainability and environmental management. We introduce and explain some fundamental environmental and sustainability management terms, concepts and principles, and through the use of case studies, we explore the wide-ranging implications of environmental and sustainability management to an organisation's everyday operations. This includes examining the evolution and application of regulatory controls, predominantly in Australia.

As well as discussing the business case for environmental management and sustainability, we present the ecological rationale behind this field. Issues such as local and global pollution are discussed, with the aim of illustrating the consequences of resource consumption and degradation in terms of environmental and social change, and the need for management so that these changes remain within acceptable levels. Environmental assessment techniques are described, as are methods of planning for, achieving, and clearly demonstrating an acceptable level of environmental management.

This unit aims to provide a strong understanding of the potentially broad and varied role of the environmental manager, an important change agent who commonly operates at the interface of business, society and government.

Topics:

• Environment and sustainability reporting
• Waste management and resource conservation
• Responses to climate change
• Environmental assessment
• Management systems approaches
• Social aspects of sustainability
• The legislative context
• Global pollution: issues and responses
• The environmental imperative
• Environmental management and sustainability

This unit is concerned with the management of the financial functions of an organisation and is directed towards making you competent in financial decision making and the control of financial operations. It will also enable you to understand the professional advice and help that accountants and other finance professionals can give you towards that endeavour.

Topics:

• Financial management - an overview
• Fundamental financial accounting concepts
• Financial statements
• Funding and corporate governance issues
• Analysis and interpretation of financial statements
• Fundamental management accounting concepts
• Costing systems and cost control
• Budgeting and capital investment
• Performance measurement considerations
• Managerial decision making

This unit aims to provide you with an understanding of the factors driving domestic and international economic and business development, and will provide you with frameworks with which to make strategic decisions. It should enable you to develop an informed perspective on the evolving global economy in which we live and do business. The detailed appreciation you will develop of the major trends and issues in international business will enable you to compete and trade effectively in the international business arena.

This unit aims to provide you with an understanding of the factors driving domestic and international economic and business development, and will provide you with frameworks with which to make strategic decisions. It should enable you to develop an informed perspective on the evolving global economy in which we live and do business. The detailed appreciation you will develop of the major trends and issues in international business will enable you to compete and trade effectively in the international business arena.

At a practical level, this unit should also give you new insights into organisational management, especially in terms of strategic planning and development, and you should be able to participate effectively in decisions relating to international business.

Topics:

• International business
• International economics
• Globalisation
• International trade
• Planning an international business
• Operating an international business
• International financial management and law
• International marketing and human resource management
• China
• The future of international business

This unit examines different contemporary approaches to leadership decision making in organisations. Leadership is broadly defined, and is not confined to the top levels of organisations. Various theories and concepts of decision making are examined and students are encouraged to apply these to their managerial practice in their own organisations.

This unit examines the role of the leader in decision making, progresses through the process of decision making, and finally examines issues of decision implementation. Decision making is examined both as an individual and as a group process, and the influence of the organisational environment is taken into account. An international perspective is given because of increasing globalisation, and ethical issues are considered as well.

Topics:

• Introduction to leaders as decision makers
• Decision-making model
• Decision-making tools
• Human influences
• Ethical decision making
• Team decision making
• Organisational decision making
• Strategy, psychology and ethnic culture
• Organisational alignment
• Corporate governance

This unit examines the nature of leadership in the 21st century and the different roles that leaders are expected to fulfil within modern organisations. It uses a combination of theory, concepts and examples to help participants begin to understand the key issues and challenges facing leaders today and take control of their own leadership development. Unlike other areas of the business discipline, most experts and researchers agree that developing leaders requires more action-based than analytical learning. This unit therefore encourages participants to seek out opportunities to practice and implement the theories and concepts discussed.

Topics:

• Effective leadership
• Leadership concepts and theory
• Leaders as strategists
• Leaders as motivators
• Leaders as communicators
• Leaders as decision makers
• Ethical leadership
• Measuring leadership performance
• Leading change
• Emerging leadership issues

This unit is primarily about using innovation to achieve growth in a competitive economy, both at the enterprise level and for the economy overall. We shall establish that growth requires innovation: today''s society is not more prosperous than yesterday's because we have more of the things that we had yesterday but because we have new things and those things that resemble things available yesterday are better suited to our needs.

We shall proceed to describe the various broad categories of innovation and the likely economic role of each. We shall establish that established firms tend to favour cost and quality innovations while entrepreneurs intending to create new enterprises tend to favour novel goods and services. We shall show that these rules are not immutable and describe and explain some exceptions.

We shall demonstrate that invention and innovation are by no means the same and explain why some inventions never become innovations while some successful innovations are not based on the exploitation of an invention. We shall describe, in general terms supported by case studies, innovations carried out by entrepreneurs and innovations undertaken within corporations.

Topics:

• The what and why of innovation
• Economic explanations of innovation
• Competition in theory and in practice
• People, products and markets
• Opportunities
• The Innovation Proposal
• Companies in theory and in practice
• Corporate innovation
• Financing innovation
• The learning organisation

This unit introduces you to the art and science of management. It provides an overview of the principal skills and activities of management and the challenges which face managers today. It aims to be a practical unit, providing you with theories, ideas and techniques which can be applied to your day-to-day work in your organisation.

This course covers different aspects of management, including:

• management skills and capabilities such as communicating, leading and motivating
• management functions such as managing change, planning and making decisions
• areas of management activity including managing teams, developing strategy and ethics.

