This assessment is a portfolio of evidence, designed to assess your ability to engage in collaborative alliances.

You are required to:

• Develop a report to present potential collaborators to the program sponsor
• Develop a strategy to engage the potential collaborator
• Develop an MOU
• Negotiate the MOU and apply relevant changes to the agreement
• Develop an implementation plan for the MOU and a monitoring and evaluation strategy
• Address a case study

To develop your assessment, you can work on either of the following scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Choose an organisation and industry that you are familiar with. You could choose, for example, an organization you worked for or you work with.
• Scenario 2: Work on Lonsdale Institute. Consider that Lonsdale’s management hired you to manage a program to assist them with positioning themselves as a leading private provider of business courses to international students in Australia.

This assessment comprises of the following sections:

Section 1: Identify and evaluate the collaborative alliance

Section 2: Collaborative agreement

Section 3: Collaborative alliance – implementation

Section 4: Case Study

In this section, you are required to:

• Task 1: Develop a report for your program sponsor about two potential collaborators that you have identified for the program.
• Task 2: Develop a strategy to engage the preferred collaborator.

Create a report directed to your program sponsor. The report must be professionally developed and edited. It is advisable that you develop it in a separate file and call the file BSBPMG624_Report

The report aims to present opportunities for collaborative alliances and it identifies and evaluates two potential collaborators.

The report must contain the following:

• A brief statement of the purpose of the report
• A description of how potential collaborations were identified and evaluated (what parameter were used, how the potential collaborations link and/or align with the program vision and the sponsoring organisation’s strategy, what benefits have been considered for the program)
• A list of potential collaborators (more than two)
• Criteria that were followed to short list the two collaborators
• A summary profile of the two potential collaborators that addresses the following:
• Information about the potential collaborator (industry or department, competency or product offering for example)
• Impact assessment of working with the collaborator (positive and negative)
• Compatibility (organisational culture, leadership style, core competencies, business processes, knowledge management etc..) of the collaborator with the program
• Synergy of goals and strategies
• Risk assessment and proposed risk management strategies
• Access to assets (tangible and intangible)
• Due Diligence summary report
• Any other consideration that you believe is pertinent
• A recommendation on the preferred collaborator to the program sponsor with appropriate justifications.

Develop a strategy, in the form of personal notes, on how to initiate and shape productive work relationships with the preferred collaborator. Your notes must be relevant to your program and build on the report developed in task 1.

In this section, you are required to:

• Task 1: Develop a memorandum of understanding for the collaborative alliance.
• Task 2: Present the memorandum of understanding to your trainer and assessor who will play the role of an executive manager in the company or department that will collaborate with you.
• You will have to negotiate the terms of the MOU that you have developed with the executive manager.
• Record the results of the negotiation and document the changes that need to be made to the MOU (a table is provided to record the changes needed).
• Implement those changes to the MOU in your submission of assessment T1. The assessor will check that you have submitted an MOU reflective of the changes documented in task 2

Create an MOU for the collaborative alliance that has been selected. Use the template below for your MOU.

 

Date
Partner’s details 1
Partner’s details 2
Purpose   Brief introductory statement about the purpose of the agreement
Objectives of the collaborative alliance   What the alliance aims to achieve; add KPIs against each objective. The use of a table is recommended.
Scope of the collaborative alliance   What the collaboration includes and excludes.
Period of collaboration
Governance   Address the following: governance structure of the collaboration, accountability, decision-making process, issue escalation process, change management process, conflict resolution
Confidentiality   Confidentiality clause
Intellectual Property   How intellectual property will be shared and/or protected.
Financial commitment   Any financial commitment of the two parties
Roles and responsibilities
Resources   Agreed use of physical and/or human resources
Communication and information sharing   How information and data will be shared; frequency, content and medium of communication; consultation and feedback process to be employed by the collaborative alliance
Review and Evaluation   High level strategy and processes to review if the partnership is meeting the agreed objectives, identify areas for improvements and adjustments. In this section, specific KPIs can be agreed to measure the progress towards goals
Termination   When and why the MOU should be terminated and possibly add a process for the termination
Authorisation

In week 3 of delivery, present the MOU developed in Section 2, Task 1 to your trainer and assessor who will play the role of an executive manager in the company or department you are signing the MOU with. Schedule a meeting with your trainer during class hours.

This is an assessable task and the trainer and assessor will complete an observation checklist of your performance in the meeting. The assessor will assess:

• Your ability to negotiate the MOU
• The quality and appropriateness of the information provided during the meeting
• Your ability to respond to questions and objections effectively

In your meeting, 15 minutes, discuss the MOU and be ready to negotiate as the executive manager may require changes to the MOU you prepared. You will have to reach an agreement on the MOU. The feedback provided during the meeting will have to be reflected in your final submission.

Use the table below to record the changes you made to your MOU based on the meeting. The changes will have to be reflected in your final submission. Add additional rows if needed:

Changes to MOU
Summary of the outcome of the negotiation:
Change 1
Change 2
Change 3
Change 4
Change 4
Change 5

SECTION 3 –  COLLABORATIVE ALLIANCE – IMPLEMENTATION

In this section, you are required to:

• Develop a collaboration plan to implement the MOU effectively
• Develop a monitoring and evaluation plan of the MOU

1. Implementation plan for the collaborative alliance

Develop an implementation plan for the collaborative alliance.

Address the following. All points must be addressed:

• A schedule for implementation
• Training plans
• Information management plan (how the data will be collected, recorded and disseminated)
• Use of technology to assist with the implementation
• RACI chart
• Resource management (who is in charge of managing physical and human resources, how the resources will be utilised. Specify plan for each type of resource that will be utilised when implementing the agreement)
• Communication matrix
• Engagement plan: how personnel will be engaged and led in the process. This should include consultation and feedback.
• Inquiry management process (this is particularly important at the beginning of the implementation to address issues and clarify any question from staff)
• Issue management process (how issues will be dealt with, focusing here on the first stage of the implementation

2. Monitoring and evaluation plan

Create a high-level review and evaluation plan, that builds on the MOU.

Address the following. All points must be addressed:

• Identify KPIs for the collaborative alliance against the objectives of the agreement
• Reporting (types, formats, responsibility to develop the progress reporting, frequency, medium to disseminate the reporting)
• Change management process (how requests for change are logged, submitted – to whom, revised, escalated- if necessary, approved and implemented)
• Consultation and feedback process (how parties are consulted, frequency, medium; how feedback is sought and analysed)
• Meetings (formal: frequency, attendees)
• Issue management process (how issues are logged, assessed, escalated, resolved)
• Process to review the agreement
• Any other process that you think would be relevant to the plan (example: schedule control, financial control, compliance monitoring, staff performance management etc.)

SECTION 4 –  CASE STUDY

You are 6 months into the delivery of your program, consider that the following has happened:

• The sponsoring organisation has decided to discontinue one of the projects in your program (mention which one);
• The collaborative ally requested to cut the resource sharing agreement by 70%;
• A progress report shows that 2 of the KPIs agreed in the MOU (mention the KPIs) have not been met.

Based on your program and your agreement and plans for the collaborative alliance, describe:

1. How the events in the scenario would affect the program (specify the project and the KPIs in your discussion)
2. What changes need to be made to the MOU
3. What actions can be taken to support the achievement of the two KPIs and what interventions need to be undertaken with the collaborative ally
4. Any other consideration based on the scenario (optional)