Managing a Successful Business Project: Equality and Diversity

This document discusses the project aims and objectives for equality and diversity in the workplace. It provides an overview of the challenges faced by organizations and offers recommendations for resolving them. The document also includes a project management plan covering aspects of cost, scope, time, quality, communication, risk, and resources. Additionally, it includes a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart for time frames and stages of completion. The document further explores small-scale research methods, findings, and data analysis using appropriate tools and techniques. Finally, it reflects on the value of undertaking the project and its impact on learning and performance.

UNIT 6: MANAGING A
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P 1 Project aims and objectives for equality and diversity topic.................................................1
P 2 Project management plan that covers aspects of cost, scope, time, quality, communication,
risk and resources........................................................................................................................2
P3 The work break down structure and also the Gantt chart in order to provide time frames
and the stages which is for completion........................................................................................3
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P 4 Small-scale research applying primary and secondary methods appropriate for meeting
project aims and objectives..........................................................................................................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................8
P 5 Findings and data using appropriate tools and techniques....................................................8
P 6 Recommendations of findings and data analysis.................................................................11
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................12
P 7 Reflection on the value of undertaking the project to meet stated objectives and own
learning and performance..........................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................16
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................16
Performance Review..................................................................................................................17
Log book....................................................................................................................................19

LO 1
P 1 Project aims and objectives for equality and diversity topic
Background and Company Overview
Equality and diversity are one of the most important things which is required to be
considered by each and every organization. Diversity at workplace helps in understanding,
recognizing, appreciating dissimilarities among individuals with respect to their age, sex, culture
and many more. While equality at workplace means fairness, which is provided to the employees
such that they can participate within the organization and gain an opportunity to show case their
potential. It is extremely important for organizations to manage equality and diversity at
workplace. Both equality and diversity at workplace is specifically about antidiscrimination and
inclusion of each employee such that effectiveness of outcomes of employee’s performance can
be enhanced and their motivational factors can also be enhanced.
McLeod and Partners is a boutique Accounting Firm that specializes in corporate
restructuring and all forms of insolvency. McLeod is the head of marketing of TFL.
Aim
Aim of this research project is: “To identify various kinds of challenges that an
organization faces in terms of equality and diversity in the workplace. A case study of McLeod
and Partners organization, head of marketing of TFL”.
Objectives
Objectives of this research project are:
 To identify various challenges faced by organizations in managing a diverse workforce.
 To analyse challenges faced by organization in manging equality in workplace.
 To recommend measures through which equality and diversity challenges at workplace can
be resolved.
Research Questions
Research questions of this research project are:
 What are the various kinds of challenges that are faced by organizations in managing a
diverse workforce?
 What are the different challenges that are faced by organization in manging equality in
workplace?
1

 What are the different measures through which equality and diversity challenges at
workplace can be resolved?
P 2 Project management plan that covers aspects of cost, scope, time, quality, communication,
risk and resources.
Project Plan, which also known as project management plan is a document which includes the
scope of the project and also the objectives of the project in a paper format. It is represented in
the same manner as Gantt chart. It is easy to make project plan and it does not involve any
complexity (Johnson, 2019).
Cost
For conducting research on factors that consider by fashion company to design and
market brand new summer shoe to compete with big brands the researcher will have to spend
money in several activities (Eskerod, Ang, and Andersen, 2018).
The printing expenses costing 150 pound
purchase of books and the reading material 300 pound
Software 750 pound
Conducting a survey 300 pound
Scope
Researcher will conduct qualitative research which will be beneficial in gathering insight
detail about diversity and equality at workplace. This will help scholar in gaining most important
detail and answering research question. Furthermore, new product designing of summer shoes
will help companies in gathering attention of new consumers which will raise sales of business
unit (Larson and Chang, 2016).
Time
Time taken by the researcher to complete the research is about 12 weeks and for the
McLeod and Partners it took about 4 months to implement changes within their organizational
policies (Kinsey, 2017).
Quality
For the researcher the quality was ensuring the reliable data is selected on which one can
trust. Scholar has used qualitative methods and has applied primary data collection sources
which has helped in gaining realistic detail about research area. and for the McLeod and
2

