Project Management - European Society for Engineering Education

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courses focus on the 'hard' skills of project management, namely the numerical and planning .... The films used to date have been 'Hoosiers', 'Master and.
Project Management: The Key to Engineering Employability

R. Clark Aston University, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK ([email protected]) Abstract In the modern engineering work environment, much of what takes place is in the form of projects. The ‘project’ has become for many companies the most common currency, yet how projects are managed is not as effective as it should be, particularly if businesses are to grow and prosper. In many organisations it is engineers that find themselves identified as project managers, yet they do not always possess the right skills to perform effectively in the role. With references to student experiences from a newly developed module in project management, this paper will explore the rationale of the module construction and discuss how a focus on employability has been the key driver. The balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills will be considered, in particular the way in which they are introduced to engineering students to ensure their relevance is apparent. The use of a term long project using enquiry based learning has been supplemented with lectures, games, DVD’s and a visit away from the university. With increasing focus on making higher education courses relevant to future employability, this module, the keystone course on an MSc in Engineering Management, has become a catalyst for the development of the overall programme and a driver towards professional accreditation. Having established the module and seen the positive experiential feedback from students, the next steps will involve a longitudinal study in which the graduating students will be tracked as they enter the world of work to capture their project management experiences.

Keywords: project management, employability, curriculum development

1. INTRODUCTION Engineering education has seen much attention in recent years [1,2]. For the future prosperity of the UK, the need to train and educate more engineers is well documented [3]. Additionally, the Leitch Review of Skills [4] has suggested that skills development and employer focused programmes need to form a more substantial part of the university sector. Although reporting on the UK, the needs are global, acting as drivers for the development of more relevant and engaging offerings from higher education institutions. A subject that is broadly seen as being relevant across all engineering disciplines is that of project management. The ‘project’ has become the way in which engineering organisations do their work, as such, knowledge and skills in project management are increasingly sought after. To give an idea of the growth being witnessed, Arbaugh [5] reports that the number of people gaining the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional Certification has risen from 3,700 to 247,000 between 1998 and 2007. Given this need, the challenge is to develop teaching that is appropriate and which can be delivered in the often short time available in a modern degree programme. The context for this paper is an MSc programme in Engineering Management.

2. WHAT IS ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT? Engineering Management effectively straddles the engineering and business subject areas. As such, its cross-disciplinary credentials are welcome but the subject itself can suffer from a lack of definition. In today’s engineering business environment, many engineers find their path towards career advancement means a move into management. This step may seem natural, but to engineers it can often present a significant challenge. To properly understand this, we should ask ourselves why people study engineering in the first place. Most often the choice is made due to an interest in the sciences and mathematics, areas that can, to a great extent, be well defined using numbers. All the time that technical challenges are the focus, the engineer tends to feel comfortable with their work. Then there is the move into management! Working with people and the requirement for ‘soft’ skills is often not the easiest of steps for an engineer to take. This is where engineering management comes in. There are two ways to look at the Engineering Manager. They may be perceived as the person responsible for specifically managing the engineering processes within an organisation [6]. Alternatively, they could be playing the role of a more global manager within an engineering company [7]. The difference is subtle. The first would still expect to be very much involved in the technical aspects of the business, as their focus would be only in those areas of work. The second considers a more ‘rounded’ person involved in all aspects of the engineering business and likely not to be so involved in the technical detail. Goldberg [8] talks about life skills for engineers as being a first step towards a career in engineering management. The development of these skills can ultimately lead to a leadership position, but for many the truth of the relation ‘Technical Skills + Life Skills = Engineer’ is the most important realisation.

3. DEFINING THE PROJECT MANAGER Projects form an important and ever increasing component of today’s business environment. Global dispersion has accelerated the need for companies to have in place a framework for ‘getting things done’. Modularisation of much that is to be performed has allowed the ‘project’ to develop and with it the need for people to perform and manage these projects. These trends hold whether we are talking about manufacturing, technology development or construction. Much has been written about the development of project management as a discipline [9] and more recently authors have identified what they believe the future holds [10]. Case studies discuss both good and bad practice, all of which adds to the foundation knowledge that every discipline requires. Frameworks such as the Association for Project Management (APM) Body of Knowledge [11] have become commonplace as the profession works to institutionalise good practice. Much of the detail of these frameworks relates to the formal project management process with identified control points that form the core of the discipline. An effective project manager must have a good understanding of this structure (the ‘hard’ skills), but this alone does not guarantee the success of a project. The Project Management Process Model in Figure 1 describes the broader requirements for a good project manager and will guide the exploration of how students in higher education can develop these skills. The model identifies 5 key areas. The technical core represents the skills, knowledge and understanding that people possess and that forms the core of any engineering enterprise. Being able to think strategically allows the formulation of company objectives that projects, using the technical knowledge, are set up to make become a reality. This is facilitated through the management of projects using an adopted framework (the ‘hard’ skills). Since it is people that make the process happen, working with others must be a major consideration of any project manager (the ‘soft’ skills). Information keeps the process fuelled and it is the project manager who must be able to provide, use and manage the information for the effective operation of the team.

Management of Projects

Strategy

Technical Core

MIS and Data Flow

People

Communication arrows

FIGURE 1.

The Project Management Process Model

The feature that links these areas and promotes process effectiveness is communication. Whether it is person-to-person, computer-to-computer or person-to-computer, good communication works to make the project run as smoothly as possible. Recent arguments by authors have suggested that the ‘hard’ side of project management is well defined, so now we need to turn our attention to the ‘soft’ side, particularly interpersonal skills [12]. By adopting this model, we have a foundation on which to build our project management module whilst adopting constructive alignment as the mantra by which we develop the learning outcomes [13].

4. TEACHING PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Although project management has been acknowledged as a subject of importance to engineers, it is only recently that authors have started to discuss how the subject is taught in higher education. Many courses focus on the ‘hard’ skills of project management, namely the numerical and planning aspects, although there are some that are more biased towards the ‘soft’ side of project management covering subjects such as teamwork and organisational management. The rationale for choosing one approach over another is dependent on many factors including the ethos of the university, the aims of the programme and the perception of what skills are most appropriate, amongst others. Pant and Baroudi [14] address this issue and argue that the key is a balanced approach, although with most project management frameworks emphasising the ‘hard’ skills, the education offered at university should be looking to counter this with a greater focus on human skills. Mengel [15] suggests that project management and leadership are closely linked. Referring to work performed at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, Mengel has identified that bringing the two disciplines together with focused learning outcomes not only develops a robust skill set, but promotes reflection and problem solving. These characteristics are invaluable when managing projects and not readily developed when focusing on the ‘hard’ project management skills. The breadth of the project management skill set, as presented in the earlier model, is discussed further by Fisher [16]. Although focused on construction project management in a government context, Fisher suggests that following a benchmarking study, the 10 knowledge areas of the standard US Department of Energy framework needs to be extended to 17 competencies with many of the additions ‘soft’ skill

competencies. This analysis is important evidence that needs consideration when developing project management modules in higher education. Experiential learning is advocated by Hicks [17] as a way to develop interpersonal and teamwork skills that are such a vital requirement of modern project management. Hicks argues that project management is essentially the management of people and teams, so developing a programme based around ‘learning by doing’, supported by more traditional teaching, is the most appropriate approach to take. As Sophocles is said to have stated almost 2,500 years ago, ‘one must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try’. It is this argument that suggests the value of using Problem Based Learning (PBL) [18] or the broader Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) [19] as a key feature of the teaching practice. Barron [20] and Sense [21] build on the experiential learning argument and emphasise the need to create a suitable environment for learning and learning behaviours that will lead to success. The situational context advocated by both authors emphasises the need for a pragmatic approach to project management teaching and learning. One way that ‘real life’ may be encountered is through the use of simulation [22]. This approach needs to be considered with care as it does not fully support Hicks definition of project management and could appear too remote. It is against this background that the discussion of the approach taken at Aston University is explored.

