Hybrid Project Management in Post-secondary Research and Education

Abstract

AbstractWhat happens when an IT Program Manager returns to academia? They bring their project management toolkit and begin teaching, research, and service activities with a hybrid project management mindset. We initiated a Gaming Community of Practice at Bond University, Australia, to explore serious games and gamification techniques and their relationship to student learning and engagement. Lean principles were applied to reduce research barriers. This paper is about how hybrid project management was used to initiate and manage the Gaming Community of Practice and their interdisciplinary research program. One of the early benefits of this hybrid project management approach is that the institutional research approval process was transformed and made lean by setting up a five-year research agreement for the Gaming Community of Practice with the university’s Research Ethics Committee. In addition, a quality control process was initiated that reduced administrative burden yet addressed risks related to research. This autoethnographic research illustrates how a hybrid project management approach combined with emerging best practices like Agile values and principles are used in a Gaming Community of Practice. Early and significant benefits were realised by pursuing lean thinking and implementing lean optimization techniques. These same techniques and tools form the core of leading-edge innovation projects that might interest others in post-secondary education.KeywordsAutoethnographic researchEthics approvalHybrid project managementLean thinkingOpportunity managementQuality managementRisk management