Modelling an industry-relevant project management curriculum for engineering sciences

Abstract

The practice of Project Management has been thoroughly researched, giving rise to theories, standards, skills and competencies, which have governed the expectations of the Project Management industry. Research has shown that these skills, standards and attributes also differ from one industry to another, noting that the industries that make use of Project Management practices are all vast, evolving and distinctive. With these expectations in mind, it became apparent that training and teaching these skills, competencies and theories to future generations of Project Managers is key to providing these industries with capable, equipped and prepared Project Managers who are qualified and sufficiently prepared to positively impact their workplaces and fulfil their job requirements. It then stood to reason that the quality and content of the curriculum these Project Management students are provided with should be aligned with these expectations in industry. In order to ascertain whether or not Project Management graduates from a Tertiary Institute in Cape Town, South Africa, are adequately equipped for the workplace within their industries, research was carried out using the mixed method approach. From a sample of 300, 100 participants from the Engineering, Construction and Information Technology industries completed online surveys, resulting in quantitative results as well as qualitative expressions through open-ended questions in the survey. It was found that currently, graduates from the Project Management fraternity are not adequately equipped for industry once they graduate and that the current curriculum does not lend itself to the current evolution in industry, especially in the Information Technology sector. It was thus recommended that Project Management at Tertiary Institutes move from a generic approach to an industry-specific model which would then allow students to hone in on their sectors and the varying attributes required to be successful in those fields.