*** P3 September 2015 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Sooo.. who else had a panic attack reading the first question?

Did panic too but had to contain myself. That was really an unpredictable wa6 of testing process improvement! Ran out of tome and ended up leaving part b.

Looked at question 1 and went what!! But stayed calm, was actually a nice 20 marker, just follow the template for the other one.

Outsourcing financial case was tough, figures were all over the place and weren’t that clear.

Mendelow is friendly.

Q4. was F5.

Q3. Obscure too, F5 stuff

Not much P3 stuff examined which is unfair to some considering the amount of information that has to be covered.

To be honest, I never read all the scenario in q1, its too long, just scan it and go to the requirements straight away and see what they are looking for. Time management in this exam I feared to be the toughest but todays paper I finished it all with a minute to spare. How well I finished it is another matter…best of luck everyone.

Can Someone tell me where are all the Important CORE AREAS of p3 in this exam ?
I didnt see any PESTEL, 5 FORCES , Porter Diamond, BCG matrix , SWOT ???
4.5pages of Case Study to read, to understand in such an Exam ! It was a difficult one, going for a resit in december for sure :/ :/ . Even Left question 4b blank. :/

I too was confused….no core models that I learned were on there….also was two of the questions relating to projects??? Resit for me for sure ? …I found this exam very different from practice papers!!

Study well on those popular models but they ended up with no-show in the exam. I have no idea with the prime motive of the examiner. They do play off all the P3 students as well as lecturer.

It was predicted that political matrix will be questioned but what did not expect was that it would be linked with the Harmon theory which require more time to think and apply to the scenario. Previous exam at least some what asked J, S W theory which is the core subject of P3 paper but it wasn’t the case this time. Again , Q2 SmatStore is also based on Harmon theory. It doesn’t make sense to focus on one theory (Harmon) in the paper. Although section B is reasonable questions which is somewhat console the heavy questions required in Q1. It seems like the examiner is now drifting away from his conventional way of setting the Q1. June15 paper also seem to be more time consuming to do Q1. Isn’t best to have Q1 case written on each side of the paper or try to make font smaller and give on one sheet because it’s annoying to turning back and forth to read the scenario which is also taking time.

For q1 what were the classifications you found based on the models provided???
I think second one was political hot box and based on harmons matrix it is high high! You agree??

Also how you classify the stakeholders based on mendelows framework??

Very unfair and not balance on the core modules. It seemed like testing nerves and panic response rather than P3 core syllabus.

I found it easier compared to the q in June.

For September,Q4 was for CFS, KIPs and mission statement , this is core to the exam and question was set up in an understandable manner.I really liked it as it was a very clear requirement – critically discuss..so no need to wonder if there was something wrong in the statetemt, you are told to criticaly discuss. Similar for q3.

However, Q1 was nightmare. I had less than an 1 hour and didnt manage to read and understand the audit part a…it sounded as f8…audit soo i was like really..answered only the outsoursing ans shareholder part.

Q1a did at first seemed ridiculous.. however using the opentuition exam technique tips, it stated to make sure you read the question First then relate it to the case study as you go through it..

in the end, Q1a was really easy…
the first project was to get rid of.. the office consumables supply (simple logic) -could make rent or profit on building used for it, and save money on labour costs vs getting the stuff cheaper from bigger outlets…
the second project was a core business of the council and highly complex (looking after homeless) and they needed to improve the clerical and IT processes in order to get to 95% accomodation and therefore more funding from government…

what seemed like a shock level of difficulty seemed like a gimme from the examiners once it was completed.. they even provided the Appendix template and stated to use the template for the processes… confusion set in, in terms of the low level of difficulty for P3 paper for this one…

there is always a chance that i screwed it all up and it turns into a disaster.. but on face value, was rather easy.. i think that maybe i forgot to include words like bespoke IT solution (i wish i had of !!!), and for this i may lose a few marks here and there.. in the end one only needs 50% all up 🙂

Q1b was also ok by the end…
using 35k households at 80% usage gives 28K households..

i did the figures for present situation and i ended up with about 350k rev minus about 50k (fixed) and 50K (variable) and 200k (collection) costs giving about 50K annual profit to council, but with 1.5mill to be paid for new capex, thats about 30 year payback ie; impossible..

then when i did the figures for No outsourcing by with New plant, it was only slightly better..
350k rev minus about 40k (fixed) and 40K (variable) and 200k (collection) costs (made up of 60k fixed and 140k variable ($5 per 28k households)) giving about 70K annual profit to council.. 1.5mill with 70k annual gives some 21 years payback..

then i realised that the objective of the question seemed to be, to evaluate financial data and effectively give the Opposition to Outsourcing a good factual reason for their stance..

so i realised that with outsourcing the 28k household users of which only 50% would be expected to pay due to survey, would have to pay $35 annually to Green Deal outsourcer etc…

so i went back to the second No Outsourcing but with new plant scenario, and stated that if the 28k households were to pay the $5 variable cost of collection annually to the council (as opposed to the $35 Green Deal option for which only 50% were willing to pay) that the council would then have 350-40-40-60=210k per yr profit on the plant.. 1.5mill with 210k profit per yr gives a very good and plausible 7.14 year payback..

i hope i got the figures and assumption of the objective of the question correct !!!

the part about why it would be difficult to bring back outsourced to inhouse, is simply the capex and running costs for which finding the funding within the council would probably be impossible.. because on top of that, they would have to get the expertised workers again, who have previously been fired or moved to Outsourcer etc… so i thought it was simply due to enormous costs facing council to bring it back in that would by that stage be prohibitive..

1c or d-the last part on the 3 stakeholders.. i had the regulater Ofpro as high power, low interest (cos of their 1000 business processes to cover) so a Keep Satisfied;
the employees and High interest but low power so Keep Informed.. and the CEO as Keep Happy cos he/she would be high power and high interest (due to potential of losing such a prestigious title and salary)