Partners the quality was on effectiveness of implemented policies (Martinsuo and Hoverfält,
2018).
Communication
The researcher had used the medium of communication of the research by using the
physical communication in which the researcher had used video conferencing in order to gain
information, and also meetings with the other researchers if it is taken as per the McLeod and
Partners point of view the company had used the medium of communication as mechanical
media in which internet, Social media, and Email to interact with their employees and identify
their issues related to equality and diversity (Matinheikki and et.al., 2016).
Risk
The risk which is beard by the researcher to conduct study on factors that affect or
increases challenges for organizations in terms of equality and diversity (Yeung, 2017).
Resources
The resources used by the researcher are pen, paper, software, and human resource
whereas McLeod and Partners have use many resources such as human resources, technical
resources, land resources, capital resource, etc (Monteleone and Turner, 2016).
P3 The work break down structure and also the Gantt chart in order to provide time frames and
the stages which is for completion.
Work Break Down Structure
The work breakdown structure also known as WBS which organizes the team work
which is converted into the manageable actions. This includes construction of house which can
be segregated into three factors such as internal, foundation, and external. These three are also
segregated (Kumar and Yakhlef, 2016). The project team creates the work project breakdown
structure which is by identifying the deliverables which are major and converting the
deliverables into sub deliverables. To do list is also prepared under this in order to ensure the
accuracy(Martinsuo and Hoverfält, 2018).
3

Gantt chart
It is a kind of bar chart which is used for illustrating the project. The modern Gantt chart
also takes into account the relationship which is in between the current schedule and the
activities. The chart lists on the horizontal axis time interval and on the vertical axis task to be
performed (Matinheikki and et.al., 2016).
4

Table 1activities
Activities We
ek 1
Wee
k 2
Wee
k 3
Wee
k 4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
Originate
an idea
Design the
project
Review the
literature
Methodolo
gy of the
research
Primary
research
Secondary
research
Analysis
data
Final
discussion
Reporting
Overview
of the
performan
ce
5

LO 2
P 4 Small-scale research applying primary and secondary methods appropriate for meeting
project aims and objectives
In order to perform research on the new product to be design and manufacture by a large fashion
company, The manager must complete the research and take action as soon as possible in
order to ensure that the product is completed on time and also tested within the
market(Kumar, 2019). In the research methodology is used which contains various methods
and are discussed below:
Research Methodology contains the specific techniques which is used in order to identify,
and then select and process, eventually analyse the information which is about summer
shoes (Nisula and Pekkola, 2018)..
Research Philosophy
It is a belief in which the data about the new summer shoes is gathered, and then analysed
and at last is used. There are two main research Philosophies known as Interpretism and
positivism(Fletcher, 2017). Interpretism includes the study of the phenomena which is their
natural environment whereas positivism takes into account reality as stable which can be
described on the basis viewpoint which is objective. Here for this project Interpretism is
taken in order to do qualitative analysis, which will benefit the company by gaining the in-
depth knowledge about factors that must be considered when implementing new policies in
order to overcome challenges related to equality and diversity (Barker and Zupick, 2017).
Research Type
Qualitative and quantitative are two different types of researches, qualitative is the type in
which scholar uses theories whereas quantitative is another form in which statistical
calculations are used. In order to carry out this study scholar has taken assistance of
quantitative research types and by using theories and involving human being insight details
have been gathered (Johnson, 2019)..
Research Approach
It is a procedure as well as plan in which methods in detail are used for the collection and
analysis of the data relevant to summer shoes. In this approach research problems are
addressed. There are two popular methods in it known as Inductive test and Deductive test.
Inductive test is used for qualitative analysis in which the customer focus is more and uses
6

