INTERACTIVELY TEACHING ADVANCED PROJECT MANAGEMENT: AN INNOVATIVE EXPERIENCE BASED ON SIMULATION AND ROLE PLAYING
MICHELE TITOLO(1, MARIO TUCCI(2 1)
MEC, Master in Engineering and Contracting, MIP Politecnico di Milano 2)
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Energetica “Sergio Stecco” Via C. Lombroso 6/17 – 50134 Firenze - Italia
[email protected]
ABSTRACT The paper presents a recent experience, very innovative for Italian Engineering and Contracting (E&C) Companies, organised in cooperation among the academy, specifically the Management Engineering Department of Politecnico di Milano, Università di Firenze and Università di Genova, and the Italian Association for Industrial Plant Engineering (ANIMP). The interactive workshop was targeted at experienced project manager for the ANIMP associated engineering companies, in order to implement their know-how, with the most recent risk analysis techniques and some other relevant topics for their profession. Such a task was not easy to fulfil with a traditional frontal teaching, and a course based on a realistic Case Study was designed, with mixed didactical moments: frontal lessons, group work, classroom simulation, role playing and discussion. The paper examines the motivation of the course and its objectives. The structure of the industrial case is then presented, together with the tools prepared for the classroom simulation. The assessment of the course, both by the learner and the organisers, is then presented, with a discussion on positive and negative aspects and their interpretation. Having been an experimental course, applicability, repeatability and transferability is discussed as well.
INTRODUCTION It’s more than a decade that the Italian Association for Industrial Plant Engineering (ANIMP).organises courses on Project Management (PM) for the companies and it has a good nationwide reputation for this activity. On the other side, Italian Universities offer several courses on project management in Engineering degrees. Moreover, 6 years ago a joint venture between the Politecnico di Milano and ANIMP, established an 18 months, post second level degree, Master in Engineering and Contracting (MEC) for the preparation of the Project Manager in such sector. The offer in education and training for PM was still lacking an advanced course for already employed Project Manager, with work experience of some years, able to upgrade their skills with the most recent risk management techniques and to enrich their knowledge of legal, financial and insurance related issues. The participants to the traditional PM courses, moreover, complained for the few moments of practical application of the methodologies explained in the lessons, being still missing a complete case study. In fact several references, both basic and PM specialised, would help in designing a new didactic for the PM (Zhang 2003, Cross, and Reiley 1999). I order to fill this gap ANIMP decided to organise an experimental course, based on a strongly interactive didactic. For this reason the name chosen for such educational initiative was Interactive Workshop on Advanced Project Management. After a long preparation which lasted 21 month, some of the most important Italian Engineering and Contracting (E&C) Companies, register some of their most promising PM. The class was composed of 19 learners, 12 of whom were Project Managers, 5 Project Engineering Managers, one
Project Planner and one Control Manager. All of them were involved in very important international projects of their companies.
STARTING POINT AND ORGANISATION OF THE WORKSHOP. The workshop took start from the experience of a Case Study used for the final examination of the “Master in Engineering & Contracting” (MEC), a second level (after the second level degree) university master, yearly held by MIP of Politecnico of Milano in cooperation with ANIMP. Such case study was always approached with great enthusiasm by the young engineers, at the end of the eighteen months master, and this observation gave stimulus to the implementation of the case, transforming it in a realist project, with all the related documents, in order to make its criticalities solved by a group of experienced managers, in an inter-firm cooperation. The master’s final examination was based on a qualitative approach, whilst the workshop had to be more quantitative, proposing all the elements for time and cost control of the project. With this aim, a working team was formed, and it was called Organising Staff of the workshop, because we didn’t want to remark the relationship among teachers and learners, but more the interaction among experienced project managers, sharing their knowledge. The Organising Staff was composed by sixteen people, of different origin and experience. Academy was present with professors and researchers coming from Politecnico of Milano, University of Firenze and University of Genova, all involved in the faculty of MIP Master in Engineering and Contracting as well. These researchers usually teach in university and master courses on project management, doing researches in this area as well. The companies were excellently represented by several competences: one of the best known firm lawyers, expert in international contractual law, two Project Directors and an Executive of the biggest Engineering Corporations in Italy, some Management Consultants and Practitioners, and some of the MEC teachers. Given the complexity of the case, due to the quantitative approach, a Technical Team was formed with young engineers, coming from the managerial engineer degrees and from the master MEC itself. This team was responsible for developing the software tools that could help the groups to quantitatively solve the problem. The team then took part of the class simulation impersonating a Project Manager’s Technical Office. The case study was designed and assembled, starting on one side from the main teaching aims of the workshop, and on the other side from the experience of the Organising Staff components. The relevant topics in project management teaching (Crawford 2000), are currently discussed around many tables, as the Project Management Institute (PMI), the International Project Management Association, the Italian ANIMP, as well as in the academy. For the purpose of this workshop, targeted at the Engineering and Contracting market, and basing on the results of previous PM courses, the organisers pointed out the followings: • risk analysis methodologies and good practices; • contractual issues; • risk insurance; • project finance; • managerial issues; having assumed for granted the time and cost control techniques, being all the learners experienced project managers. It is important to point out that the initiative was not commercial, i.e. no budget was available for designing and preparing the workshop, and only a formal remuneration for the classroom presence was the Organising Staff members was assured. Nevertheless all the members of the Organising Staff enthusiastically took part of the several meetings needed for the design of the case, the coordination of the preparation of all the documents supporting the simulation, and the harmonisation of them. The industrial experts and the professionals shared their experience in order to realise a case study, envelop of several real events happened during important international projects. The best methodological approaches for the critical situations, together with the last more advanced theories and techniques developed in the academic applied researches were introduced in the case.