5. CASE STUDY: A PROJECT MANAGEMENT MODULE AT MSc LEVEL Project Management is a subject that can appear very mechanistic in nature when it is first encountered. Unfortunately for the developing engineer, the framework is only the starting point. Hidden are the many ‘soft skills’ that are often the key difference between project success and failure. These have been identified as a focus for this module and it is within this context that the approaches described in this paper have been employed. The 4 approaches to be discussed are: a) short formative and summative exercises b) a leadership assignment based on a movie c) a group PBL project d) a reflective exercise linked to a field trip.

5.1 Short Exercises Since the project management module is one of the first the students take on the Engineering Management programme, it has an important role to play in helping students become familiar with the approach to teaching and learning in the UK. This is important as the cohorts are generally very diverse in terms of their cultural mix. Short exercises based around case studies, problems and newspaper articles are used to get the students to think about the application of what they are studying. The exercises promote reflection and give people the opportunity to demonstrate their communication skills through either writing or discussion in class. The exercises are a mix of formative and summative and they allow the students to develop their foundation in the subject. This facilitates ‘quick wins’ that build confidence and at the same time allow lecturers to identify areas where there may be problems. The exercises are always discussed in class, often starting with buzz groups. This presents an opportunity to place students in groups that represent a mix of different cultures, something they may well experience in a project situation when they gain employment. The approach places responsibility for learning firmly with the student from the start. There are quite often ‘grumbles’ as the course is seen as hard work, but this changes by the end of the module, as the

student feedback has shown. A typical comment is ‘participation is encouraged in class, everyone has a chance to get involved and setting many small assignments gives us good practice’.

5.2 Leadership Assignment Leadership is a subject that could constitute a module or even a programme in its own right. It is an important characteristic of an effective project manager and one that the engineers on the programme rarely have much knowledge about. In order to make the study of leadership more engaging, the class is centred on a feature film. A background to some of the ideas on leadership is given in the first hour of the class, along with some supplemental reading and references for the students to take away. The students are then given an assignment that requires them to watch the film and observe leaders in action. The approach was inspired by the Hartwick College Leadership Cases [23], although the assignments are developed in house to meet the needs of the module. The films used to date have been ‘Hoosiers’, ‘Master and Commander’ and ‘Twelve Angry Men’. The assignment focuses the students on the features of both good and bad leadership and asks them to examine their observations in the light of the theoretical ideas they have been introduced to. A final question encourages the students to reflect and identify the leadership characteristics they deem most important and to suggest a person that demonstrates their choice. This results in a range of names from celebrities and sportspeople to business colleagues and family members. The assignment scores tend to be high and the leadership question on the exam paper is often one of the most answered, indicating a degree of confidence with the material studied. As with the short exercises the focus is very much on the students taking ownership of their learning, as the class is limited in what it can cover.

5.3 Group PBL Project The key attribute of PBL is that it enables learning to take place in a practice-based environment, exactly what a developing engineer wants to experience. Groups work on problem scenarios to provide solutions. There are usually no ‘right answers’, so the groups will often develop a range of possible solutions. This range of solutions provides a valuable basis for the groups to then collectively discuss the merits of the various options. Since the PBL exercise is targeted towards project management, the students have an idea as to what may be the key points to explore in developing a solution. This does not preclude the students bringing in other areas of their studies and knowledge they have gained from experience. The motivating factor for the students is often the almost tangible link between the exercise and what they may experience in their employment after graduation. For the lecturer though, they must learn to take on the role of facilitator rather than expert, something that they may not be comfortable with. One of the main challenges of PBL is ensuring that the assessment reflects the approach to learning. This has been discussed in detail by Macdonald and Savin-Baden [24]. Key amongst the requirements is the need to ensure that the assessment supports learning. In order to achieve this it is often better to consider a multi-dimensional assessment strategy rather than relying on one single approach. By creating a professional environment and encouraging the students to develop and make use of a range of abilities, it would follow that the assessment should comprise different components. This has been the approach adopted within the project management module. The students are identified in groups and play the part of a project team over the course of the module. The project is defined, the company they are part of introduced and the tasks they need to consider identified. Although the tasks follow the material covered in lectures, the groups have the freedom to explore the subject and the solutions in their own way. They are required to meet milestones as in a real project situation, so the work is continuous throughout the 10 weeks of the module.

