MQBS3010 – Agility Exercise

A Consultation, Tender, Engagement, Digital Literacy, and Employability Shock

Consulting and providing business acumen will be a part of your career. In this regard, we are
providing you an experience consulting to the Bachelor of Science (BSc) Capstone students.
Tender – is a process where you bid against others for a chance to be paid for your expertise.
Tender documents must adhere to a very strict format that is decided by a business or a
government department – so as to ensure consistency and comparability for competing bids.
Engaging the public about how your business enterprise helps address the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) is increasingly becoming a societal expectation.
Digital literacy and data are the currency of the new world of work – for you to stand out,
you need to learn new software, and utilise these tools to showcase your work.
Employability is increasingly about being agile, developing a growth mindset, and being a
lifelong learner, and showcasing these skills to the public.
Background
Your work on using commerce knowledge and skills to achieve the UN SDGs has developed a positive
reputation for utilising business acumen to achieve the UN SDGs. As such, your team has been hired
as consultants to consult another company in the UN SDG space. However, this other company has
skills and expertise which are predominantly in the Sciences. They do not have business acumen,
cannot conceptualise commercial viability, and they are unable to frame their project as a self-
sustaining business enterprise. Your job as a team, is to provide consultancy to a team in the Bachelor
of Science Capstone, who are working on their own UN SDG Capstone Project. They also require you
to provide the consultancy in a certain format – thus this exercise will involve you to be agile in learning
a new software package as well.

Please read through this entire document carefully – attending to all the numbered tasks on the next
few pages will fulfil the objectives in the background above.

This exercise involves tasks as a team, and tasks as an individual. There will be a team submission
(due May 5th) and an individual submission (due May 8th). The team submission is not explicitly
marked. The document that will be marked is each individual submission – where you will evidence
your contribution to teamwork. Each individual submission is based on discussing teamwork and
evidencing that teamwork (the team submission and the work involved in performing that task).
Thus, teamwork will be marked implicitly via each individual submission.

Industry Guest Lectures

During the Industry Guest Lectures in Week 8 (Monday the 24th of April) and Week 9 (Monday the
1st of May) – you will have the chance to gain insights and expertise from a range of industry experts,
specifically about consulting and working with others. As always, attendance in these industry guest
lectures is an expected part of your learning in this unit, and these events are part of your official
timetable of MQBS3010.
The upcoming industry guest lectures are specifically designed to help you with the Agility Exercise
and to enhance your employability beyond this unit. The details of the upcoming industry guest
lectures are on pages 3 and 4 of this document.
You are expected to provide evidence of attending at least one of these upcoming lectures (24th April
and/or 1st May) in your individual submission. This will need to include:
 At least one photograph of your attendance at an in-person industry guest lecture or at least one
screenshot of your attendance a Zoom industry guest lecture.
 At least one direct reference to an inspiration that you drew upon from the industry guest lecture
– what you learnt and how it helped you in the Agility Exercise and/or this unit in general.
TASKS AS A TEAM (20 ITEMS IN YOUR TENDER!):
1. Go to the Excel file: “BSc Mapping”. Here you will find the Bachelor of Science Capstone Project
mapped to your team. Please check this carefully! Each team name in MQBS3010 has a letter and
1 digit!
2. Go to the folder on iLearn: “BSc Project Briefs” here you can locate the file for the project that is
mapped to your team according to #1 above. You only need to consider one file!
3. Read through this brief. You are to use this as the basis for your consultation to the BSc students.
4. For this question you will directly consider the relevant BSc Project Brief. You do not need to
answer any / every question that the BSc team have asked in their file. You may answer all /
some of the generic questions below, instead, or in addition to, the BSc team’s questions. You
may even have better questions (of your choosing) that you might choose to answer.
 From the point of view and knowledge of your degree or major, what advice would you give to
this BSc project team?
 Do you think the BSc project is feasible in your professional view – including their business plan
and financial sustainability?
 How could the BSc team better communicate and connect with their identified stakeholders /
audience?
 Identify and comment on any risks or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
5. For this question you will consider commercial innovations beyond their project brief. What
further commercial insights can you give this team to improve their project and/or the
achievement of their UN SDG? For example, the team may not have thought of a marketing plan,
management of stakeholders, accounting records and reporting, financial returns and
sustainability, or micro/macro economic considerations, or other considerations pertaining to
your major. For this you can consider new ideas that could enhance their project. For this question,
you are to be innovative and creative – providing commercial innovations that especially draw
upon the application of your BCom knowledge and skills.
6. The BSc teams require the consultation document (no student IDs in the document) as an
infographic that is produced using a professional design software such as Canva
(www.canva.com) or similar – not MS Word or similar. You can click, “Get Canva Free” on their
site – you are not expected to set up a paid account. As part of the Agility Exercise, you will need
to train yourself in using the Canva Platform. This is to mirror what is expected of you in the
workplace – utilising new platforms, and being self-directed and self-guided in your learning.
7. Each team member should contribute 1 page each to the document, where each page is roughly:
a. Half of the page – text (any font size, any word count).
b. Half of the page – graphics, diagrams, and/or stock images (your judgment!)
c. Thus, a team of 6 members would submit a 6-page document.
8. Save the work in #7 as a single Team PDF which will need to be uploaded to iLearn “Agility Exercise
– Team Submission” in the Week 08 section of the MQBS3010 iLearn site – where there will be a
separate team submission link for each BSc Project. There will be one submission per team.
Please choose the relevant submission link according to your BSc Project partner team. This must
be submitted by Friday the 5th of May, 23:59.

