Digital and distributed project management in mechanical engineering studies – a case study

Abstract

The acceleration of product development requires clear and systematic project management as a guideline and reference point for engineers from different backgrounds, different organizations and different cultures. Project management has therefore been part of the education of mechanical engineers for years. During the last years product development projects evolved the need for agile and lean management methods. So concepts originated from software development influence the organization of even pure mechanical engineering departments. Multidisciplinary product development projects can nowadays hardly do without scrum.Now, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly transformed student cohorts from local classrooms into distributed teams from one day to the other. The basics of engineering project management could neither be explained nor trained in classroom teaching. Accidental discussions did not take place. Asking was difficult and feedback loops could not be closed. Exams in presence could not be carried out and has been transformed into some kind of homework assignment. The individual student got out of focus and learning success began to slip away. This contribution provides a case study how the sudden restrictions led to the implementation of a digital and virtual concept in teaching project management for mechanical engineering studies. It shows how classic project management is taught in a blended lecture set-up with asynchronous videos, synchronous web meetings and project based learning in a bachelor course. It further shows how agile project management is used to keep the close contact between student and teacher during student thesis. It also explains how scrum is applied to organize self-learning in a master course. The focus of this contribution is on the implementation of known methods with digital project management and communication tools. Finally, an attempt is made to compare the previous classroom teaching and the new digital teaching.