ACCA per Performance Objective9

PO9: Manage an assignment Managing an assignment effectively will comprise agreement of scope, objectives and resources; planning how to monitor and review progress (including the use of specific project management tools); and post-assignment evaluation. Trainees can demonstrate their competence in a host of ways, including: • • •

managing an external or internal audit assignment from start to finish, including delegation of individual responsibilities and communicating findings and recommendations to management learning how to effectively use project management software, or adapt programs such as MS Excel or Google Docs, to monitor and illustrate a specific assignment, as part of support provided to a project manager setting up a system for educating non-finance staff in essential financedriven procedures (eg purchase orders, timesheets, etc), including identifying and prioritising relevant colleagues, agreeing parameters with their workplace mentor supervisor and non-finance managers, organising or delivering the coaching and evaluating outcomes against prior performance.

Remember that the assignments they focus on to achieve this objective need to fall in line with organisational and/or departmental objectives. The next step is for them to answer the challenge questions for this objective in the trainee development matrix (TDM): •

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Trainees should describe their role in managing a discrete assignment – they should think about overall aims and expected outcomes – include specific responsibilities, including those they were originally assigned and those they have devised for themselves – they should explain how and why certain responsibilities emerged as the assignment progressed. Trainees should specify how they applied learning from their day-to-day role in the assignment? – they should consider competencies whose potential you stretched during the project, of which, through passing them on to others, will have developed your coaching, training or development skills

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– they should also consider previous projects they may have carried out, including skills they developed as well as knowledge they acquired as a result of things that may not have gone the way they planned. They should specify what they learnt from the assignment that will helped in their day-to-day role – focus on those competencies you developed purely as a result of the project – but remember these can include skills and knowledge acquired through working alongside more experienced colleagues in finance, or colleagues in other functional teams (eg HR, marketing, sales, operations, etc) – and which will enhance your performance in your mainstream duties (or in future assignments).

Performance objective 9 is linked to Paper F1, Accountant in Business, and Paper P3, Business Analysis. For PER support and advice on answering challenge questions www.accaglobal.com/students/acca/per/support