Teaching Organizational Project Management at Postgraduate Level

Paper in proceeding, 2014

At postgraduate level, students expect more than basic project management education. Therefore a course called “Organisational Project Management” (OPM) was introduced in an international master's program in project management. The intention with the course was twofold: Firstly, to introduce OPM as a research field in organization theory; secondly, to prepare the students for working in a multi-project environment. In this paper we present how the course was designed to fulfill the students’ demands on an academic course at this level, while at the same time giving them practical experience of how OPM is implemented in the industry. Hence, the course is divided in a theoretical part presenting current theories in OPM, and a practical part, in which the students study how these theories and practices are applied in different companies. The students are working in a project spanning from initiation to closure, in which they prepare for and perform a maturity assessment of a company of their choice. The course has been run in six consecutive programs. From start, feedback from the students has shown that they consider the learning outcome very high and useful for their future work life. For some of the students, this is the first time that they have been provided an opportunity to discuss organizational issues and concepts such as project governance and project portfolio management with a manager in the industry. For students with work experience, the course has provided means to reflect on their previous work life.