Project Management Learning in a Collaborative Distant Learning Context - An Actual On-going Experience

The goal of this paper is to show the results of an on-going experience on teaching project management to grade students by following a development scheme of management related competencies on an individual basis. In order to achieve that goal, the students are organized in teams that must solve a problem and manage the development of a feasible solution to satisfy the needs of a client. The innovative component advocated in this paper is the formal introduction of negotiating and virtual team management aspects, as different teams from different universities at different locations and comprising students with different backgrounds must collaborate and compete amongst them. The different learning aspects are identified and the improvement levels are reflected in a rubric that has been designed ad hoc for this experience. Finally, the effort frameworks for the student and instructor have been established according to the requirements of the Bologna paradigms. This experience is developed through a software-based support system allowing blended learning for the theoretical and individual?s work aspects, blogs, wikis, etc., as well as project management tools based on WWW that allow the monitoring of not only the expected deliverables and the achievement of the goals but also the progress made on learning as established in the defined rubric

Methodological Proposal for Teamwork Evaluation in the field of training Project Management.

Teamwork, is one of the abilities that today is highly valued in the professional arena with a great importance for various personal and interpersonal skills associated with it. In this context, the Technical University of Madrid, is developing a coordinated educational innovation project, which main objective is to develop methodological and assessment tools for the acquisition of personal skills necessary to improve the employability of graduates and their skills for project management. Within this context, this paper proposes a methodology composed of various activities and indicators, as well as specific assessment instruments linked to the teamwork competence. Through a series of systematic steps it was allowed the design of an instrument and construction of a scale for measuring the competence of teamwork. The practical application of the methodology has been carried out in Projects lectures from different Schools of Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid, which results are presented in this document as a pilot experience. Results show the various aspects and methods that teachers should consider in evaluating the competence of the work, including analysis of the quality of results, through reliability and construct validity. On the other hand, show the advantages of applying this methodology in the field of project management teaching.

Strengthening communication skills in an innovative context of engineering project management learning

This document presents an innovative, formal educational initiative that is aimed at enhancing the development of engineering students’ specific competences when studying Project Management (PM) subject. The framework of the experience combines (1) theoretical concepts, (2) the development of a real-case project carried out by multidisciplinary groups of three different universities, (3) the use of software web 2.0 tools and (4) group and individual assignments of students that play different roles (project managers and team members). Under this scenario, the study focuses on monitoring the communication competence in the ever growing PM virtual environment. Factors such as corporal language, technical means, stage, and PM specific vocabulary among others have been considered in order to assess the students’ performance on this issue. As a main contribution, the paper introduces an ad-hoc rubric that, based on previous investigations, has been adapted and tested for the first time to this new and specific context. Additionally, the research conducted has provided some interesting findings that suggest further actions to improve and better define future rubrics, oriented to communication or even other competences. As specific PM subject concerns, it has been detected that students playing the role of Project Managers strengthen their competences more than those ones that play the role of Team Members. It has also been detected that students have more difficulty assimilating concepts related to risk and quality management. However those concepts related with scope, time or cost areas of knowledge have been better assimilated by the students.

An Analysis Of The Recommended Knowledge For The Software Project Management Discipline