strategy for noticing the customers and in deductive test the research is conduct using the
quantitative data. Here for the research Inductive approach is used because it will benefit the
company, by conducting the research in detail of their employees issues (McCusker and
Gunaydin, 2015).
Data collection
It is process in which valuable information is gathered by using two types of data which is
known as primary data and secondary data. Primary data is first-hand data whereas
secondary data is second hand data. Here the primary data is used which includes
questionnaire and will help in doing genuine analysis of data for the TFL and by putting the
specific questions to the respondents on the current data.(Attia and Edge, 2017).
Furthermore, secondary data collection sources are also used , use of books, jounrals have
helped in developing understanding about research area (Blohm And et,al., 2016)..
Sampling
In sampling samples are taken for doing analysis. There two sampling methods which are
popular, Random sampling for the qualitative data and Purposive sampling for the
quantitative data. Here the Random sampling is used, in which 20 employees are taken and
the same are the respondents, because it will eliminate the biases of data and will make data
more reliable(Page and et.al., 2017).
Data analysis
In data analysis useful information is derived after filtering the data by cleansing and
inspecting the data (Dansoh, Oteng and Frimpong, 2017).. There are two methods used for
data analysis which are thematic and SPSS. Thematic method is used for doing qualitative
analysis and SPSS is used for doing quantitative analysis of the data. Here the method used
is Thematic, it is used because it will help the company to think out of the box and
implement new policy to reduce equality and diversity (Kumar, 2019)
Ethical Consideration
Researcher will not copy any material from any site. Individual will not force any
respondents to answer any question. Scholar will giver rights to the all sample to skip any
question if they are comfortable to answer that. Furthermore, there will not issue of
plagiarism and scholar will involve respondents in study after getting their written
approval(Fletcher, A.J., 2017).
7

LO 3
P 5 Findings and data using appropriate tools and techniques
Data analysis is one of the most important things which is required to be done in order to
analyse all the data collected through both primary and secondary data collection method.
Theme 1: Diversity at workplace is important
Question 1: In what ways diversity at workplace is important?
Options Respondents
Increases employee satisfaction and motivation 10
Understand customers in better manner 3
Gain competitive advantage 2
Increases employee’s overall performance 5
Total 20
Figure 1: Diversity at workplace is important
Interpretation: From the above graph it has been interpreted that 20 out of 10 employees says
that diversity at work place is important as it helps in increasing employee satisfaction and
motivation, while three of them says that it helps in understanding customers in better manner, 2
of them says that it helps in gaining competitive advantage and almost five of them says that it
increases employee’s overall performance. So, it can be said that according to majority of
individuals if diversity in workplace is maintained satisfaction and motivational level of
employees increases which further helps in increasing their overall efficiency and overall
performance.
8

Theme 2: Diversity and equality in workplace helps in increasing overall performance of
employees
Question 2: Does diversity and equality in workplace helps in increasing overall
performance of employees?
Options Respondents
Strongly Agree 7
Agree 5
Average 4
Disagree 3
Strongly Disagree 1
Total 20
Figure 2: Diversity and equality in workplace helps in increasing overall performance of
employees
Interpretation: From the above graph it has been interpreted that 20 out of 7 employees strongly
agrees that Diversity and equality in workplace helps in increasing overall performance of
employees, five of them simply agrees to the statement, answer of almost 4 employees were
average i.e. they neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement. However, there were three
employees who completely disagreed with this fact and one of them strongly disagreed to the
statement.
Theme 3: Basic effects of improper diversity and equality at workplace
Question 3: What according to you are basic effects of improper diversity and equality at
workplace?
9

