OBJECTIVES: 

Students are introduced to project design and management, including managing project risks, needs analysis, definition of target groups, and ethnographic research design. Students also improve their collaboration and communication skills for accuracy in communication in academic environments and research contexts with the perspective of culturally different academic and research situations.

OUTCOMES: 

Students will be able to understand project management design, development and deployment. Students will be able to use project management tools for the evaluation of risks, scope or group management. Students will also understand the project as a complex unit with global implications for sustainability. 

RESOURCES: Throughout the semester students are going to work in groups. Each group should have, one device (laptop or tablet) at their disposal during the seminars where they can use MS Teams. It would be quite difficult to work on the phone only. If you prefer working on the paper, it is possible, but the outcomes will have to be uploaded online after the class. 

ASSESSMENT:

1) Active participation in classroom work and discussions (2 absences allowed)

group work – absence does not mean the work can be skipped. As the course is all “hands on” the whole team is responsible for keeping the absent person informed about the outcomes and the absentee is responsible for catching up with the work to be able to continue with the teamwork (MS Teams is a great tool for it). The distribution of work in these cases is up to the decision of the whole team or its “manager” – can be redistributed, shifted,… (see criteria for group work)

2) Participating in group work on the project and handing in the following materials documenting your work:

1.  Mini project proposal
2.  Final complete draft of the proposal
3.  final presentation (70% score must be reached – see the rubric) with discussion over the projects’ potential chances for success, risks and their management
4. (self-reflection) reflection on the project itself, but also students’ work on it
5. Feedback – reacting to the teacher’s feedback in class, providing feedback for your colleagues

CRITERIA for assessment - detailed instructions and criteria for assessment are included in the appropriate weeks for each task.

OUTLINE

1)      Week1

• a.      Introducing the course, its objectives, and its place within the program
• b.      Basic structure of the project lifecycle
• c.      Group management (learning about the team members 
• d.      Identifying possible topics of interest
• e.      Defining a target group for the potential project

2)      Week 2

• a.      Group finalization and topic selection, group work norms
• b.      GOALS identified & formulating a DRIVING QUESTION
• c.      Writing a mini proposal for the possible project (goal, target group, scale, time, resources)
• d.      Sharing the mini proposal and getting feedback from colleagues and the teacher (teacher & peer review = authorization of the project proposal) exchanging a few team members to share their visions, collecting ideas for improvement
• e.      Handing in the proposal to the teacher for feedback and approval (HW if not finished in class)

3)      Week 3 – developing items from the mini proposal for the actual project design:

• a.      Needs analysis,
• b.      ethnographic research (= mini research task in class in groups)

4)      Week 4 – entering the PLANNING phase of the selected project

• a.      SCALING = TIME and SCOPE management (how to limit realistically) + resources
• b.      PM TRIANGLE for feasibility and success criteria as well as goal determination

5)      Week 5

• a.      Group management – group dynamics (norms reminder), deciding on the roles within the team and responsibilities when working on the project plan (team building activity and based on that try to decipher where your strengths are, …) (different scenarios – catastrophe solving)
• b.     roles in a group 
• c.      Getting familiar with PM tools at our disposal to help with the planning (MS Teams)
• d.      Preparing a Teams group for your project where you are going to work throughout the semester = PROJECT ORGANIZER (documentation, task lists, status reports, meeting agendas, schedules, recording decisions, deadlines, …)

6)      Week 6

• a.      Starting to work on a full proposal for the possible project (goal, target group, scale, time, resources, roles and responsibilities in the team)
• b.      Ensuring feasibility of the project (scope)

7)      Week 7 FRYSTAK working on the proposal in teams – using MS Teams

8)      Week 8

• a.      Project risks and risk management
• b.      Catastrophic scenarios – Teams decides how to deal with them most effectively
• c.      Teams work on their project risks and their management

9)      Week 9

• a.      deliverables – how to check the progress of the project, success (time, scale, budget) and quality of the final product at the end as well as during the project implementation
• b.      planning phase project management: track and report progress (=document and communicate) – assess the results and – modify if necessary
• c.      (b+c) TRIPPLE M cycle (manage-monitor [track-report-assess]-modify)
• d.      “ROLLING-WAVE planning” – more detailed beginning phases, prepared to modify; chunking the work in manageable units
• e.      Scheduling – creating a GANT diagram in the Planner

10)  Week 10 - consultation lesson with the individual teams without the presence of the other team (1/2 of the seminar) to check the progress

11)  Week 11 - Sustainability in project management

12)  Week 12 - Independent work – preparation of the presentation for week 13

13)  Week 13 - Final project proposal presentation in class

• a.      Presentation in class and following Q&A from other students and the teacher
• b.      Reflection and feedback
• c.      Self-reflection

compulsory and recommended literature:

Project Management : Practices, Challenges and Developments. (2013). ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/masaryk-ebooks/detail.action?docID=2145877.

Maylor, H. (c2010). Project management (4th ed). Financial Times Prentice Hall.

David Hutchison. Project Management Learning: A Project Management Approach.EduProject.org Publication. EduProject.org. PDF. < http://www.eduproject.org/handbook/EduProject_Handbook.pdf>.

Key Principles for Project-Based Learning. Lucas Education Research. George Lucas Educational Foundation.  

The following presentation sums up the main ideas that we should cover in week 1. It also includes an audio recording explaining some of the points: