Project Management Education Research Articles

Perception of University Graduates about the Project Management Education in Pakistan “Professional Perspective”

This study examines the views of project management professionals (university graduates) about the Project Management education in Pakistan. It investigates current situation, problems, its causes, and suggestions for future improvements in the project management curriculum of Pakistan. The analysis is done through thematic analysis based on semi-structured interviews with 50 project management professionals in various sectors of Pakistan’s labour market. Interview method is employed to have detailed and in-depth discussion with practitioners about the subject matter. The research identified three major problems of project management education in Pakistan i.e., deficiency of skills, gap between theory and practice, and students’ interest during their study. Furthermore, the respondents provided suggestions to fix these problems through different means such as the revision of curriculum, provision of internships for students in national and international NGO’s, arrangement of training workshops for teachers as well as students, and a robust supervision from Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.

Innovation in project management education - let’s get serious!

More educators use serious games (e.g., games where the primary objective is learning rather than enjoyment) to enhance learning due to benefits such as improved understanding and engagement. However, using serious games within project management education is not well understood. The aim of this research is to investigate project management serious games in higher education: i) determine the extent of gamification in PMI-accredited project management programs, and ii) survey university students about their experiences playing project management serious games. Two separate mixed-method studies reveal insights about serious games in higher education and where innovations may be leveraged. Traditional statistics were used to analyze quantitative data, and coding was used to analyze the qualitative data. The results from a global survey of ten PMI-accredited university programs suggest that serious games are embryonic but promising. A case study at one university reveals that students enjoy learning through games but caution against using games to formally assess students’ learning. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research and development.

Project management education in Croatia

Since today's dynamic and competitive business environment increasingly requires additional level of competence, the project manager is, certainly, a profession whose value and demand is growing. As to reach the project objective, the project manager should have an adequate education, which is the reason why the corporations, especially in the Information Technology (IT) industry, are among leaders in investment to project management education and certification. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the identification and understanding of the project management education model in Croatia and explore possibilities for its improvements, especially in the field of the project management in the IT industry. For that reason, through 2018 and 2019, authors conducted the research on availability of project management education programs in Croatia, opportunities for international certification as well as attitudes of the project management professionals in IT sector on the existing education model. The study suggests that there is a growing trend of project managers’ certification, especially in the IT industry, as well as a variety of informal programs for project management education. Simultaneously, there is a lack of project management university study programs. Empirical results show that project management study programs lack the practical segment and are, in most cases, offering only fundamental theoretical knowledge. Therefore, authors, on the basis of the literature review and analysis of IT sector needs assessment, provide recommendations of the domains, to be included into future university study programs.

Case-teaching Problem of Project Management: Study for Undergraduate Business Major at Research-oriented Universities

The knowledge and competency of Project Management (PM) have become one of major common capability of employees while facing the huge change of competitive environment, that lets the curriculum and major of PM gain high attention from universities. Case teaching in PM courses is an important and highly applicable teaching method. Undergraduates program for business major at research-oriented universities start up to open the courses involving more and more PM. While, case teaching of PM has its unique challenges due to discrepancies of different training purpose and learners characteristics. Based on PM feature, case-teaching theory, instructional design theory and learner characteristics, this article studies and summarizes the following idea, case teaching theory and strategic feature of case teaching associated with PM curriculum for undergraduates of business school at research-oriented universities, including case features, value orientation and coordination process of case teaching etc.

Formation of competencies in the field of project management for future informatics teachers

The implementation of project management in the education system is impossible without the development of new types of competencies by teachers, which will allow the use of project management methods in professional activities. The article substantiates the need for training teachers who are competent both in managing student projects and in organizing their own project activities, as well as in project activities and project management of an educational institution. The article describes the experience of building competencies in the field of project management among students — future informatics teachers studying in the field of training 44.04.01 “Pedagogical Education” (master’s program “Information Technologies in Education”) at Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University. Based on the requirements of the professional standard 06.016 “Project Manager in the Field of Information Technologies”, the requirements for the competence of specialists in the field of project activities, etc., the author examined indicators for the formation of competency UK-2 “Able to manage a project at all stages of its life cycle” for academic discipline “Project Management in Education”. The methodology of forming competencies in the field of project management in education for masters of teacher education using the digital educational resource developed by the author is highlighted.

Construction of Educational Quality Evaluation Index System Based on Project Management

Project management is a sub-discipline of management. Using specialized knowledge, skills, tools, and methods in project activities enables the project to meet or exceed set requirements and desired processes under limited resource constraints. Project management is the overall monitoring and control of activities that are successful in achieving a range of goals. This includes planning, scheduling, and maintaining the progress of the activities that make up the project. A project is a one-time task that needs to be completed within a defined resource and within a limited time. Specifically, it can be a project, a service, a research topic, and an activity. Project management education reflects the characteristics of education and can better solve the problem of the quality of education personnel training and the needs of social talents. Project management education is an inevitable choice for reform.

