reconciling student and employer skills requirements in

Reconciling student and employer skills

requirements in project management

Udechukwu Ojiako Director of Postgraduate Research

School of Construction Economics & Management

Background- South African context

• In South Africa, about R3.2 trillion is being marked for

spending on infrastructure projects.

1. Observers and scholars however acknowledge that serious deficiencies in the availability of critical skills will impede on the successful delivery of these projects.

2. Critical delivery skills identified as being in short supply include project management.

We explore the issue of project management skills (competencies), from two major stakeholder perspectives….

Competency & Skills

Development

Employers

Universities

Governments Students

Professional Institutions

Skills and Competency Stakeholders

We explore the issue of project management skills (competencies), from two major stakeholder perspectives….students and….

Competency & Skills

Development

Employers

Universities




We explore the issue of project management skills (and competencies), from two major stakeholder perspectives….students and employers

Competency & Skills

Development

Employers

Universities




Background to the different perspectives

Stakeholders interest in Skills and Competencies

1. Universities, for curriculum redesign

2. Employers, for HRM strategies to be developed

3. Governments, for national development planning

4. Students, employability requirements

5. Project practitioners and professional institutions, serves as a guide for self-evaluation of expertise

What we know about P.M skills

What we know about P.M skills

– Literature acknowledges that equipping project managers with employer desired skills is challenging for a number of reasons;

1. Conceptualisation: A recognition of changes that have occurred in project management conceptualisation (e.g. TCQ not necessarily a static measure)

2. Softer Parameters: An increase in focus on softer parameters such as emotions

3. Reflective Practice: A growing emphasis on the need for reflective and creative practitioners as against competent ‘professionals’ (lessons drawn from the nursing profession)

The Education & Training Imperative

in Project Management

The reality of teaching project management today

– Academia is perceived to be incapable of portraying the challenges of projects.

1. A gap appears to exist between what is taught today to aspiring project managers and the real world of project management

2. Current teaching and learning strategy also unable to cope with the reality of projects.

– Current classroom teaching- students only concentrate for 6 minutes over a 50 minute lecture

…enough of theory…what was the study about?

The Study

The Student Perspective

The Student Perspective- The data

1. First tranche of studies, 194 students from University of Southampton and University of Sheffield

2. Second tranche of studies, 88 additional students from University of Southampton

3. Third tranche of studies, 409 additional responses received from University of Southampton, University of Sheffield, University of Portsmouth and University of Northumbria • Data from 791 students in total was obtained using a combination

of questionnaires and focus groups

Findings on students

perception of required skill sets

Students perception of required skills

– Students identified a total of twenty two constituent components of desired skills

1. Two skills, ‘transferable skills’ and the use of ‘e-learning environments’ were found to be most significant.

…taking these

findings forward….

…we found that…

• Differences in importance attached to skill requirements between engineering and management students.

– Engineering students emphasised a desire to develop transferable skills, while Management (Business) students, emphasised a desire to develop ‘e-learning’ skills .

Discipline congruence: required skill sets

1. Thus we concluded that….

– because of differences in desired skills requirements b/w engr’r and mmgt students, teaching and learning should take into account discipline specific context

Competency: Engr & Mmgt students

…having explored the students perspective of skill

requirements, we now turn our attention to what employers

appear to be asking for….

What does industry want from project

managers?

The Study

Chipulu, M., Neoh, J., Ojiako, GU., and Williams, T. What does industry want from project managers? - A multidimensional analysis of competences across industry sectors. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Accepted for publication.

The Study

1. Data was collected from 30 different jobsites in eight countries using the search string “project AND manager”.

2. To minimise ‘duplicate’ advertisements (employers re-advertising a vacancy), data was collected over two, discrete, three-week periods in May 2011 and July 2011.

3. Of an initial sample of 2749 advertisements, 443 identified as duplicates were omitted, leaving 2306 usable cases.

Sample PM Job adverts Locations and Industry Sectors

Country Services (e.g.

Financial,

Business)

Engineering,

Construction and

Manufacturing

Information and

Communication

Technology (ICT)

Other Industries

(e.g. Media,

education)

Total

Canada 14 38 12 0 64

China 75 172 113 47 407

Hong Kong 22 19 37 24 102

India 38 145 294 14 491

Malaysia 21 29 55 5 110

Singapore 49 83 66 1 199

UK 199 170 324 26 719

US 74 59 58 5 196

Total 492 715 959 122 2288

Frequency Missing (Country not specified) = 18

Skills, qualifications and Experience Keywords from PM Job Adverts

Rank Keyword (Variable) Count % Count Description/Example

1 industry_specific_req 1288 56% Requires technical skills unique to industry (e.g. programming language, engineering qualifications, accounting knowledge, etc.)