Options Respondents
Lower employee satisfaction 11
Lower employee motivation 5
Degrading employee performance 3
No idea 1
Total 20
Figure 3 Basic effects of improper diversity and equality at workplace
Interpretation: From the above graph it has been interpreted that 20 out of 11 employees says
that basic effect of improper diversity and equality at workplace is Lower employee satisfaction,
while five of them says that it Lower employee motivation, 3 of them says that it Degrading
employee performance and one of them even had no idea about it.
Theme 4: Challenges that are faced by organization in managing equality and diversity at
workplace
Question 4: What are the challenges that are faced by organization in managing equality
and diversity at workplace?
Options Respondents
Language or communication issue 6
Cultural differences 7
Age difference or generation gap 3
Respecting or accepting others differences 3
No idea 1
10

Total 20
Figure 4 Challenges that are faced by organization in managing equality and diversity at
workplace
Interpretation: From the above graph it has been interpreted that 20 out of 16 employees says
that one of the biggest challenges that are faced by organizations is Language or communication
issue, while seven of them says that Cultural differences is one of the biggest barrier and three of
them says that age difference is the biggest barrier. But as per the view of three employees
Respecting or accepting others differences is the biggest challenge and only one of them had no
idea about it.
Theme 5: Different kinds of measures that can help the organization in facing or resolving these
challenges at workplace
Question 5: What are different kinds of measures that can help the organization in facing
or resolving these challenges at workplace?
Options Respondents
Develop organizational policies 12
Build a disciplinary committee 8
Total 20
11

Figure 5 Different kinds of measures that can help the organization in facing or resolving these
challenges at workplace
Interpretation: From the above graph it has been interpreted that 20 out of 12 employees says
that the main measures that can help the organization in facing or resolving these challenges at
workplace is to develop proper organizational policy which is effective enough to address all
kinds of workplace issues., while rest 8 of them says that building a disciplinary committee can
help in managing equality and diversity at workplace.
P 6 Recommendations of findings and data analysis
Recommendations
Here are few recommendations that can be used by Tesco in managing equality and
diversity at workplace such as:
 Company should concentrate on increasing their overall workplace policies, rules and
regulations so that they can reduce chances of discrimination or prejudice within workplace.
This will help them to face all the challenges or issues related to equality and diversity.
 Firm should ensure that all the laws, rules, regulations and policies are being adhered by the
employees. This will help them to ensure that none of the employee is discriminated or is not
treated in a different manner. This will help them to maintain equality and diversity at
workplace which will further increase the overall satisfaction and motivation of employees.
Conclusion
From the above research study, it has been concluded that equality and diversity at
workplace is extremely important as it helps the organization in many ways. It helps the
organization in enhancing their employees motivational and satisfaction level which further
12

helps in enhancing performance of their employees. Maintaining equality and diversity at
workplace further helps the organization in achieving desired results and accomplish the targets
provided to their employees. It has been analysed that there are various kinds of challenges that
are faced by the organization in managing diversity and equality at workplace.
LO 4
P 7 Reflection on the value of undertaking the project to meet stated objectives and own learning
and performance
All the business projects have some kind of risk, and project manager must have qualities
to handle such project and managing the risk (Larson and Chang, 2016). As a Research Assistant
of McLeod and Partners I learn to different issues and challenges that may arise out of equality
and diversity in the workplace and ways in which they can be resolved. This quality helped me to
accomplish the project successfully and meets the goal and objective s of the project. While,
performing the research the most important factor is the communicational skills. When started
this project I had limitation to communicate with the clients but after this project I have got learn
so many ways to communicates and improve my communication skills to talk with the business
associates (Martinsuo and Hoverfält, 2018).
As a research assistant I have learnt different ways manage equality and diversity at
workplace. Cost controlling is the most important quality of any project manager. I have learnt
so many techniques of control over the cost of projects. In the running project I need to
communicate with so many peoples about the projects. From this I got the idea to manage the
stakeholders and I learnt to creating better deals with the clients. This project becomes a good
lesson to me (Matinheikki and et.al., 2016).
I have used suitable research methods that has helped me in achieving the research
objectives. I took support of correct methodologies which has helped me in understanding topic
and gathering all detail that may help company in designing or manufacturing satisfactory
summer shoes for consumers. My research skills have been improved now I am able to conduct
researches in the coming future in effective manner. I got to know how to schedule activities and
what things need to be consider to complete study on time and with quality. All these experience
will help me in near future and will support in my career as well. Furthermore, this study has
improved my time management skill, I realised that before that I was not able to complete my
work on time. Even I was not able to manage work in a team. But now I understood importance
13

of teamwork and team management. All these things have helped me in performing my duties in
effective manner and managing future project in significant manner.
14