Topics:

• An introduction to management
• Managing change and innovation
• Understanding the organisational environment and culture
• Managerial ethics and social responsibility
• Strategic management and organisational structure
• Plans, decisions and measures
• Leadership
• Motivation and teams
• Communication
• Human resources management (HRM)

This unit deals with the planning and management of effective information systems. It discusses the design, structure and evaluation of information systems to meet specific needs, and the human factors in their operation and management.

The unit starts with a high-level view of information systems, their impact on organisations and their strategic uses. It discusses how to analyse and plan for an organisation's information systems needs, as well as a wide range of other management issues.

Topics:

• Managing IS to seize new strategic opportunities
• Information systems and strategy
• Managing using a systems approach
• Managing information systems development
• Moving from IS planning to IT planning
• Managing organisational data
• Managing IS services and business networks
• IS project management
• Professional ethics and managing technological change
• Information security management

The objective of this unit is to give an overview of the theory and practice of marketing. It focuses on management of the marketing function and the tasks of marketing strategy development, planning, and implementation.

Topics:

• The discipline of marketing
• Marketing strategy and planning
• The marketing environment & marketing analysis
• Segmentation, targeting and posititioning-the essentials tasks of marketing
• Marketing research and buyer behaviour
• Product
• Place (distribution channels)
• Pricing
• Integrated marketing communication & promotion strategies
• Relationship marketing

This unit examines the principles of operations management and demonstrates how they must link together to achieve the operations objectives of the organisation as a whole. The 'operations' themselves are the means by which an organisation supplies its customers with the goods or services they require. Skills are developed in the areas of product and service design, controlling and scheduling outputs, reliability, and quality management.

Topics:

• Operations management and the value chain
• Operations strategy in a global economy
• Management of technology and processes
• Quality management
• Forecasting and capacity planning
• Location and layout
• Managing operations in the supply chain
• Production planning and scheduling
• Job design and operational performance
• Maintenance management

Best practice is a practical approach to improving the competitiveness of an organisation. It provides the manager with a set of tools and techniques to identify where improvements are necessary and how to take action to achieve them. Best practice is closely related to quality management and to the business excellence frameworks that have been developed in various countries; but it has significant differences from them. Quality management focuses on meeting customer needs and on creating products and services that satisfy and delight the customer, including product strategy and design.

The business excellence frameworks focus on business results and include strategic concerns. Best practice aims to improve what is already being done, but has a broader scope in that it covers activities and processes that affect all stakeholders, including employees and suppliers.

Topics:

• Introduction to best practice
• Satisfying stakeholders
• Improving processes
• Measuring processes and performance
• Understanding data to improve processes
• Capable processes
• Leadership for best practice
• Organisational learning and knowledge management
• The lean organisation
• Implementing and assessing best practice

Most project managers enter the project management field from a functional and/or technical background. They are the most skilled or most experienced functional and/or technical specialist or subject matter expert on the project team and so are given management of the team during project delivery. Unfortunately, successful project delivery does not depend upon the skills and experience that led to that person's appointment as the project manager.

Project management depends on a range of management (people), process, planning and commercial (financial/legal) skills. This unit introduces these skills, works through the key processes and finally shows how these processes are integrated to ensure a desirable outcome.

Certification:

Chifley is a registered education provider with the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA, for this project management course [R.E.P. Provider No. 2032]. This unit provides 120 professional development units (PDUs) for PMI members.

This unit is endorsed by the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM). This unit provides 20 continuous professional development (CPD) points for AIPM members.

Topics:

• The background to project management
• Project scope management
• Project schedule management
• Project cost management
• Project quality management
• Project human resources management and project organisation
• Project communications management
• Project risk management
• Project procurement management
• Project integration management

The Research Project enables students to apply material studied in the Graduate Diploma/MBA course to a specific situation in their organisation and in many cases, to produce material which is of particular value to their organisation.

The Research Project provides students with the opportunity to research and report on a management topic of their choice. The project should demonstrate that students:

• have a good knowledge of different management theories and principles
• that they can apply management theory to a workplace problem or issue, and
• they are able to initiate in-depth research and report on the results.

The project can be done through one of two options:

1. research that students initiate specifically for the unit, or
2. submission of a report that the student has already completed in his/her workplace.

Students will need to spend at least 160 hours working on the report and will be expected to write up to 10, 000 words.

Aims:

On completion of this unit, students should have conducted a significant investigation of a problem related to their employment and shown evidence of having applied principles learned in the Graduate Diploma/MBA to its solution.

Students are required to submit a preliminary proposal which outlines:

• the project content
• the method of investigation to be used, and
• the format of the final report.

It is recommended that students be assisted by a supervisor in their own organisation. Students intending to undertake the Research Project should have completed the following units:

• Business Law
• Economic Decision Making
• Financial Management
• Management Perspectives

The term 'strategy' is one which has become frequently used (and abused) in management. Strategic management may be defined as:

The process of identifying, choosing and implementing activities that will enhance the long term performance of an organisation by setting direction and by creating ongoing compatibility between the internal skills and resources of an organisation and the changing external environment within which it operates.

This unit encourages you to develop a strategic plan for your organisation and shows you how to implement, evaluate and control that plan.

Topics:

• An introduction to strategic management
• The strategy formulation process
• External analysis
• Internal analysis
• Strategic choice
• Strategic directions
• Strategy optimisation
• Strategy implementation
• Managing strategic performance
• Strategic perspectives on technology