According to the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements” [1]. Project Management has proven to be one of the most important disciplines at the moment of determining the success of any project [2][3][4]. Given that many of the activities covered by this discipline can be said that are “horizontal” for any kind of domain, the importance of acknowledge the concepts and practices becomes even more obvious. The specific case of the projects that fall in the domain of Software Engineering are not the exception about the great influence of Project Management for their success. The critical role that this discipline plays in the industry has come to numbers. A report by McKinsey & Co [4] shows that the establishment of programs for the teaching of critical skills of project management can improve the performance of the project in time and costs. As an example of the above, the reports exposes: “One defense organization used these programs to train several waves of project managers and leaders who together administered a portfolio of more than 1,000 capital projects ranging in Project management size from $100,000 to $500 million. Managers who successfully completed the training were able to cut costs on most projects by between 20 and 35 percent. Over time, the organization expects savings of about 15 percent of its entire baseline spending”. In a white paper by the PMI (Project Management Institute) about the value of project management [5], it is stated that: “Leading organizations across sectors and geographic borders have been steadily embracing project management as a way to control spending and improve project results”. According to the research made by the PMI for the paper, after the economical crisis “Executives discovered that adhering to project management methods and strategies reduced risks, cut costs and improved success rates—all vital to surviving the economic crisis”. In every elite company, a proper execution of the project management discipline has become a must. Several members of the software industry have putted effort into achieving ways of assuring high quality results from projects; many standards, best practices, methodologies and other resources have been produced by experts from different fields of expertise. In the industry and the academic community, there is a continuous research on how to teach better software engineering together with project management [4][6]. For the general practices of Project Management the PMI produced a guide of the required knowledge that any project manager should have in their toolbox to lead any kind of project, this guide is called the PMBOK. On the side of best practices 10 and required knowledge for the Software Engineering discipline, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) developed the SWEBOK (Software Engineering Body of Knowledge) in collaboration with software industry experts and academic researchers, introducing into the guide many of the needed knowledge for a 5-year expertise software engineer [7]. The SWEBOK also covers management from the perspective of a software project. This thesis is developed to provide guidance to practitioners and members of the academic community about project management applied to software engineering. The way used in this thesis to get useful information for practitioners is to take an industry-approved guide for software engineering professionals such as the SWEBOK, and compare the content to what is found in the PMBOK. After comparing the contents of the SWEBOK and the PMBOK, what is found missing in the SWEBOK is used to give recommendations on how to enrich project management skills for a software engineering professional. Recommendations for members of the academic community on the other hand, are given taking into account the GSwE2009 (Graduated Software Engineering 2009) standard [8]. GSwE2009 is often used as a main reference for software engineering master programs [9]. The standard is mostly based on the content of the SWEBOK, plus some contents that are considered to reinforce the education of software engineering. Given the similarities between the SWEBOK and the GSwE2009, the results of comparing SWEBOK and PMBOK are also considered valid to enrich what the GSwE2009 proposes. So in the end the recommendations for practitioners end up being also useful for the academic community and their strategies to teach project management in the context of software engineering.

Project management in cloud

Este proyecto consiste en la construcción de un prototipo para la gestión de proyectos, destinada a usuarios del entorno profesional. La herramienta pretende servir de soporte a los equipos que realicen un proyecto dotando al usuario con la posibilidad de gestionar los tiempos del proyecto, gestión de requisitos, gestión de recursos, gestión de la documentación, etc. Adicionalmente, este trabajo llevará asociado un plan de negocio para poder estudiar la viabilidad del proyecto, en este plan de negocio se analizará; el entorno externo (competencia); análisis de las debilidades, fortalezas, amenazas y oportunidades; plan de marketing; plan económicofinanciero; análisis de riesgos del proyecto. A grandes rasgos, la herramienta desarrollada se compone de dos bases de datos (una relacional y otra no relacional), un conjunto de módulos que implementan la funcionalidad y una interfaz gráfica que proporciona a los usuarios una forma cómoda de interactuar con el sistema, principalmente ofrecerá las siguientes opciones:  Gestión de proyectos  Gestión de usuarios.  Gestión de recursos  Gestión de tiempos  Cuadro de mando y notificaciones. ---ABSTRACT---This Project consist of the construction of a prototype for Project management, intended for users of the profesional environment. The software aims to support teams conducting a project by providing the user with the ability to manage time, requirements management, resource management, document management, etc. In addition, this work includes a business plan to study the viability of the project. This business plan addresses the following; analysis of the external enviroment; analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; marketing plan; economic and financial plan; analysis of project risks. In general terms, the developed tools are composed of two databases (relational and nonrelational), a set of modules that implement the functionality and a web interface that gives users a convenient way to interact with the system. The options that the system offers are:  Project management  User management  Resource management  Time management  Dashboard and notifications