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Attia, M. and Edge, J., 2017. Be (com) ing a reflexive researcher: a developmental approach to
research methodology. Open Review of Educational Research. 4(1). pp.33-45.
Barker, M. and Zupick, N., 2017, December. Revisiting the four C'S of managing a successful
simulation project. In 2017 Winter Simulation Confer
ence (WSC). (pp. 580-587). IEEE.
Blohm, I. and et,al., 2016. Managing Disruptive Innovation through Service Systems–The Case
of Crowdlending in the Banking Industry.
Dansoh, A., Oteng, D. and Frimpong, S., 2017, April. Challenges associated with project teams
in managing variations on construction projects. In 6th International Conference on
Infrastructure Development in Africa (ICIDA 2017). (pp. 12-14).
Eskerod, P., Ang, K. and Andersen, E.S., 2018. Increasing project benefits by project
opportunity exploitation.International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. 11(1).
pp.35-52.
Fletcher, A.J., 2017. Applying critical realism in qualitative research: methodology meets
method. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 20(2). pp.181-194.
Johnson, A.B., 2019. Project of IT system for Business accelerator for managing cooperation
between startups and corporates (Doctoral dissertation, Instytut Organizacji Systemów
Produkcyjnych).
Kinsey, S., 2017. Managing risk. In The International Business Archives Handbook. (pp. 356-
381). Routledge.
Kumar, N. and Yakhlef, A., 2016. Managing business-to-business relationships under conditions
of employee attrition: A transparency approach. Industrial Marketing Management.56.
pp.143-155.
Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications
Limited.
Larson, D. and Chang, V., 2016. A review and future direction of agile, business intelligence,
analytics and data science.International Journal of Information Management. 36(5).
pp.700-710.
Martinsuo, M. and Hoverfält, P., 2018. Change program management: Toward a capability for
managing value-oriented, integrated multi-project change in its context.International
Journal of Project Management. 36(1). pp.134-146.
Matinheikki, J. and et.al., 2016. Managing inter-organizational networks for value creation in the
front-end of projects. International Journal of Project Management. 34(7). pp.1226-1241.
McCusker, K. and Gunaydin, S., 2015. Research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed
methods and choice based on the research. Perfusion. 30(7). pp.537-542.
Monteleone, H. and Turner, M., 2016. Managing multicultural teams: The multiple intelligences
of a project manager. InAUBEA 2016: Radical Innovation in the Built Environment. (pp.
229-239). Central Queensland University.
Nisula, K. and Pekkola, S., 2018. How to move away from the silos of business management
education?. Journal of Education for Business. 93(3). pp.97-111.
Page, D. and et.al., 2017. Optimising early neonatal nutrition using translational research
methodology. Nutrition & dietetics. 74(5). pp.460-470.
15

Polonsky, M.J. and Waller, D.S., 2018. Designing and managing a research project: A business
student's guide. Sage publications.
Robinson, A., 2019, April. Could do better: managing high performers. In BSAVA Congress
Proceedings 2019 (pp. 310-311). BSAVA Library.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J.R., 2018. Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and
organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.
Yeung, H.W.C., 2017. Managing crisis in a globalising era: the case of Chinese business firms
from Singapore. In Chinese Business and the Asian Crisis (pp. 87-113). Routledge.
16