Your PDF file will be passed on to the Bachelor of Science Capstone students at the end of Week 09.
In turn they will pass on their feedback to you about your project.
TASKS AS AN INDIVIDUAL (FROM NOW UNTIL THE INDIVIDUAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE):

Individual – Industry Guest Lecture

9. Attend at least one of the Week 8/9 Industry Guest Lectures as outlined on pages 2-4.
10. Take notes during these lectures to help inform how you will complete the Agility Exercise.
11. At least one photograph of your attendance at an in-person industry guest lecture or at least one
screenshot of your attendance at a Zoom industry guest lecture – to go in the evidence section.
12. At least one direct reference to an inspiration that you drew upon from the industry guest lecture
– what you learnt and how it helped you in the Agility Exercise and/or this unit in general – to go
in the main body of your essay.

Individual – LinkedIn
13. LinkedIn is a tool to showcase your skills and enhance your employability. Create a LinkedIn
account if you do not already have one. You are free to choose own privacy settings. Please note,
if for whatever reason you do not want to create a public post below, you can create a private
group of just your team members (as well as your seminar lecturer), and create a post that is
visible to only your team members. Please consult your seminar lecturer if you have any concerns.
14. Make a post on your LinkedIn account to showcase the
team PDF that you have created (click the “add a
document” icon when sharing your post to upload the
Team PDF). Type words to describe how you are bringing
your BCom knowledge and skills collaboratively, ethically,
sustainably, and profitably to achieve the BSc team’s
chosen UN SDG. There is no required word-length.
15. In your post, include the following hashtags: #UNSDG
#SDG #Sustainability #MqBComCapstone . Tag your
lecturer (the person who runs your seminar is your lecturer!) and/or the unit convenor in the
post. You are free to use additional hashtags and tags. The tagging helps your peers find your post!
16. Using the hashtags, find a post by a peer in the unit, and post a brief comment by providing them
with either inspiration, ideas, consultation, or feedback. There is no required word length.

Individual – e-Portfolio
17. An e-Portfolio is a website to showcase your skills and enhance your employability. You may wish
to research what an e-Portfolio is and/or research some best practice examples of e-Portfolios.
Create an e-Portfolio using any of the free tools described on page 7 of this document. You are
free to choose your own privacy settings for your e-Portfolio. Your e-Portfolio should have at least
4 sections: “About Me”, “Education”, “Experience”, and “Skills”. You can have other sections!
18. Upload your page of the Team PDF (or image file) in #7 on to your e-Portfolio – in any section.
19. Populate your e-Portfolio with at least two other items of your own choosing (any 2 items from
the BCom degree, or the BCom Capstone, or other achievements outside the BCom)
20. The Agility Exercise is a permanent shock that continues. In this regard, you will be using your
e-Portfolio as the “slides” you talk to in your final presentation in Week 13, and not PPT or other
platforms. You can continue to populate your e-Portfolio throughout the semester. An example
presentation will be provided to you in Week 10.
E-portfolio options for consideration

Platform features Wordpress Weebly Google Sites LinkedIn

1 Individual / Institutional Individual Individual Individual Individual
ownership
3 Integration with existing With plugin No Sort of No
LMS
4 Use all media Yes Yes Yes Yes
5 Security Due to being public and Open to public Open to public Password protected, and
open source, can be access is customisable
exposed to spam (if
comments are open)
6 Public / private (viewable Public Public Public – y Public – y
by all or restricted Private - y Private - y
access)
7 Shareable Open to public- URL link URL link URL link Some aspects open to
public, other access can be
customised
9 Free / Paid Free (but has some paid Free (basic only) Free Basic is free, premium paid
themes, domains, plug ins)
10 Open-source Yes No No No
11 Best for: Reflective blogging and Business websites Best for basic website or Presentation of work/
customising with over or design-based eportfolio (simple career activity &
54,444 plugins portfolios themes etc) networking
Notes

• Table adapted from table developed by Karina Luzia, MQ Learning Innovation Hub
• Wix.com is similar to Weebly and Wordpress and is another option
Individual Submission (this is what will be marked!)
Weight – 20%

Due – Monday, 8th May, 23:59 via Turn-It-In the iLearn site under the ‘Assessment Tasks’ tab.

Format – 800-word Essay (+/- 10%) and Teamwork Evidence via screenshots on 4 separate
pages of teamwork evidence after the written essay.

After your 800-word essay, you are to provide evidence that you have attended to the all the
items under mentioned in “Format” above: “Individual – My page from the Consultation
Document”, “Individual – Industry Guest Lecture photos / screenshots”, “Individual –
LinkedIn”, and “Individual – e-Portfolio”. This evidence should be presented on one separate
A4 page each (via photos / screenshots for the last 3 items and a copy of the actual page for
the 1st item) for each of these 4 tasks – that is, 4 pages of evidence in total.

For the essay – you are to write an essay on Teamwork. The context of this essay is how your
team worked together to perform the Agility Exercise. You have to specifically refer to your
team and the associated teamwork, and you have to specifically refer to the notes about the
Week 8 and Week 9 Industry Guest Lecture/s on page 2 of this document, making at least
one direct reference to an inspiration that you drew upon from an industry guest lecture –
what you learnt and how it helped you in the Agility Exercise and/or this unit in general.

In discussing the teamwork in the Agility Exercise, you can also refer to your teamwork in the
Capstone Project in general as well as Industry Guest Lectures from Weeks 1-7.

To assist you in writing this essay:

 Refer to the Teamwork marking rubric for the Agility Exercise on iLearn.

 Refer to the Teamwork module on iLearn.

Include the marking rubric criteria as the main sub-headings in your essay or you will lose
marks. After the last sub-heading, ‘Teamwork Evidence’, you are to include the 4 pages of
evidence (the 4 items are outlined in pink font above).

There is no expectation for an introduction or a conclusion – but you may choose to do so

if it helps you address the marking rubric.
A Note about Week 08 Seminars due to the ANZAC Day Holiday

The Industry Guest Lectures run as normal in Week 08.

However, we are having Open Seminars in Week 08 where you can join another
seminar group according to your major.

In Week 08 - you won't be joining your regular seminar as a team. Rather, it is an

opportunity to focus on your own chapter of the Capstone Project.

Week 08 will be an opportunity for you to ask discipline-specific questions around

your specific major for your chapter of the Capstone Project. As we have lecturers from
across all departments of Macquarie Business School in this unit, this is your
opportunity to meet and ask questions from a lecturer from a specific discipline /
major. The lecturer for each slot will also give some tips and guidelines for your
chapter. The timetable of Open Seminars appears on the next page.

While you must attend the Industry Guest Lecture in Week 08, you do not need to
attend your regular seminar in Week 08 - rather, we are opening up all the seminars
in this unit and re-organising seminars by major just for this week (Week 08).

Please follow the grid on the next page and choose the seminar time slot that suits
you based on the questions you need answering to help write your individual chapter.
If there is a clash, please work out a solution amongst your team members – where for
example, another team member may attend the required seminar and ask questions
on behalf of another. Week 08 seminars will be recorded.
All seminars in Week 08 will be via Zoom to allow for greater flexibility and to allow us
to record the seminars.
You will also meet peers from your major from across all seminar groups in Week 08.
If you have a question about your major and you cannot make your major's session -
you can pass your questions on to a team member who can then attend the session
on your behalf. #TeamworkMakesDreamwork ! Week 08 seminars will be recorded.

Please note:

. Tuesday the 25th of April is a Public Holiday in Australia.

. The university is running Jobs Happy Hour on Thursday the 27th of April: 2-4pm.

. Daniel’s Friday 9 am Seminar will still run as normal in Week 08 as your group missed
your seminar in Week 07 due to the Good Friday public holiday.

All seminar groups return to normal for all students in all majors in Week 09.
 Open Seminars in Week 08 Lectures - Everyone
All seminars are via Zoom (Zoom links
are embedded below) Seminars - by Majors
(optional if you cannot make a
Commerce - all majors
major-specific seminar)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

24th 25th 26th 27th 28th
Public Holiday
9:00 AM Jennifer Lai (Zoom) Rohan Best (Zoom)
9:30 AM Marketing (both majors) Economics
10:00 AM 9:00 am - 10:30 am 9:00 am - 10:30 am
10:30 AM Daniel Ding (Zoom)
11:00 AM Finance
11:30 AM 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
12:00 PM Macquarie Theare (21 WW) Nuraddeen Nuhu (Zoom)
12:30 PM Industry Guest Lecture Prashan Karunaratne (Zoom) Accounting
1:00 PM 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm BUSA / BusInfoSys / CybSecGov 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
1:30 PM 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
2:00 PM Atrium (14SCO)
2:30 PM Jobs Happy Hour Joseph McIvor (Zoom)
3:00 PM Nick Parr (Zoom) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Commerce - all majors
3:30 PM International Business (Drop-in any time) 2:30 - 4:00 pm
4:00 PM 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Joseph McIvor (Zoom)
4:30 PM Ian Dunbar (Zoom) MGMT & Entrepreneurship
5:00 PM Human Resource Mgmt 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
5:30 PM 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
6:00 PM Zoom Onur Ates (Zoom)
6:30 PM Industry Guest Lecture Commerce - all majors
7:00 PM 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
7:30 PM
8:00 PM