The group work is a valuable exercise in its own right as the students know little about each other, so from the start there is a need to build relationships and determine how best to work together. The prospect of peer assessment once the exercise is completed also encourages a spirit of co-operation. Each week the project progresses a little further – deadlines are met (or not), problems encountered and information is supplied. The assessment throughout the project is again a mix of formative and summative and takes the form of presentations, review meetings using role play, briefing documents and letters. The exercise concludes with each group giving a presentation reviewing how the project has unfolded for them, how they would intend to audit the work on completion in order to maximise the opportunity for organisational learning and the identification of the key learning points from their experience. With the presentation a Project File, compiled over the 10 weeks is submitted for assessment. The Project File is a record of the entire project and includes minutes, notes, e-mails, drawings, plans and assignments. Course feedback has indicated that the PBL exercise is the most popular part of the module. The most often quoted comment is that it enabled the ideas presented in class to be implemented and validated in a pseudo real project environment. This validation allows the students to determine the contribution made by each project management idea to the overall progress and success of the project. From this they have a ‘toolbox’ to take away with them once they have finished the programme. One student commented after returning from a job interview that, ‘the project management skills I have developed were the difference and helped me get the job’. Different versions of the exercise have been developed to allow the introduction of different challenges for the students. Example projects have been a contract to inspect rail in China, the development of technology for the International Space Station, implementing a new roller coaster at a theme park and the construction of a 50m swimming pool in Birmingham for the Olympics.

5.4 Reflective Exercise The reflective exercise takes place towards the end of the project management module. The exercise is conducted by way of a field trip, with the students travelling to Bristol to visit Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s steamship the ss Great Britain (Figure 2). The ss Great Britain, Brunel’s great steamship, was launched in 1843. At her launch she was the biggest ship in the world and was a technological marvel. She was the first ship that combined the screw propeller and an iron hull and, as such, is considered the forerunner of modern shipping.

FIGURE 2.

In the ss Great Britain dry dock

The students hear the story of the ship from the museum curator and a description of the innovative £11.3m restoration by the project manager [25,26]. With plenty of time to explore both the history and the technology, the students are required to complete a written exercise that contrasts the approaches to project management across time and to put themselves in the role of the restoration project manager as they have to make decisions. The exercise promotes reflection and gives the students an opportunity to put some of their new skills into practice. The change of environment is a stimulus in its own right, but the project itself illustrates the value of looking backwards as well as forwards in time when pursuing solutions and a path for learning. The contrasting eras offer a wealth of lessons to be learned and an opportunity to experience the results of project management in action. The assignment has allowed the development of relationships with organisations outside the university and for the students from outside the UK to experience some UK culture in the form of a world renowned heritage attraction.

5.5 Future Work The success of the module is evidenced by the absence of students failing the module, the comments from students and the high teaching scores. The focus has been to align the teaching with clear profession driven outcomes in a practical and engaging way. The students are required to take responsibility for their own learning, but this is achieved within a supportive and friendly environment. The accreditation of the Engineering Management programme by the Chartered Management Institute in the summer of 2007 was seen as a confirmation of the rigour of the approach employed. This has given the teaching team the encouragement to explore further innovation in the future, developing the PBL approach and considering technological innovation such as the use of Second Life. The future must also see an improved analysis of the multi-dimensional teaching and assessment approaches adopted within the project management module. This will then develop a sound foundation on which the future developments can be built. Following the progress of the graduating students as they enter the workforce has been identified as a task that needs to be undertaken. This longitudinal dimension will then encourage feedback to facilitate the further development of the programme and the teaching practice employed.

6. CONCLUSIONS This paper has discussed the skills required of an effective project manager and how, through a single module at MSc level, higher education can deliver teaching that strives to develop these skills. The module described adopts a multi-dimensional approach to teaching using a range of practice to engage students and allow them to take responsibility for their own learning. Developing a better understanding of the underlying pedagogy to allow further innovation will form the next stage of the work.

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