| Course | GM591 Strategic Project Selection and Initiation |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Project screening matrix |
| Length | About 880 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GM591 Unit 2
Nine Proposals, Five Filters: A Unit 2 Project Screening Matrix for an Electric Cooperative
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GM591: Strategic Project Selection and Initiation
Unit 2 Project Screening Matrix
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The electric cooperative, its proposals and every figure are composite and illustrative; the frameworks cited are real.
Why Screen Before Scoring
Coteau Plains Electric Cooperative serves about 28,000 members across a rural service area in the Upper Midwest. Each year its planning committee, made up of the general manager, the heads of engineering, operations, member services and finance, and two board members, chooses which capital projects to fund.
Norman Archer and Fereidoun Ghasemzadeh describe portfolio selection as a sequence in which proposals are screened against basic requirements before they are evaluated and compared, so that effort is not spent scoring projects that should never be in the ranking (Archer & Ghasemzadeh, 1999). Robert Cooper and colleagues call these requirements must-meet criteria: knockout questions a proposal must pass before should-meet criteria are scored (Cooper et al., 2001). This matrix applies five such filters.
The Five Filters
Obligation. Is the project required by law, regulation, safety code or a binding contract? If so, it bypasses the ranking and goes directly to the capacity plan, because the cooperative must do it regardless of score.
Strategic fit. Does it serve at least one of the board's three strategic goals: reliable power, rates held within inflation, and modern service to members? A pass serves one goal clearly; a conditional serves one only under stated terms.
Problem definition. Does the proposal state the problem it solves, with evidence, and name a sponsor who will answer for it?
Rate impact. Would the project raise the average residential rate by less than 2 percent in any year?
Deliverability. Can it be delivered within three years with the cooperative's staff and contractors?
The Matrix
Advanced metering replacement. Obligation: no. Fit: pass, serving reliability and member service. Definition: pass; the current meter system loses vendor support in 2028, and the member services director sponsors it. Rate impact: pass, about 1.1 percent at peak. Deliverability: pass, about 30 months. Goes forward.
Outage management upgrade with a member app. Obligation: no. Fit: pass, reliability and service. Definition: pass; outage restoration times rose 18 percent in two years, and the operations director sponsors it. Rate impact: pass, about 0.3 percent. Deliverability: pass. Goes forward.
Vegetation risk analytics. Obligation: no. Fit: pass, reliability. Definition: pass; tree contact caused 41 percent of outage minutes last year, and the engineering director sponsors it. Rate impact: pass, under 0.1 percent. Deliverability: pass. Goes forward.
Community solar array. Obligation: no. Fit: conditional; it serves member service only if members subscribe. Definition: pass; 1,900 members asked for a renewable option in the last survey, and member services sponsors it. Rate impact: conditional; about 0.6 percent if the array is half subscribed. Deliverability: pass. Goes forward with both conditions recorded.
Fiber broadband build. Obligation: no. Fit: conditional; the board's plan lists broadband as a goal to explore, not adopt. Definition: pass; the pilot area has no wired service above 25 megabits, and the general manager sponsors it. Rate impact: conditional; the program is financed through a subsidiary, but if the state grant is denied, about 1.6 percent of its cost could fall on electric rates. Deliverability: conditional, depending on the pilot's gate review. Goes forward with conditions.
Pole-loading remediation. Obligation: yes; the state safety code requires poles found overloaded in last year's survey to be corrected within three years. Bypasses ranking.
Control network segmentation. Obligation: yes; separating the control network from the business network is a condition of the cyber insurance renewal. Bypasses ranking.
District office EV chargers. Obligation: no. Fit: conditional. Definition: fail; the proposal states no problem and names no sponsor, and its only justification is that other utilities have chargers. Returned to the proposer with a request for a problem statement.
Drone inspection program. Obligation: no. Definition: pass in part, but the problem it addresses, finding overloaded and damaged poles, is the pole-loading program's work. Merged into pole-loading remediation as a method, with its cost added to that program.
Two of the nine proposals are obligations, and putting them in the ranking would have let a must-do project compete against discretionary ones it could never lose to.
Discussion
The screen removed four of nine proposals before any scoring. The two obligations are not lower priorities; they are higher, but they are not choices. The Project Management Institute's portfolio standard treats mandatory work as a separate category that consumes capacity before discretionary work is selected (Project Management Institute, 2017). Here, pole-loading and segmentation will take crew time and IT staff first, and the capacity plan must account for them before any ranked project is scheduled.
The drone merger matters because scoring it separately would have double-counted the benefit of finding bad poles. The EV charger proposal failed for a reason that can be fixed: a proposer who returns with a problem, such as fleet electrification costs, can enter next cycle.
Three of the five survivors carry conditions. Recording them now means the scoring stage and the board will see them, rather than discovering later that solar's rate impact depended on subscriptions or that fiber's depended on a grant.
References
Archer, N. P., & Ghasemzadeh, F. (1999). An integrated framework for project portfolio selection. International Journal of Project Management, 17(4), 207-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(98)00032-5
Cooper, R. G., Edgett, S. J., & Kleinschmidt, E. J. (2001). Portfolio management for new products (2nd ed.). Perseus.
