Project Management Education Research Articles

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.

Управление проектированием образовательной среды в школе

The study analyzes the social mandate for the education system, current school trends leading to new outcomes (special competence of children, personal qualities) while acquiring sociocultural values. In this context, the study updates the concepts of sociocultural identity, educational environment as a factor affecting the development of sociocultural identity that is the expected outcome. The content of sociocultural identity makes it possible to regard the educational environment management as an activity characterized by the interaction of participants in the education system and aimed at meeting the educational needs of a person. While studying the theory of management, the author identifies the following theoretical approaches of the educational environment project program: environmental, competency-based approaches, the creation of the sociocultural educational environment, the systematic approach to projecting the educational environment by the teacher that develops a child’s sociocultural identity. The stages of the educational environment project management are revealed. Within the main stage, i.e. the project one, children’s activities are presented, providing the opportunities to make their choice, be active, and express their individuality in the scientific, social, leisure, and sports activities at school. In the author’s opinion, the form of the research and the project of the educational environment involves promoting teachers’ activity, which determines the development of teachers’ training program on the educational environment management, the content and modules of this program, and the logic of learning.

The project manager core competencies to project success

PurposeThe past few decades have produced a number of investigations into the correlation between project managers’ competencies and project success. As a result, competencies lists have become extensive “shopping lists.” The purpose of this paper is to define the most important competencies to project success and investigate their correlations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed project managers on the importance of 28 project manager competencies to project success. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate procedures.FindingsData show that communication, commitment and leadership appear as the three most relevant aspects. Multivariate analysis identified seven groups of competencies: leadership, self-management, interpersonal, communication, technical, productivity and managerial.Practical implicationsThe results confirm a growing trend toward soft skills and reinforce the need for an update on project management education to fill the gap between theory and practice.Originality/valueProject manager competencies lists have become too extensive, and the field is in constant change; therefore, this study updates the discussion and downsizes the number of competencies to fewer, more relevant items.

El proyecto educativo institucional y su relación con la gestión educativa de calidad de la Institución Educativa Antenor Orrego Espinoza, San Juan de Lurigancho - Lima

The present research has a general objective to determine the relation that exists between the Institutional Educational Project with the Educational Quality Management. It is a research that belongs to the type of basic study because its results enrich the scientific knowledge in education. It is descriptive level and assumes the correlational design because it establishes a relationship between two variables: Institutional Educational Project and Quality Educational Management. The sample consisted of 165 people: 3 managers, 3 administrative and/ or personal staff, 11 teachers at the primary level, 16 teachers at the secondary level, 66 students at the 4th level of high school and 66 parents of the students. The sample size was chosen intentionally non-probabilistic.

PRACTICE EXPERIENCE IN ASSESSING THE PROJECT MANAGERS' LEADERSHIP SKILLS

In construction, the achievement of a project is mainly due to the work of the project manager and the contribution they make, as team leader, of knowledge, experience, and coordination skills. This paper presents a practical approach in assessing the students' leadership skills at the College of Engineering at Qatar University, by running a multidisciplinary collaborative project. The students acted as the project managers, involved in leading several working groups. The main aim of the exercise was to propose a practical approach to assessing the extent to which the knowledge and skills of a leader are important for ensuring that a project is completed successfully. The project manager's ability to lead a team through the different work stages of a project is seen as a fundamental contributor to its success. This practical approach to the appraisal of leadership brings the theoretical teaching of Project Management closer to its practical applications, by encouraging students to learn the leadership techniques and tools commonly used in the professional setting. The paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to focus more attentively on assessing leadership skills when selecting a project manager, in either an academic or a professional context.

