An Active Learning Approach to Core Project Management Competencies

The Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) establishes required competencies for engineering managers, practicing engineers, and educators. As stated in the EMBOK, practitioners utilize their "professional judgment, experience, and discretion" to determine appropriate practices to situations. Provided within this paper is a comprehensive pedagogical approach utilizing active learning modules for instructors to teach currently demanded project management core competencies. In order to create the pedagogy, the Kolb Learning Cycle and the Felder Soloman Index of Learning Styles are used as foundational theories. The structure and methodology include technical objectives and development of soft skills required for effective project management. The approach considers project management capability maturity models from Kerzner's and the International Institute for Learning. Their model is adapted to analyze core competencies presented by the pedagogy, and is directed at the shop floor level for manufacturing operations. This paper defines a core set of project management competencies determined through extensive field work providing customized project management training classes for engineering staff members from diverse manufacturing industries. The core competencies are mapped to the Project Management Institute's Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and the EMBOK to establish relevancy for the defined undergraduate project management course.  The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines project management as the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to manage activities required to meet objectives within a project scope. The role of a project manager is to lead a team while balancing competing constraints of scope, cost, and time which are impacted by project risks and desired quality. The Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) establishes competencies for engineering managers, practicing engineers, and educators. The EMBOK states that practitioners utilize their "professional judgment, experience, and discretion" to determine appropriate practices to situations; EMBOK Domain 4 contains the generally recognized best practices and concepts for engineering projects. This paper will propose an undergraduate project management course pedagogy by first establishing the state of project management maturity in the manufacturing industry, and then defining a set of core competencies engineering managers seek from their staff. The core competencies will be mapped to the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) as well as the EMBOK, to demonstrate key areas to impart a level of competency on tools and techniques new engineering graduates need to "hit the ground running." A review of various student learning styles is undertaken and applied to the foundation theory of the Kolb Learning Cycle to produce a balanced pedagogy containing an active learning component. Newly graduated engineers hired into manufacturing operations are often required to be project managers, with the expectation that they demonstrate competency in appropriate practices as called for by the PMBOK and the EMBOK. These new hires bring tools and techniques typically taught from text book curriculum mapped to the PMBOK and lecture based pedagogy. Optimizing (5) This pedagogy includes mathematical models which are generally presented without stressing connections to student experience and favors learning styles that are intuitive, verbal, reflective, and sequential, as defined by the Felder Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) Felder and Brent point out the futility of trying to tailor instruction individually and Alghasham posited that educational planners desiring to enhance teamwork should group students of mixed learning styles. A balanced pedagogy blending learning styles will challenge students to step outside their comfort zone to "stretch and grow." This allows those that favor the opposite end of the learning style spectrum, sensory, visual, active, and global, to benefit from the proposed pedagogy. Through the approach presented, new graduates will have a better chance to apply an appropriate degree of rigor for project management tools and techniques, while providing leadership to team members with more years of experience. Sensory 11 11 Intuitive Concrete, practical, and procedural info preferred; look for facts. Conceptual and theoretical info preferred; look for meaning. Visual 11 11 Verbal Graphs, pictures, and diagrams preferred for visual representation. Prefer to hear or read info; look to words for explanations. Active 11 11 Reflective Enjoy working in groups; enjoy group problem solving and experimenting. Enjoy individual learning; like to think things through before working. Sequential 11 11 Global Orderly presentation of info preferred; assemble details to see big picture. Systematic approach preferred; see big picture first, then fill in details.  Solomon Index of Learning Styles (ILS) PM Education and the Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM) Several research papers establish that project management has stagnated for two decades at Level 1 on the Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM) shown in Figure 2. In 1997, Ekmark, et al. placed project management maturity at Level 1, determining planning and execution was mainly ad hoc. Projects were generally focused on immediate problems, schedules and budgets were often exceeded, and quality compromised to meet deadlines.  Management Maturity Model (PMMM) Ad Hoc. No Formal Project Management Processes Implementing a Project Management Methodology Project Management Practices Used and Adapted Project Management Processes Measured and Controlled Focusing on Process Improvement Initial (1) Repeatable (2) Defined (3) Managed (4) A decade later, a 2006 survey by Grant and Pennypacker revealed little movement for capabilities exhibited by manufacturing operations. Table 1 summarizes the percentage of manufacturing operations that achieved a particular capability maturity level, showing a majority of operations were still at Level 1, with decreasing percentages up the maturity scale. The data was validated when compared to research by Yazici. Additional field work conducted in eastern North Carolina from 2008 2014 confirmed that manufacturing operations are still in the processes of trying to establish themselves at Level 2 of the PMMM. Table 1. Percent of Manufacturing Operations Achieving PMMM Capability Levels Knowledge Area Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Schedule Development 70.6 11.8 11.8 5.9 0 Resource Planning 70.6 23.5 5.9 0 0 Cost Control 58.8 17.6 23.5 0 0 Scope Change Control 41.2 41.2 17.6 0 0 Organization Planning 41.2 47.1 5.9 5.9 0 The field work involved semi structured interviews with fifteen manufacturing companies of products ranging from pharmaceuticals to automotive components, provided evidence that while seasoned engineering managers were well versed in technical PM requirements and tools, their staff's did not exhibit the same capability. Typical projects reviewed included planned maintenance shut downs, manufacturing process improvements projects, and capital acquisition/installation projects. Engineering managers look for their staff and new engineering graduates to have competencies that primarily comprise planning, scheduling, and communication. The research results are listed in column 1 of Table 2 as "Staff Core Competencies." These technical skills core competencies are then mapped first to the PMBOK, second to EMBOK, and third to "typical" project management text book topics in the last two columns. As PMBOK 5e contains forty seven project management processes grouped into ten separate knowledge areas, instructors are advised to teach the core competencies and add a subset of text book topics based on their interest and degree program. Faculty must also consider that manufacturing engineering culture typically fails to embrace formal PM practices, support by research that fails to find a correlation between a company's project management maturity and project performance. Research points out that many experienced project managers consider "the formal use of PM tools and procedures to be wasteful" of time and resources and "all but the most rudimentary tools were far too cumbersome." Kasten sites a large, multi country survey confirming that many industries forsake all or many of the formal practices taught in project management courses. He goes further stating there is a "mismatch" between what is being taught to engineering undergraduates and what is being used in industry. The challenge in teaching project management at the undergraduate level is that there is extremely diverse content and no uniform definition of an "ideal" project structure. The instructional conundrum is two fold: 1) What are the correct technical skills required, and 2) How to integrate required soft skills? Stevenson and Starkweather conducted a review of literature on critical project management behavioral competencies and found many conflicting results. The difficulty lay in the diversity of studies, which included both organizational and industry constructs. However, they did agree upon critical behavioral competencies of top project managers such as acting with authority, planning more, and communicating more. Soft skills required to understand corporate culture, manage interpersonal dynamics, and provide effective decision making included team building, flexibility, creativity, and trust. Research conducted by Anholon and Sano on implementation of lean manufacturing projects found critical success factors include human resource management, communication, risk management, procurement, and stakeholder management. Table 2. Engineering Staff Needs Mapped to PMBOK, EMBOK, and Textbook Content Staff Core Competencies PMBOK Knowledge Area* EMBOK PM Techniques Instructor Discre