The preparation of the course lasted 21 months, because the involved experts had to participate to the meeting outside their profession, sometimes reaching Milano from their company sites far from it. Even if the effort was not remunerated, the first ones to admit the good results in their knowledge enrichment, coming from the discussion and the brain storming, were the Organising Staff members. If only part of their enthusiasm could be transferred to the class, a good result would have been assured.
THE CASE STUDY. The workshop was based on a Case Study, asking the participants to define the recovery process of a construction project facing a severe crisis. Scope of work of the project was the construction of an industrial plant, a steel mill, for an international end user in South America. The bid was won by an Italian Engineering and Construction Company, based in Milano. The workshop’s participants impersonated some of the project team members of the E&C company. The E&C company, covered the role of Main Contractor, employing internal resources and, as it often happens in these contracts, outsourcing to a foreign subsidiary company and several subcontractors, in order to cope with the complexity and logistics of far-flung activities. The Case Study project execution was ruled by contracts with the customer and with the equipments’ providers and subcontractors, typical for the industrial sector. However, because of the international steel plant market negative trend at the moment of the bid, the strength of purchaser lead to a severe “contractual power asymmetry”, consisting in heavy contractual clauses, and during the first year of the project, to the deterioration of relationship among the parts affecting the project performance. During the project, the Italian E&C company is acquired by an USA company, acting as a General Contractor in the same market. The new top management, established by the buyer in Milano, decides to start an audit on the project, that is one of the most relevant in the acquired company portfolio. Basing on some preoccupying preliminary reports, the management comes to a decision to deepen the investigation and to point out which remedial actions are possible and capable of realigning the project. With this aim a Recovery Project Team is established. Each of the six groups formed with the workshop participants impersonated in turn the Recovery Project Team.
THE DIDACTICAL ORGANISATION The case study was then used as a basis for classroom simulation and role playing. The total duration of the course was seven days, grouped in four phases. The single day first phase was used for: • the organisation of the six groups, selecting project managers coming from different companies in each group, in order to maximise cross fertilisation of company knowledge and practices; • some team building was performed in order to make the components of the groups acquainted and enable a better cooperation in the groups; • the first part of simulation documents was given to the participants and was explained in details by the organisers, using specialists for each topic (mechanical engineer, technology experts, civil engineer, project manager and so on); • the Technical Team and its role of Technical Office was presented, along with the information tools usable by its components, leaving the contacts to the participants in order to put some work in advance before the following phase. A fifteen days interval was allowed before the second phase, of two full days, and other two identical phases, interleaved again with fifteen days followed. Each couple of days was started with the presentation and distribution of new documents, changing the state of the project. In the first phase, the project was presented as if the contract was just signed and the building yard should already be opened. In the second phase the project time was brought to the eleventh month, with the project already in delay of some months because of several problems with the soil and the equipment providers.
On the third and fourth phase, new accidents were introduced, together with the acquisition of the E&C company by the US company, asking for a restructuring of the project team. Some frontal lessons were held, on the most relevant and innovative topics, presenting new methodologies to be adopted in the problem solving for the case. Such traditional didactic was limited to no more that 20% of the time. Then, classroom simulation of negotiations, with the customer and its project management consultant, with the subcontractors and with the insurance company were in turn conducted by the groups. Some role playing among the groups was performed as well. Discussion followed at the end of the second days of each of the last three phases. The final remedial actions’ plan was prepared as slide presentations and given to the organisers in order to freeze their content. Each group then presented the report to the top management of the US company, impersonated by the Organiser Staff, with the project directors, the university professors and the consultants that prepared the case. After the six presentations, the proposal of each group was discussed and commented, and the ideas of the organisers for the ideal solutions were presented. No actual exact or best solution existed, because of the complexity of the problem, so the comments of the participants on such ideas were collected as well.