Multidisciplinary Collaboration: an Integrated and Practical Approach to the Teaching of Project Management

This paper presents a practical approach to the teaching of applied project management in the form of a collaborative, multidisciplinary project involving the departments of Architecture and Urban Planning (AUP) and Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) at Qatar University. The two courses, Construction and Project Management (ARCT 530 AUP) and Project Engineering (IENG 481 ISE), were running in the same semester, which made it possible to assemble multidisciplinary project teams that included students from both courses, and to share out the management and development roles between them. The primary objective was to simulate a real-world scenario that gave students the opportunity to address the problems arising out from typical situations of professional projects, such as collaboration and leadership within a team, organisation and tasks' allocation, and the ability to manage the time pressure and meet deadlines. This approach brought the theoretical teaching of project management to be closer to its practical application and made it easier for the students to learn the techniques and tools commonly used in the professional setting.

Educational Project Management and Competitive Advantages of Educational Programs

The article presents the study results of students’ involvement in the transformation and development of intra-group interaction in the process of mastering an educational program. The key tool is students’ project work aimed at solving significant educational problems. Project management in the educational program is based on distributed leadership. However, based on the results of surveys, interviews, and product analysis of students ’project activities, the problem of students’ unwillingness to interact in the project group is revealed. The study purpose is to identify the impact of student engagement on the development of intra-group interaction in project groups. The correlation analysis has shown that students’ lack of readiness for interaction correlates with a low level of their involvement in project activity, which leads to the process formalisation and project activity results. The solution to this problem gives the educational program competitive advantages due to the formation of students’ competencies of interaction in project groups and distributed leadership.

Co-Creating Educational Project Management Board Games to Enhance Student Engagement

Management education scholarship has long outlined the need to enhance student engagement and participation in business schools, using more innovative teaching practices. This is increasingly motivating scholars to strive for more collaborative pedagogic dynamics between teachers and students. At the same time, research into co-creation of Game Based Learning material such as board games has largely focused on the value added to games when educators involve students in the design process. However there has been scant research examining the qualities of co-creational game design exercises as teaching experiences themselves, thus overlooking the opportunity to conceptualise such activities as an innovative teaching tool that can help educators facilitate student engagement and participation. To address this research gap, this paper presents a case study where Project Management students participated in two co-creation workshops designing educational Project Management games. Data were collected conducting focus groups at the end of the two workshops. Throughout the paper we have sought to present some positive outcomes of such processes as well as some critical points that emerged through the data that were collected. Mentionable outcomes include a series of positive characteristics of co-creative Game Based Learning activities like enhanced engagement as well as a list of challenges when facilitating such activities. The main findings of this research have been organised in two frameworks, one outlining five positive characteristics of co-creative Game Based Learning activities: engagement with knowledge, knowledge assessment, creativity, communication and the second outlining challenges in facilitating such activities: lack of focus, lack of structure and the need for more practice-oriented games.

Reinventing Universities: Agile Project Management in Higher Education

Reinventing Universities: Agile Project Management in Higher Education

Innovation diffusion in higher education

In the context of reforming the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there is an urgent need to review the approaches to determining the level of education and qualification of specialists for the organization of the educational process in higher institutions. Increased technological advances, coupled with new learners’ needs and pandemic situation, have created new realities for higher education contexts. The research findings shed light on trends in project management in higher education. Project management for innovations has come to be viewed nowadays as a crucial tool in increasing productivity of organizations and one of the most popular and useful tools for institutions to improve internal operations, respond to opportunities, manage contemporary challenges, and achieve strategic goals. A more in depth understanding of innovation can help administrators inspire innovations, mobilize those looking to innovate, respond to forms of resistance that are likely to emerge, and oversee the innovation diffusion process. A discussion of the following topics is meant to facilitate that understanding: impetuses for innovation, characteristics of language programs that stimulate or hinder innovation, and paths to successful innovation diffusion. The article concludes suggestions that are meant to guide language program administrators in their efforts to promote successful innovation while they simultaneously juggle the multifaceted demands of their administrative position in higher education institutions. Education during the pandemic have exposed education staff to a complicated array of pressures that impact their work methods and ability to function, but have also provided education leaders with opportunities to act autonomously and initiate changes in their institutions. Due to these changes, project management has become a critical tool for institutions and therefore adaptation of this discipline in the context is a matter of the highest priority in current educational systems. More specifically, this article has both theoretical and practical contributions. It promotes knowledge and understanding of project management within the institution’s contexts. Education sector specialists need to work with their existing skill sets for crisis-responsive programming but also need to develop new skills since we are all working under new conditions – specifically driven by social distancing parameters.