2 comm_skills_req 1078 47% Communication skills essential

3 team_manage_req 907 39% “manage teams”

4 leadership_req 694 30% “leader/ can lead team members”

5 degree_education_req 682 30% Bachelor's degree

6 stakeholder_manage_req 656 28% “Manage their expectations…”

7 budget_manage_req 654 28% “…managing project budgets to targets…”

8 time_manage_req 653 28% “ensure project is on time”

9 commercial_aware_req 488 21% “business-minded/ entrepreneurial”

10 team_work_req 458 20% “work with team in a matrix structure”

Skill requirement dimensions

….from the keywords we

identified, a total of six key skill

(competency) dimensions sought by employers were

identified…

• Dimension 1: Generic skills • Dimension 2: Project knowledge • Dimension 3: Managerial Skills

– Strategic, commercial awareness… • Dimension 4: Personal Traits

– 'drive', 'positive attitude', 'career motivation', ‘adaptability’, 'independent', ‘attention to detail’, having a ‘professional’ demeanour’

• Dimension 5: Professional qualifications • Dimension 6: Risk Management

Skill Dimensions - What employers want

Let us now examine the weighting of

the six dimensions

Skill Dimensions Weights- What employers want

Source (Industry Sector )

Dimension Weights

Generic

Skills

Project

Knowledge

Managerial

Skills

Personal

Traits

PM

Experience

Risk

Management

Services (Financial +

Business)

4306.345 2303.077 2819.075 2457.449 0.453 0

Engineering, Construction

and Manufacturing

4071.225 2300.527 1971.649 2655.49 2879.075 0.016

ICT 4410.172 1820.917 3055.907 1052.817 0 0

Other sectors 3865.896 4219.832 1533.88 2211.071 2424.03 3403.015

Relative Importance 0.41 0.187 0.139 0.113 0.084 0.068

Reconciling students and

employers needs

Reconciling students and employers needs

Students identified skills needs Employers identified skills needs

Generic Skills Generic skills

E-learning (computer skills) Project knowledge

Analytical skills Managerial Skills

In-class learning Personal Traits

Out of class learning and team work

Project Methodology Experience and Professional Qualifications

Curriculum balancing (work-life balance) Risk Management

My thoughts

My thoughts

1. The point here is that if both students and employers (key stakeholders in the project management skills and competency arena), are emphasising generic skills development…

2. To be able to develop reflective project management practitioners, do we….

a. … really need project management as a separate ‘discipline’?

b. …simply train our students to be ‘general’ managers who understand the ethos of ‘projects’?

..discussions..

Participants in Study

• Udechukwu Ojiako, University of the Witwatersrand

• Maxwell Chipulu, University of Southampton

• Melanie Ashleigh, University of Southampton

• Stuart Maguire, University of Sheffield

• Kenneth Awinda, University of Portsmouth

• Victor Samwinga, University of Northumbria

• David Brown, University of Southampton

• Jaw-Kai Wang, University of Southampton

• Terry Williams, University of Hull

• Jun G. Neoh, University of Southampton

References Chipulu, M., Neoh, J., Ojiako, GU., and Williams, T. (2013). What does industry want from project managers? - A multidimensional analysis of competences across industry sectors. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Accepted for publication. Ojiako, GU., Chipulu, M., Ashleigh, M. (2013). Pedagogical congruence in the teaching and learning of a generic theory of project management. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Accepted for publication. Ojiako, GU., Chipulu, M., Ashleigh, M., Awinda, K., Samwinga, V., Brown, D., Maguire, S. (2013), Pedagogical imperatives in the teaching of project management. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Management, Procurement and Law, Accepted for publication. Ashleigh, M., Ojiako, GU., Chipulu, M., and Kai Wang, J.. (2012). Critical Learning Themes in Project Management Education: Implications for Blended Learning, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 153-161. Ojiako, GU., Ashleigh, M., Chipulu, M., and Kai Wang, J. (2011). The Criticality of Transferable Skills Development and Virtual Learning Environments Used in the Teaching of Project Management. Project Management Journal, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 76-86. Chipulu, M., Ojiako, GU., Ashleigh, M. and Maguire, S (2011). An analysis of interrelationships between project management and student experience constructs. Project Management Journal, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 91–101. Ojiako, GU., Ashleigh, M., Chipulu, M and Maguire, S (2011). Learning and Teaching Challenges in project management. International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 268-278.

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