PROJECT MANAGERS' RESPONSIBILITIES IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION PROJECTS: A CASE STUDY IN EDUCATION

The success of a project is not only built upon the performance of the team involved but also on the contribution of the project manager and the other participants such as the client, stakeholders, consultant, suppliers, and authorizing bodies. In particular, the project managers' contribution in coordinating and leading the participants is fundamental to the project success. The research hypothesis addressed in this paper is to investigate how a multidisciplinary collaboration experience between two departments, using a Work-Based Learning (WBL) method, can improve students' training while handling responsibilities in project management. This paper presents a practical approach to the teaching of Project Management, based on multidisciplinary collaboration protocol developed by the College of Engineering at Qatar University. Collaboration between two Project Management courses was repeated for two years, involving students of both disciplines in a joint assignment (a collaborative project). During the experience, the project managers' responsibilities were analyzed and evaluated by the students. Outcomes of the study show that because there is a close correspondence between project manager's skills, interpersonal action, and readiness to take responsibility, the success of a project is strongly influenced by the capabilities of its leader. The paper meditates on the contribution of the multidisciplinary experience in developing students' capabilities and responsibilities when working on a collaborative project, improving entrepreneurship's performance and building new ways of collaboration in higher education.

Designing game scenarios for software project management education and assessment

In recent years, an increasing interest has been observed in the development and use of simulations, serious games (SGs) and gamification strategies to teach software project management (SPM) in a highly practical way. The current SGs for SPM have a quite specific scope, are not able to provide and dynamically change game scenarios during the life of the SG and do not allow teachers to assess students' new skills automatically. These weaknesses led to the development of ProDec, a simulation-based SG that is able to incorporate SPM real-life practice. In this study, the authors discuss the use of SGs in SPM education before they describe ProDecAdmin, the game scenario design tool for ProDec. ProDecAdmin provides teachers with an environment for designing the game scenarios for ProDec. Additionally, it helps teachers establish the assessment criteria to automate the students' assessment during the game plays. These functionalities allow ProDec to offer students any game scenario that teachers design and to assess their performance in them. Hence, the tool ProDecAdmin helps the SG ProDec to overcome the lack of flexibility and automatic assessment identified in the current SGs for SPM. This study also outlines the results of the usability evaluation conducted.

THE SYSTEM OF NORMATIVE LEGAL SUPPORT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

Introduction: the Changing educational policy, reform the content of education, the priorities of the educational activities and direction of the forecasted development is closely associated with the normative description of these processes. When studying the development of project management in the education system, determining priorities and key areas of modernization of educational activities, it is necessary to take into account a holistic hierarchical and consistently interconnected system of normative support of education, covering all its levels, regulating the priorities of development and the mutual influence of various educational processes both in the system of levels of education management (from Federal to municipal levels) and in the continuity of activities of educational organizations. Materials and methods: the research Methods of this article are determined by the specifics of the research topic and represent the analysis of normative acts of different levels regulating relations in the field of education. The study uses the methods of theoretical research (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction, generalization, comparison, etc.); the study of the work of other researchers on this problem. Results: all the processes of change and transformation of the educational system are reflected in the normative documents accompanying its development, moreover, studying the regulatory framework of the educational system can not only fix its state at the moment, but also to see the priorities of development, to predict its further transformation. The study of the system of normative legal support of project management in education will allow to trace the hierarchical relationships between the levels of education, to see the consistency of regulations among themselves and to determine the leading priorities of the education system in this direction. Discussion and Conclusions: the study of the system of normative legal support of project management in educational activities allowed to identify the factors affecting the development of educational systems at various levels, classify them as system-wide or private, to identify a set of General requirements for the development of the educational system.

Study on Application of Bloom’s Taxonomy in Engineering Project Management Course

In recent years, educational reformers have focused on teaching philosophy of Bloom’s Taxonomy, studying theory and practice of relevant teaching philosophy at home and abroad in terms of cognition, application of engineering project management teaching models in classroom-based lamination teaching, classroom teaching models, assessment and evaluation.

