Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

A collaborative and experiential learning model powered by real-world projects

Information Technology (IT) curricula\u27s strong application component and its focus on user centeredness and team work require that students experience directly real-world projects for real users of IT solutions. Although the merit of this IT educational tenet is universally recognized, delivering collaborative and experiential learning has its challenges. Reaching out to identify projects formulated by actual organizations adds significantly to course preparation. There is a certain level of risk involved with delivering a useful solution while, at the same time, enough room should be allowed for students to experiment with, be wrong about, review, and learn. Challenges pertaining to the real-world aspect of problem-based learning are compounded by managing student teams and assessing their work such that both individual and collective contributions are taken into account. Finally, the quality of the project releases is not the only measure of student learning. Students should be given meaningful opportunities to practice, improve, and demonstrate their communication and interpersonal skills. In this paper we present our experience with two courses in which teams of students worked on real-world projects involving three external partners. We describe how each of the challenges listed above has impacted the course requirements, class instruction, team dynamics, assessment, and learning in these courses. Course assessment and survey data from students are linked to learning outcomes and point to areas where the collaborative and experiential learning model needs improvement

Designing an Academic Project Management Program: A Collaboration between a University and a PMI Chapter

The demand for project management skills in industry is increasing resulting in a higher demand for project management educational programs. Universities are addressing industry demand by developing project management courses, degree offerings and certificate programs that focus on both technical and general project management skills. While teaching project management skills has been widely covered in the literature, little focus has been given to close collaboration with industry in developing university project management programs that reflect industry demands and provide opportunities to work with project management professionals and with “real world” projects. As a case study, we report a collaborative effort between one university and a local chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI) that results in the development and implementation of an undergraduate project management minor program. We describe the evolution and process of developing a program in which project management professionals from the PMI are actively engaged in student learning by serving a variety of roles in the classroom. We describe the lessons learned over the evolution of the program, as well as refinements to the courses, conducted in order to enhance the grounding of formal education with practical industry experience resulting in an academically rigorous and practical education