Multidisciplinary collaboration: an integrated and practical approach to the teaching of project management

Multidisciplinary collaboration: an integrated and practical approach to the teaching of project management

2D08 ライフタイムスキル育成のためのプロジェクトマネジメント教育 －ライフタイムスキル育成に有効な日程計画作成手法教育について－

2D08 ライフタイムスキル育成のためのプロジェクトマネジメント教育 －ライフタイムスキル育成に有効な日程計画作成手法教育について－

Practitioners’ Perspective on Software Project Management Education

Despite Software project management (SPM) being one of the most relevant topicsin the area of software engineering that should be addressed in computing programs, SPM skills of recent graduates are not satisfactory yet. In this context, besides being important to know there are skill deficiencies, we also need to gather specific information on how to adjust and improve the education on the corresponding topics. In this paper we attempt to identify what knowledge deficiencies in SPM can persist after a student graduates from a computing degree program. We surveyed practitioners that graduated and worked as software project managers to gather the knowledge deficiencies from the industry perspective. In general, the results indicated that there is a number of professionals who seeks postgraduate programs to fill the deficiencies of the undergrad programs.

Does previous work experience matter in students’ learning in higher project management education?

PurposeIn view of the substantial gaps between desirable and actual competencies of project practitioners, there is a genuine and continual need to improve approaches towards project management education. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether previous work experience of students pursuing a master’s programme in project management plays a role in their understanding and learning from the programme.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from 282 respondents, who included working project professionals along with first-year (junior) and second-year (senior) students of a two-year postgraduate programme in project management. Considering the responses of working project professionals as the benchmark, the paper employs exploratory factor analysis and multiple comparisons to examine differences in the perceived importance given to factor groupings of critical success factors (CSFs) of construction projects by different respondent groups.FindingsResults of the study suggest that irrespective of students’ seniority in the postgraduate programme, responses of students with previous project work experience more closely match the responses of project professionals, in contrast to students without such experience. The results indicate that students’ previous project work experience does play a role in their understanding and learning. In addition, the paper also identifies four factor groupings of CSFs and, diverging from past studies, conceptualises “alignment” as a new factor grouping.Practical implicationsFindings support the view that adequate previous work experience may be included as an essential qualifying requirement for pursuing higher education in project management.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first empirical studies that investigate the requirement of students’ previous work experience and reveals its significance in higher project management education.

Status and scope of project management in the hospitality industry

Status and scope of project management in the hospitality industry

AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR NON IT COMPANIES

Project management is becoming an increasingly preferred approach in the public and business sectors due to its orientation towards results. But the project management methodology is also evolving. In recent years, its most advanced option is the Agile project management. It emerged in 2001 after a conference in Chicago of software industry professionals discussing the possibility of a new method of work, later called Agile. A Manifesto has been developed that contains 12 principles and 4 values. The document has been translated into many languages and has become leading for many IT developers.Leading in the agile approach is that instead of investing in a detailed outline of processes, procedures and tools, is better for organizations to invest in people and in their interaction. Rather than focusing on comprehensive documentation from the beginning, it is better to focus on the final result of the project. Instead of settling legal issues and signing a preliminary contract, it is better to engage with customers (target groups) and seek a live connection with the users of the service or product.Gradually, the advantages of the new approach are gaining more and more adherents. According to the 11th Annual State of AgileTM - Report, 2016, the number of companies implementing agile project management is steadily increasing globally, with the process gradually entering non-IT sectors as well. According to the authors of the report, the benefit of the method is in several directions: results are achieved in a shorter time, organizations become more productive, risk is reduced, costs are decreased, etc.In Bulgaria, agile project management is applied mainly to companies that are branches of large foreign IT companies, and activities. Many small companies, as well as public sector organizations, still apply the traditional project management approach and so they miss the added value of providing goods and services to their customers in an agile manner.In this paper the idea of implementing the agile project management in non IT departments of companies is presented. Emphasis is placed on the iterative nature of operational management, whereby projects are divided into separate parts, prioritized and “delivered” in small cycles. At the same time, the issue of terminology of this approach is discussed. The main terms are different from these in the traditional project management and require additional efforts to understand and implement it. Special attention is also paid to the agile management of research and educational projects in the universities.

Effectiveness of Games in Software Project Management Education: An Experimental Study

Effectiveness of Games in Software Project Management Education: An Experimental Study

Project Management in Education: A Case Study for Student Learning Pathway Evaluation in a Lifelong Learning Program Using Fuzzy CPM and Fuzzy PERT

Project Management in Education: A Case Study for Student Learning Pathway Evaluation in a Lifelong Learning Program Using Fuzzy CPM and Fuzzy PERT

The analysis of the conditions influencing the development efficiency of the project managing in education

Today, the role of education is increasing in order to preserve and develop the advantages of the nation and the country's social and economic development. The strategic goals of education development require new implementation tools. The project activity plays a special role in this process; however, it is often formal and chaotic. There is a need to create effective project management systems in education and to improve the management and teaching staff competencies. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to understand whether the conditions for training systems formation for project management personnel are created. The study made it possible to determine the key constraining factor for the effective implementation of project management in education - the lack of unifed training methodology basics, and also clear bias of training programs towards one of its «project» component. The study uses the methods of theoretical research, these are: comparison, synthesis, methods of grouping and classifcation. We also used the method of data collection through the analysis of regional institutions of education development websites information. All in all there were involved 24 higher educational establishments: 3 random institutions from each federal district of Russian Federation.