Agile it project management professional

La gestión de las tecnologías de la información tiene cada vez más importancia dentro de un mundo totalmente digitalizado y donde la capacidad de respuesta al cambio puede marcar el devenir de una compañía, y resulta cada vez más evidente que los modelos de gestión tradicionales utilizados en la mayoría de las compañías no son capaces de dar respuesta por si solos a estas nuevas necesidades. Aun teniendo identificado este área de mejora, son muchas las empresas reacias a abordar estos cambios, principalmente por el cambio rupturista que significa a nivel interno. De cara a facilitar esta transformación, se propone en este documento un modelo de transición controlada donde las grandes compañías puedan incorporar nuevas alternativas y herramientas ágiles de forma paulatina y asegurando que el proceso de cambio es seguro y efectivo. Mediante una modificación del ciclo de vida de proyecto dentro de la compañía, se incorporan en las áreas, equipos o dominios de la empresa que se identifiquen los nuevos modelos de gestión ágil, permitiendo así una transición gradual y controlada, y pudiendo además analizar los detalles sobre todo en etapas tempranas de la transformación. Una vez seleccionada el área o dominio objeto de la transformación, se realiza un análisis a nivel de Portfolio de proyectos, identificando aquellos que cumplen una serie de condiciones que les permiten ser gestionados utilizando modelos de gestión ágil. Para ello, se plantea una matriz de decisión con las principales variables a tener en cuenta a la hora de tomar una decisión. Una vez seleccionado y consensuado con los interesados el modelo de gestión utilizando la matriz de decisión, se plantean una serie de herramientas y métricas asociadas para que la gestión ágil del proyecto dé una visibilidad completa y detallada del estado en cada momento, asegurando un correcto proceso de gestión de proyectos para proveer visibilidad regular del progreso, riesgos, planes de contingencia y problemas, con las alertas y escalaciones adecuadas. Además de proponerse una serie de herramientas y métricas para la gestión ágil del proyecto, se plantean las modificaciones necesarias sobre las tipologías habituales de contrato y se propone un nuevo modelo de contrato: el Contrato Agile. La principal diferencia entre este nuevo modelo de contrato y los habituales es que, al igual que las metodologías ágiles, es ejecutado en segmentos o iteraciones. En definitiva, el objetivo de este documento es proveer un mecanismo que facilite la inclusión de nuevos modelos ágiles de gestión en grandes organizaciones, llevando a cabo una transición controlada, con herramientas y métricas adaptadas para tener visibilidad completa sobre los proyectos en todo momento.---ABSTRACT---The information technology management is every time more important in a totally digitized world, where the capacity to response the change could mark the future of a company, and results every time more evident that the traditional management models used in the most of the companies are not able to respond by themselves to these new necessities. Even having identified this improvement area, many companies are reluctant to address these changes, mainly due to the disruptive change that it means internally in the companies. In order to facilitate this transformation, this document proposed a controlled transition model to help the big companies to incorporate new alternatives and agile tools gradually and ensuring that the change process is safe and effective. Through a modification the project life cycle inside the company, the new agile management models are incorporated in the selected areas, teams or domains, permitting a gradual and controlled transition, and enabling further analyze the details above all in the early phases of the transformation. Once is selected the area or domain object of the transformation, a portfolio level analysis is performed, identifying those projects that meet a some conditions that allow them to be managed using agile management models. For that, a decision matrix is proposed with the principal variables to have into account at the time of decision making. Once the management model is selected using the decision matrix and it is agreed with the different stakeholders, a group of tools and metrics associated with the agile management projects are proposed to provide a regular visibility of the project progress, risks, contingency plans and problems, with proper alerts and escalations. Besides the group of tools and metrics proposed for agile project management, the necessary modifications over the traditional contract models and a new contract model are proposed: the Agile Contract. The main difference between this new contract model and the traditional ones is that, as the agile methodologies, it is executed in segments or iterations. To sum up, the objective of this document is to provide a mechanism that facilitates the inclusion of new agile management models in big companies, with a controlled transition and proposing adapted tools and metrics to have a full visibility over the project in all the phases of the project life cycle.

Project management competence analysis in rural communities through territorial representation: application to Aymara women communities in Puno (Peru)

The acquisition of technical, contextual and behavioral competences is a prerequisite for sustainable development and strengthening of rural communities. Territorial display of the status of these skills helps to design the necessary learning, so its inclusion in planning processes is useful for decision making. The article discusses the application of visual representation of competences in a rural development project with Aymara women communities in Peru. The results show an improvement of transparency and dialogue, resulting in a more successful project management and strengthening of social organization.

An improved way for evaluating competences: A different approach to project management learning .;

This paper presents a formal initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this game on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to make some improvements in determining the competence levels acquired by means of how the work is being done. The use of this information, which is out of the scope of this particular work, could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement.

The use of computers for graduate education in Project Management. Improving the integration to the industry.

This paper presents an initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are graduated bachelor engineering are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this course on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to increase the competence levels acquired by using an structured web based portfolio tool helping to reinforce how relevant different project management approaches can result for final products and how important it becomes to maintain the integration along the project. Monitoring is carried out by means of have a look on how the work is being done and measuring different technical parameters per participant. The use of this information could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement. These capabilities are strongly requested by companies in their daily work as well as they can be very convenient too for students when they try to organize their PhD work.

