Project Management Teaching or Learning?

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEACHING OR LEARNING?

David Scott, Professor and Head Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. Qiping Shen*, Associate Professor Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. * E-mail: bsqpshen@inet.polyu.edu.hk
Abstract It has long been argued by some professionals that management is best learnt on the job. Others on the other hand would say that a certain amount of management could be usefully and beneficially given to people as part of a learning package. One of the main arguments for this is that if inexperienced personnel (even if technically competent) are encouraged to learn on the job they will not only learn good practice but also (often catastrophically) develop bad practice without being aware of its deficiencies. This paper will explore which aspects of project management are learnable in an academic programme. It will also present the experience of one institution that has pursued the development of project management curricula into the realms of distance learning and Internet based presentation. The traditional philosophy of engineering and technically based training programmes is applied in this programme i.e. allowing the learners the opportunity to apply their newly found knowledge and skills in an environment where mistakes in learning and immature application of the concepts is not catastrophic and can be applied without fear of major loss. The successes (and failures) of this programme will be presented. The opportunities for new methods of teaching and ways of presenting complex ideas will be displayed. The way in which the programme allows students to develop their skills and apply their knowledge to real situations will be presented. The use of technology to allow the introduction and innovative use of case studies, virtual reality and continuous monitoring of each students performance will be demonstrated. TEACHING OR LEARNING Many members of the construction industry, particularly those with the professional qualifications, maintain that Project Management (or management of any sort) can be learnt on the job after formal training has been completed (e.g. Shen et al., 2001). This debate has continued for many years but now the evidence of many new Project Management programmes in a variety of disciplined areas suggest that it is now accepted that Project Management/ Management of Construction is an acceptable and recognised academic study. One common feature of these programmes is that project management is not usually taught in isolation but it is combined with other technical content (e.g. engineering or construction degree) or at _________________________________________________________________________________________ 1

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

_________________________________________________________________________________________ some stage after a technical programme has been completed. Often admission to project management studies will have a prerequisite of not only an academic qualification but also a period of practical experience. This endorses the idea that project management is something, which is learned rather than taught. The learning process utilises both technical and professional experience rather than relying solely upon theory and taught wisdom. This, therefore, leads to the question of how can a period of learning be directed along appropriate paths. If the students of project management are to build upon their own experience and interleave this with the theory and experience from others, new alternative techniques for learning may be necessary and appropriate. Traditional learning and teaching depends upon the presentation and acceptance by students of well developed and established theories, common practices and procedures. WHAT AND WHEN Integration of project management/construction management with undergraduate (i.e. initial training programmes) programmes has shown that while introducing basic ideas may be useful at an early stage before the student has much practical experience (Shen and Scott, 2001). By far the most valuable and effective way of learning about project management is when the student has completed both their initial training and has had several years of practical experience. However, by the time junior professionals have had several years of experience these are usually built into a set of commitments (both to their profession and personal), which preclude full time study. This means that any teaching/learning must be done expeditiously and effectively and fit into a limited time frame. Experience has also (Wong et al., 2001) shown that the most effective way of presenting and applying project management material is to introduce basic skills, ideas and processes and then to allow the students to learn by doing. In this instance the doing involves applying these basic ideas to their own experience. This requires in the student a degree of maturity in learning which will give the student the ability to adapt, apply and develop basic ideas to their own professional environment. With all of these considerations and the changing teaching and learning environment, a new programme that has been designed to cater for these needs has been designed and delivered. This paper will describe how the practical needs of project management training have been combined with experience in recent years with project management programmes and with modern teaching techniques and facilities. THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT LEARNING PROGRAMME Experience gained from project management programmes in various formats was used as the basis for developing the new programme. These were distance-learning programme from Australia and the UK, a distance Project Management programme delivered both in Hong Kong and Mainland China, several years experience of developing IT based teaching and learning modules in various institutions. As a result of this earlier experience the major objectives of the new learning scheme were To present all of the core learning units of project management To allow access to the programme from a wide variety of locations around the region To facilitate the learning of the students using appropriate media and learning techniques To allow self directed and self paced learning (within practical limits) _________________________________________________________________________________________ 2

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

_________________________________________________________________________________________ To have facilities to moderate and monitor the learning progress of students To employ a mixed mode of learning with an emphasis on remote IT access To engage with local partners who would act as mentors and tutors for the students To provide an award that is recognized professionally at an international level.

STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME The content of the programme (the individual subjects and the content of those subjects) was the same as had been used in previous offerings of project management programmes in both distance and campus based modes. These study units and the content of the subjects had been found to be satisfactory and had been validated by external professional bodies. There was no question therefore that the content of the programme was appropriate and sufficient, the challenge was to present it in a format suitable for the target market. The Internet was chosen as the principal media for presentation but it was not used exclusively. The modules were developed sequentially so that a common framework could be developed, used and carried consistently through the whole programme. The basic unit of the programme were the subjects. Each subject was subdivided into learning units and within each of the learning units there were several lessons. Within each lesson there may be a number of different features: introduction to material, directed reading, analysis of presented material or collected by students and exercises. The composition and content of each lesson was reviewed by an expert group outside of the programme production team whose function was to advise on appropriate teaching and learning structures and procedures. This service was provided by the Educational Development Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Each learning unit included a least one "self-assessment test. At various stages throughout the subject graded assignments are included. These count toward the final mark, the "self assessment" items are used to check progress and to allow the student to gauge their own performance. The self-assessment, the assignments and some of the exercises all require interaction between staff and student or student and student. As with all teaching feedback, question and answer sessions and general discussion are all important. It was possible to include all of these features in the Internet based project management subjects. An unexpected bonus that came from including self-assessment and other participating activities was that the subject lecturer could monitor the progress of every student. This is an improvement on conventional teaching procedures where only those who only ask questions or who it advise that they are having difficulties can be identified and helped. Using a mixed mode of delivery allows for the inclusion of elements that are not possible or suited to the Internet, for example use of textbooks, references and reading material are provided (copyright problems often do not allow their inclusion on the Internet) workshops and seminars allow interaction and oral presentation by students (voice based discussion on the Internet has proved to be technically difficult up to this stage). An initial orientation session allowing the students to meet was also found to be useful in establishing an esprit dcorps. However group work, tutorials and general discussion were all found to be possible using text based interaction (rather than voice). Real time text based tutorials were found to work well provided that the students had been probably prepared and the subject for discussion adhered to. Examples of some of the work that was presented to the students and the exercises are given in the following figures. _________________________________________________________________________________________ 3

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

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Figure 1 Learning and teaching facilities available for each subject

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Project Management Teaching or Learning?

_________________________________________________________________________________________ Figure 2 Common framework for all subjects in the programme

Figure 3 Learning flow presented at the beginning of each learning unit

Figure 4 Self-assessments enable students to check learning progress _________________________________________________________________________________________ 5

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

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Figure 5 Introductory unit to introduce arrangements for the subject

Figure 6 Bulletin board used as a media for frequent interactions _________________________________________________________________________________________ 6

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

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Figure 7 Glossary of key terms in each subject for easy reference A demonstration that contains a section of a subject can be viewed at the following web site (use visitor as both the user ID and password): http://web01.hkcyberu.com/SCRIPT/bredemo/scripts/serve_home APPLICATION AND USE OF THE PROGRAMME The programme has been offered in Hong Kong and Mainland China both as a university based programme of study and as an in-house training programme for a large construction and property organisation. Students' progress has been monitored both with direct review of performance and surveys of the participating students. Results of students using the Internet mode have been compared with those taking the same project management programme but using traditional campus based and distance learning modes. The results and performance of the students in all groups did not vary significantly. This supports the theory developed elsewhere that IT based learning is no better or no worse than traditional methods, what matters is how you use the technology (e.g. Ehrmann, 1995). In fact, the main benefit of Internet based study is the convenience of access and the flexibility of study patterns that are possible combined with the improved communication. A significant benefit from the teachers point of view is the facility to monitor the progress of individual students. DIFFICULTIES AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS Internet based Project Management programmes are not without their difficulties. The two principles hurdles are: The time and effort (an hence money) that are required to develop robust and useful modules _________________________________________________________________________________________ 7

Project Management Teaching or Learning?

_________________________________________________________________________________________ The technical difficulties that restrict the use of features such as voice and video based exercises and other activities.

The time and cost of producing high quality modules will almost certainly lead to exchange of modules and the interaction of different institutions each of whom will provide their own modules and combine them with modules from other institutions to provide a programme suitable for their own students. This will lead to a broader based and internationally diverse Project Management programmes. It will also facilitate a mix and match programme structure, which will allow students to specialize in particular areas or chose modules which are appropriate to their particular circumstances and activities. At the technical level, difficulties attributable to transmission speeds bandwidth etc. will certainly be overcome in the near future. This will allow voice and video communication in real time and allow development of on site visits, case studies etc. Not only will technical improvements overcome current difficulties but also they will open up new learning possibilities. For example video based case studies, which require students to participate throughout the case study and which develop according to the student's decision will add realism and value to the traditional presentation of case studies. Discussion and presentation between groups located throughout the world will allow comparisons of techniques, ideas, experiences etc. Conference type tutorials will facilitate the involvement of senior professionals and student classes. Students will be able to work on projects in groups made of participants in different countries, different industries and with different responsibilities. CONCLUSION The provision of programmes that utilise recent technical and education developments will allow a wider group of participants in project management learning. This will lead to a level of Project Management training beyond the expectations of even the best programmes currently available and which will include elements and features, which cannot be used in conventional training. REFERENCES Ehrmann, S.C. (1995). New technology, Old trap. The Educom Review, 30(5), Sept./Oct., 41-43. Shen, Q.P. and Scott, D. (2001). Development of an internet-based master programme in project management. 4th UICEE Annual Conference on Engineering Education, Bangkok, Thailand, 170175. Shen, Q.P., Fong, P.S.W., and Deng Z.M. (2001). Developing an intelligent system for teaching pretender cost estimating of office building projects. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 9(1), 26-36. Wong, K.W., Shen, Q.P., and McGeorge D. (2001). Development of a higher educational programme in China The Hong Kong Experience. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 25(4), in print.

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