Project management in higher education: a grounded theory case study

PurposeThis paper analyzes project and portfolio management within a major research library, while it was undergoing a complete physical renovation and reinvention of programs and services. This is a complex, almost 100-million-dollar undertaking that implemented a project management (PM) methodology known as portfolio management. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implementation and management of this process and provide a brief overview on project and portfolio management as a discipline. Additionally, it provides strengths and weaknesses as well as recommendations when implementing PM.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis uses a qualitative research methodology case study with a theoretical foundation of inductive grounded theory. The case study is based primarily on seven interviews of project managers who are involved with the project. It also uses document analysis to assist in triangulating the findings and provide a contextual overview of a complex process. A number of themes emerged into overall categories and findings.FindingsThe key takeaways were the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the process. The strengths were improved communication and transparency, improved organization and documentation and formal decision-making process and resource allocation. The weaknesses were the hammer and the nail problem, the tools and paperwork, rigidity and the lack of agility within the process. This study also describes the process in detail and gives recommendations for improving the methods implemented in similar circumstances.Originality/valueThis paper analyzes strategic management concepts from an empirical grounded theory approach and real-world perspective with key recommendations.

INFORMATION MODELING OF BEHAVIORAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES

The application of project management practices in contemporary business is continuously increasing with the aim of delivering the work packages in a more cost-conscious and controlled way while making the best use of limited human resources to meet customer requirements and create competitive advantage. In order to be considered competent, individuals working in the field should demonstrate a certain level of knowledge, skills, and abilities – assessed, developed or improved through a certification system. Taking into account the importance of information modeling and technology in the domain of project management as a set of practices that determine structure, lifecycle and accessibility requirements of information and the emphasis placed on the behavioral competencies of project, program and portfolio managers, the authors of the paper focused on exploring the challenges and specificities of the project management profession in Croatia. Empirical research was conducted in two steps. Firstly, a qualitative research was done using in-depth interviews with a member of the editorial board of a new project management international certification standard and two representatives of the certification body in Croatia: the director and the assessor. The collected data were analyzed using grounded theory approach and results in four main areas were obtained: project management and certification challenges, addressing certification body needs, the missing link between educational institutions and project management in practice and key project management competencies. In the next step, a quantitative research with a questionnaire as a research instrument was conducted among 53 certified project, program and portfolio managers in Croatia regarding their perception of the importance of the behavioral project management competencies. The results show that the majority of the certified experts in the field consider "leadership" to be the most important behavioral project management competency, closely followed by teamwork and self-management, while relations and engagement, conflict and crisis as well as negotiation and resourcefulness are considered to be of the least importance for conducting the project, program, and portfolio successfully. Statistically significant differences in assigning importance to various project management competencies were revealed with regard to several respondents' independent characteristics.

The five modes of comportment for project managing: Disclosing the tacit in project work

This study makes two contributions to the discussion of tacit knowledge in project managing. Firstly, it provides a framework to examine the tacit aspects of project managing based on the Heideggerian concept of comportment. Secondly, it identifies five modes of comportment that are common across the study participants. Comportment is concerned with what humans are directed towards and how their attunement with equipment in their day-to-day life of coping reflects this directedness. Our study uses photo elicitation and semi-structured interviews to reveal the comportments that practicing project managers adopt towards the equipment in their practice. We propose that the framework and modes of comportment will provide a useful research tool for exploring the tacit in project work and an alternative framework for project management education that aligns with both the ‘lived experience’ and critical project management agendas.

The effect of using flipped teaching in project management class for undergraduate students

Teaching Project Management module to undergraduate students is important and has been globally considered in multiple academic disciplines by many higher institutions. Students in undergraduate level encounter difficulty in understanding the topic of project management since there have no prior knowledge before the course. This paper aimed to determine the effectiveness of flipped teaching and active learning in Project Management module for undergraduate students in Civil Engineering. However, the paper discussed the effective practices in teaching and learning project management and their impacts into students’ learning experience, and assessments development and marking. The Padlet and SurveyMonkey e-tools were used to collect students’ feedback on the instructor practice; either by tagging comments or filling questionnaire. The results indicated that the use of multiple in-class activities and digital technology in a flipped classroom are important to enhance students’ performance. It is also observed that the use of multiple assessments engaged students deeply with the course and provide deeper learning. Students’ performance in summative assessments showed that there is a noticeable improve in student’s scores in the current semester in contrast with previous semester where traditional teaching was practiced.