APPENDIX
Questionnaire
 In what ways diversity at workplace is important?
 Increases employee satisfaction and motivation
 Understand customers in better manner
 Gain competitive advantage
 Increases employee’s overall performance
 Does diversity and equality in workplace helps in increasing overall performance of
employees?
 Strongly Agree
 Agree
 Average
 Disagree
 Strongly Disagree
 What according to you are basic effects of improper diversity and equality at workplace?
 Lower employee satisfaction
 Lower employee motivation
 Degrading employee performance
 No idea
 What are the challenges that are faced by organization in managing equality and diversity at
workplace?
 Language or communication issue
 Cultural differences
 Age difference or generation gap
 Respecting or accepting others differences
 No idea
 What are different kinds of measures that can help the organization in facing or resolving
these challenges at workplace?
 Develop organizational policies
 Build a disciplinary committee
17

Performance Review
1. What was the Project supposed to accomplish?
This project was supposed to accomplish an understanding of various kinds of challenges that an
organization faces in terms of equality and diversity in the workplace and measures through which
these challenges can be overcome or removed.
2. Did the project succeed in its aims/ how do you know? Specifically, please outline
any evaluation and assessment undertaken.
Yes, it was successful
As per my point of view this project succeeded in achieving its aim. I can say this because from the
data analysis I was clearly able to segregate major challenges that are faced by the organization and
measures that can be taken by the organization in overcoming such challenges.
3. What things do you think worked well and why? Evaluate all aspects of the project
(e.g initial inception, project activities and project outcomes) from a range of
perspectives.
Initial planning was really helpful
According to me all the aspects of the project worked well but project outcome aspect of the
project worked quite well as compared to other aspects of the project because all the answers were
answered by employees of the organization. Initial inception of the project also worked well as it
helped me to understanding desired outcomes of the project in a better manner. There were many
problems that were faced by me such as: data collection for analysis took time and for this I opted
of conducting online survey were all the employees were send with the survey question online.
4. What problems emerged during the project and how were they tackled? Was there
timely identification of issues and resolution during the project process?
Problems emerged during the project were: Poor communication with respondents at
initial level. Yes this problem was identified in timely manner at initial stage only.
5. What did you learn from undertaking the project?
I learned and developed two important skills such as: Communication skill and
18

research skill
6. How would you rate your performance as a management consultant leading the
project?
According to me, my performance management consultant was good and I tried to
fulfil my responsibility as Research assistant.
7. What strengths and weakness of your performance did you identify?
One of my major strength was Strong technical skill but my weakness was poor
researching capabilities
8. How will this inform and support your continuous professional development?
Improvement in both these skills will help me in becoming good researcher and
conducting studies in the future in effective manner.
19

Log book
Update of weekly research/ tasks achieved (Account
for a minimum of six weeks with dates) What have you completed?
 Did you fulfil Task requirements?
 Are you on track and within deadlines set?
 Did you need to make any changes to your
project management plan?
Comments
identify various kinds of challenges that an
organization faces in terms of equality and
diversity in the workplace. A case study of
McLeod and Partners organization, head of
marketing of TFL
Yes, I have completed
Yes, I am on track
No
Any risks and / or issues identified? Did you identify risks/issues with a lack of
skills required for undertaking research
tasks?
 Did you identify any additional risks/issues
that have an impact on the project
management plan?
Financial and scheduling risk have been
identified by me
Cost is the risk which may impact on entire
project plan
Problems encountered
20

 What barriers did you face?
 How did you overcome them?
Poor communication
Making understand to all respondents and have
convinced them to involve In this project
New Ideas and change of project direction Proper scheduling and close monitoring
What Have I learnt about myself this week? How did I feel when I had to deal with
tasks/problems? Did I find it useful to complete the tasks? How well have I performed? What did I
contribute? What can I improve on next week?
 How might this learning apply in the future?
In very good manner
Yes
Good
Monitoring of task can be improved in near
future
I would be able to conduct future studies in
effective manner
Tasks planned for next week Which tasks are priority? Have you set aside sufficient time for
completion?
Scheduling
yes
Project plan status to date (on, ahead, behind)
Supervisor comments to address
Signature of the Supervisor and date:
21

22