Addressing challenges to teach traditional and agile project management in academia

In order to prepare students for a professional IT career, most universities attempt to provide a current educational curriculum in the Project Management (PM) area to their students. This is usually based on the most promising methodologies used by the software industry. As instructors, we need to balance traditional methodologies focused on proven project planning and control processes leveraging widely accepted methods and tools along with the newer agile methodologies. Such new frameworks emphasize that software delivery should be done in a flexible and iterative manner and with significant collaboration with product owners and customers. In our experience agile methodologies have witnessed an exponential growth in many diverse software organizations, and the various agile PM tools and techniques will continue to see an increase in adoption in the software development sector. Reflecting on these changes, there is a critical need to accommodate best practices and current methodologies in our courses that deliver Project Management content. In this paper we analyse two of the most widely used methodologies for traditional and agile software development – the widely used ISO/PMBOK standard provided by the Project Management Institute and the well-accepted Scrum framework. We discuss how to overcome curriculum challenges and deliver a quality undergraduate PM course for a Computer Science and Information systems curricula. Based on our teaching experience in Europe and North America, we present a comprehensive comparison of the two approaches. Our research covers the main concepts, processes, and roles associated with the two PM frameworks and recommended learning outcomes. The paper should be of value to instructors who are keen to see their computing students graduate with a sound understanding of current PM methodologies and who can deliver real-world software products.Accepted manuscrip

An Agile Framework for Teaching with Scrum in the IT Project Management Classroom

This paper presents a framework for teaching a complete, semester-long IT project management course with traditional PMI-based content (sans software development) while featuring Scrum as the organizing logic for accomplishing coursework. This framework adapts widely-used Scrum practices from industry for use in the classroom, including how to organize student teams, homework, and activities. Organizing an existing course with Scrum is intended to maximize student learning of traditional project management content, as well as the difficult-to-teach, socially-complex, “soft” skills that lead to Scrum team success. This deep integration of Scrum into a traditional, predictive IT project management course goes well beyond single activities or units without crowding out valuable time and material. A brief overview of the agile philosophy and examples of teaching Scrum in the classroom situate this work in the teaching and learning literature. Classroom-tested Scrum rituals and example artifacts are provided to illustrate how to apply the framework. This group-based, iterative, and hands-on approach equips students to better internalize and understand the complex social interactions involved with a self-organizing team, concepts that are difficult to learn without first-hand experience. The proposed framework will help IS educators implement Scrum practices in their own courses, further addressing industry’s increasing demand for IS professionals with Scrum experience

Doing, being, becoming: a historical appraisal of the modalities of project-based learning

Any pedagogy of media practice sits at the intersection between training for employment and education for critical thinking. As such, the use of projects is a primary means of structuring learning experiences as a means of mirroring professional practice. Yet, our understanding of the nature of projects and of project-based learning is arguably under-theorised and largely taken for granted. This paper attempts to address this issue through a synthesis of the literature from organisational studies and experiential learning. The article aims to shift the debate around project-based learning away from an instrumentalist agenda, to one that considers the social context and lived experience of projects and re-conceptualises projects as ontological modalities of doing, being and becoming. In this way, the article aims to provide a means for thinking about the use of project-based learning within the media practice curriculum that draws on metaphors of discovery, rather than of construction

A Comparison between E-learning Resources currently used in Project Management Online Training

E-learning has become popular among learners of all ages and different domains, while project management is one of the many practices that have been impacted by the 21st-century online digital environment. The goal of this paper is to explore and compare current e-learning resources that help online train and continuously educate IT project managers in software developing industries. As to the methodology, a qualitative method will be used for applied research: inductive approach - inductive reasoning. Each identified resource will be provided with a narrative description based on process-oriented interrogations. In the end, a comparison will be made between the existing online platforms offering project management related courses, in order to help conclude which e-learning materials are best to be used by project managers nowadays, taking into consideration their educational needs. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

The business of invention: considering project management in the arts and industry

Project management has well developed theoretical constructs and is becom- ing increasingly well established in core strategy beyond the industrial and corporate sec- tors from which it first emerged. With a concurrent increase in the significance of innova- tion, project managing for creativity is an area of research and enquiry of considerable sig- nificance. Notionally occupying polar opposite cultural positions in terms of perspectives and processes of creativity, project management in the arts is widely considered to vary significantly from corporate strategy and process. If business were to be more generally characterised by ‘organisation’ and discipline, the arts are more commonly celebrated for disorganisation, indiscipline, and the fundamental challenge to organisation itself. Consid- ering both the confluences and variations between established project management theory in business and practice in the arts, this text introduces theoretical constructs pertaining to creative processes and highlights areas for consideration in the understanding and further development of project management theory

Start Project Management from Scratch in an ICT Department of a Public Higher Education Organization: how to manage change?

The 7th edition of the PMBOK extols stakeholder involvement and acceptance of change as crucial management principles to ensure good project outcomes, as engaged people produce more and better, become more open and flexible to embrace the changes inherent in the project context. From a single case study, the initiation of project management functions in a public organization in the education sector is discussed. The value of this article lies in the connection between theory and practice, as it brings Anderson and Kotter\u27s guidelines applied during an actual project, revealing the benefits and difficulties faced in leveraging and maintaining stakeholder engagement. As a result, it affirms the importance of context analysis to design and conduct changes in the environment where the project takes place, and of breaking the forces of inertia to foster experimentation and gradual improvements in the teams\u27 work dynamics

Case Study in Project Management: A Vehicle for Business Curriculum Integration

[EN] This case can be team-taught to combine the different elements of business education taught by individual faculty within a course in Project Management, as a partial, half credit module within a business curriculum. This case study is written to address the feedback from prospective employers that the fresh recruits are reticent and need a long period of “internship / training/ mentoring” before they are ready to be a part of the company’s internal team. The case depicting a real company undergoing substantial changes provides the students with opportunities to gain the analytical skills developed in the study of various business disciplines, while providing the opportunity for discussion and illustration of real-life scenarios, constraints, and roadblocks. Moreover, students practice team development and process efficiencies. Instructors will teach how marketing, sales, and procurement functions impact the accounting and finance components of the project so the project scope is managed within the resources, schedule, and budget.Jaiswal-Dale, A.; Owens Jr., E.; Bensen, A. (2021). Case Study in Project Management: A Vehicle for Business Curriculum Integration. En 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1341-1349. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd21.2021.13081OCS1341134