Leadership in executive women from the viewpoint of project management competences: a study in the region of Madrid / Liderazgo de la mujer directiva desde las competencias para la dirección de proyectos: estudio en la región de Madrid

Today's knowledge society is creating increasingly competitive environments in which cognitive factors, creativity, knowledge and information determine the success of organizations. In this context the exercise of management and leadership is essential to achieve objectives, goals and relationships. Both concepts have been historically associated with the male domain because of the underrepresentation of women in managerial positions. However, the increasing participation of women in the workplace has led to the development of an extensive literature on the possible existence of differences between the styles of male and female leadership, although it has not been addressed from the analysis of competences associated with each sex. Through a participatory process the abilities and skills associated with women managers are analyzed, the differences in leadership styles and the barriers that still exist for the promotion of women into management positions. The results indicate that women particularly value the skills associated with human relationships, the female leadership style tends to be transformational and that there are still barriers to their advancement to management positions.

Educating in Project Management: an innovative approach. A shared-experience among Spanish Universities

This work presents an educational formal initiative aimed to monitor the acquisition and strengthening of competences by students that are being taught in project management subject. Groups of students belonging to three universities, embracing different knowledge areas such as engineering, biology, etc., were selected to run the experience. All of them had nevertheless a common and basic starting point: inexperience in project management field. In this scenario, we propose a new theoretical and practical approach oriented to reinforce problem-solving and related competences in a project management subject context. For this purpose, a Project-Based Learning (PjBL) initiative has been specifically designed and developed. The main idea is to bring a real world engineering project management case into the classroom, where students must face up to a completely new learning approach –groups in different locations, collaborative mode and unspecific solution, supported by a powerful internet platform:.project.net (http://www.Project.net). Other relevant aspects such as project climate, knowledge increasing, have also been monitored during the course. Results show and overall improvement in key competences. The obtained information will be used in two ways: to feed the students back about personal opportunities for improvement in specific competences, and to fine-tune the experience for further initiatives.

The Effect That Project Management Certification Has on Employability: Agent's Perceptions from Spain

This study analyses the effects that the project management certification has on employability. This analysis started with a participative process in which various groups of experts who are involved in the certification of people were consulted. A personal interview was carried out amongst 106 professionals —certifying bodies, training institutions, the civil service, and international organisations— and amongst professional who are certified in project management by the International Project Management Association in Spain. The results show that the certification emerges as a powerful tool for improving employability. The effects are demonstrated across two complementary aspects: internal company aspects and external aspects relating to the labour market. Finally, by compiling the different agents’ opinions, a series of measures emerge for improving the accreditation processes as an employability tool and increasing the mutual learning between public and private actors.

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of “learning strategy”. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of ―learning strategy‖. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper.

Aplicación de los procesos del Project Management para el diseño, ejecución y control de revestimientos cerámicos (solados y alicatados)

La actual competitividad empresarial hace necesaria la persecución de la mejora de la eficiencia en todos los procesos productivos. Esta mejora se consigue mediante la implementación de una gestión enfocada en los procesos. Este hecho ha derivado en la necesidad cada vez más acuciante de adoptar metodologías y herramientas que permitan a las organizaciones configurar sus sistemas de gestión. Los proyectos de edificación no escapan a esta metodología, es más, pueden ser unos de los más beneficiados en la implementación de la gestión por procesos. Por ello han surgido multitud de instituciones y asociaciones que la promueven en el ámbito de los proyectos de edificación. Gracias a la gestión por procesos se consigue acercar los objetivos del proyecto a las necesidades y requisitos de sus interesados, consiguiendo de este modo una mejora de la eficiencia. Estos requisitos y necesidades también afectan a las unidades de alicatados y solados, por lo que acercar los principios de la gestión por procesos a estas unidades nos puede ayudar a mejorar los resultados obtenidos en la obra. En cuanto a la gestión de proyectos es numerosa la bibliografía existente en el mundo anglosajón, donde las entidades encargadas de realizar publicaciones las revisan y adaptan continuamente a las necesidades y avances del mercado. Aunque en el ámbito internacional son numerosas las publicaciones que marcan los criterios necesarios para la gestión de proyectos por procesos, la bibliografía específica para la gestión de proyectos de edificación no es tan amplia, y en España es muy reducida y no posee el dinamismo que este tipo de publicaciones tiene en el ámbito internacional. En este trabajo se analizan las principales publicaciones internacionales en materia de gestión de proyectos y se comparan con las existentes en nuestro mercado, con la intención de analizar su situación y proponer los pasos a llevar a cabo para conseguir avanzar en el camino de la aplicación de los principios de la gestión de proyectos en el sector de la edificación. Como referencia, y para acotar el alcance del trabajo, se ha tomado como caso práctico la gestión de los revestimientos cerámicos (solados y alicatados), dentro del ámbito general de la gestión del proceso edificatorio.