Project Management Institute. (2017). The standard for portfolio management (4th ed.).
Reading the GM 591 Unit 2 instructions
GM591 Unit 2 asks you to build a screening matrix that decides which proposals may compete before any are scored. Define a small set of filters, usually four to six, each with a threshold a second person could apply and reach the same answer. Include an obligation filter, and route legal, safety or contractual requirements around the ranking with their source recorded, since they consume capacity but are not choices. Apply each filter to every proposal, with pass, fail or conditional and a one-line reason. Merge proposals that address the same problem, and return those that fail with what would let them re-enter. Record conditions on proposals that pass only under stated terms. Then discuss what the screen removed and what it hands to the scoring stage. Expect about four pages with a one-page matrix, citing portfolio selection frameworks in APA 7.
Inside the GM591 Unit 2 example
The paper introduces a cooperative of about 28,000 members and its planning committee, then cites Archer and Ghasemzadeh on screening before evaluation and Cooper and colleagues on must-meet criteria. Five filters are defined. Meter replacement, the outage system and vegetation analytics pass every filter, with sponsors and evidence such as tree contact causing 41 percent of outage minutes. Community solar passes conditionally on subscriptions, and fiber conditionally on the board's plan, a grant and the pilot's gate. Pole-loading and segmentation are obligations, which the highlighted sentence explains. EV chargers fail definition and drones merge into pole-loading. The discussion cites the Project Management Institute's portfolio standard on mandatory work consuming capacity first, explains the merger and records the three conditions for the scoring stage.
Reading the GM591 Unit 2 grading rubric
GM591 rubric credit for this matrix depends on filters that can be applied consistently and a clean separation of screening from scoring. Instructors check that each filter has a clear threshold and that every proposal receives a result with a reason. Treating obligations as their own category, with sources recorded, earns significant credit because ranking them would distort the portfolio. Merging overlapping proposals shows judgment about double counting. Conditional results recorded for the next stage show the screen feeds later work. A discussion of what the screen removed and why rounds out the paper. The reference list pairs Archer and Ghasemzadeh's integrated selection framework with Cooper, Edgett and Kleinschmidt on must-meet criteria and the Project Management Institute's 2017 standard, all in APA 7.
Common GM591 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GM591 Unit 2 matrices score proposals rather than screen them, which mixes the two stages. Others include obligations in the ranking, where a required project can lose to a discretionary one. A frequent gap is the threshold: filters such as strategic fit need a definition, or each reviewer will apply them differently. Some writers drop failing proposals without saying how they could return. Define four to six filters with thresholds, apply them to every proposal with reasons, route obligations around the ranking, merge overlaps, record conditions on partial passes and explain what goes forward to scoring.
Get a GM591 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
List the candidate projects your prompt supplies, or the ones competing for money where you work, and add the Unit 2 instructions and rubric along with any strategic goals the organization has published. The sample matrix is free on a first request and ready in 24-48h, with every threshold stated before a single cell is filled. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More GM591 papers and MS in Management samples
- GM591 Unit 1: Project Escalation Discussion Post
- GM591 Unit 3: Financial Screening Exercise
- GM591 Unit 4: Weighted Scoring Model
- GM591 Unit 5: Business Case
- GM591 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- GM591 Unit 7: Project Charter
- GM591 Unit 8: Gate Review Memo
- GM591 Unit 9: Portfolio Capacity Review
- GM591 Unit 10: Selection Recommendation
- GM586 Unit 2: Full Range Model Application
- GM585 Unit 2: Coaching Skills Self-Assessment
- GM543 Unit 2: Star Model Organization Profile
- GM541 Unit 2: Uptime Contract Change Classification
GM591 Unit 2 questions, answered
How is screening different from scoring?
Screening decides which proposals are eligible to compete; scoring ranks the ones that are. Screens are pass or fail against stated thresholds, and a proposal that fails one is out regardless of its other merits. Scoring then weighs trade-offs among the survivors. Many papers blur the two, and a matrix that keeps them separate reads as better organized.
Should mandatory projects appear in the matrix at all?
Yes, but marked as obligations and routed around the ranking. Leaving them out hides the capacity they consume, and ranking them invites the absurd result of a legal requirement losing to a discretionary project. Record the source of the obligation, such as a code, contract or insurer condition, so the reader can verify it.
How many filters does a screening matrix need?
Enough to remove proposals that should not compete, and few enough that each is meaningful. Four to six is common in course examples. Each filter needs a threshold a second person could apply and get the same answer. Filters that every proposal passes add nothing, and filters that require judgment usually belong in the scoring model instead.
Where can I find a free GM591 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries a full GM591 Unit 2 project screening matrix for nine electric cooperative proposals, with five filters, two obligations routed around the ranking and APA 7 references.
Why do obligations bypass the ranking?
Required work, such as safety code repairs or an insurer's condition, must be done regardless of score. Ranking it would let a mandatory project compete against discretionary ones it could never lose to, so it goes straight to the capacity plan instead.