TASKS AND GOALS ASSIGNED TO THE PARTICIPANTS The interactive nature of the workshop demanded that the participants could use Project Management methodologies in real time, introducing, perhaps for the first time in their career, a systematic Risk Analysis, according to the methodology proposed in the frontal lessons. Problem Solving techniques were needed as well and, even if such tools were familiar to the participants, the managerial situations to cope with were complex and involved human resources of the company as well. As the project was in deep crisis, and maybe the company too, a paradox was possible: opposite solutions could appear both feasible, none of the two being optimal. Each group, in the same way, was asked: • to perform a Risk Analysis, qualitative at first (between the first and the second phase, in the shape of a “proposal risk assessment”; • to perform a quantitative Risk Analysis, using a number of electronic sheets, especially developed for the workshop and given to the groups at the beginning of the second phase; • to define the Remedial Actions, able to increase the project performance, to mitigate the remaining risks, and to allow for a project completion with low penalties; • to estimate the qualitative and quantitative effects of the mitigation actions on the costs, the time and the cash flow of the project; • to verify which actions were actually possible, including the main claims to the customer and the subcontractor, by simulating the meeting with the parts, in which the teachers covered the role of the different actors (top management of the Italian E&C company, top management of the US company, legal advisors of the customer and of the subcontractors, and so on); • • • •
The remedial actions had to cope with all the project aspects: technical problems arising from the exceptional situations (as the wrong load capacity of the ground, shipment accidents, missed delivery of key components, etc.); criticality of the human resources employed from the beginning in the project team, and probably not well suited for the recovery plan; different national and company culture of the new participants in the project team, with the resulting relational problems in the insertion in the group (weak cohesion and participation); general issues with strong Managerial Focus, very important for the accountability of a Project Manager, as organisation, team building capabilities, communication, motivation, delegation aptitude and so on.
ADVANCED PROJECT MANAGEMENT INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP Presentation
Frontal lessons
Group Work and Personal Work
Simulation and role playing
Discussion
Workshop presentat. Organising staff pres. Delivery and explaination of documents Groups’ formation
Team building activity and first document analysis
Off-line documents analysis and study
Definition of phase tasks, delivery of project updates Risk analysis and project risk management Group work and problem solving Presentation to the CEO, PM, PD
Contractual issues
Group work and problem solving Presentation to the CEO, PM, PD Discussion and commentis on results Off-line problem solving and task performing Definition of phase tasks, delivery of project updates Risk insureance
Group work and problem solving Presentation to the CEO, PM, PD Project finance
Group work and problem solving
Insurance claims Discussion and commentis on results Off-line problem solving and task performing Definition of phase tasks, delivery of project updates Managerial Issues Organisation Group work Negotial meeting with the CEO Group work Negotial meeting with the customer (claims) Group work Negotial meeting with the providers (claims) Discussion and commentis on results
Group work and problem solving
Discussion and commentis on results Team building and interpersonal communication theory and methods Final discussion and commentis
Figure 1 - Workshop flow
DOCUMENTATION AND RESOURCES AT PARTICIPANTS’ DISPOSAL An almost real plant design was delivered, thanks to the engineers of an Italian company, with world leadership in steel mill plants. It is important to notice that the participants, although for 90% coming from Engineering and Construction Companies, were not experts of steel technologies. Such plant type was chosen as it is one of the simplest possible, allowing to be manageable by the class maintaining a close reality resemblance. The technical choice, moreover, didn’t have to introduce more criticalities, having already enough of them. The technical specifications along with the drawings of the plant, a detailed work breakdown structure with the proposal costs (for 80 M€), an international contract with the customer, with all the financial and technical annexes, a time and cash flow estimate, the budgeted earned value curves, the internal mails, the accidents reports, the mails with the end user, with the owner’s engineer, the subsidiary company, the subcontractors and the main equipments providers. The material was delivered to the participants at the right moment, according to the simulation of project time, in a realistic format and according to company’s practice. The quantitative risk analysis was to be performed directly by the participants with their computers (electronic sheets were enough). For the more complex time and cost evaluation and re-evaluation, the Technical Office was available in order to give answer to a limited number of formally proposed questions for each group, both off-line (during the fifteen days interleaving each phase) or on-line during the two days classes.
RESULTS: ASSESSMENTS AND COMMENTS BY THE PARTICIPANTS. As the workshop was experimental, a questionnaire for the learner satisfaction assessment was developed, in order to try to split the limits of such new didactic from the quality of the specific contents. All the participants completely and accurately compiled the questionnaire and we present some results hereafter.
1. Average votes given by the participants:
Topic
Risk Analysis Contractual issue Risk insurance Project Finance Managerial issues
Degree of satisfaction
Deepening level
7.60 7.30 7.00 6.70 7.66
7.20 7.00 6.50 6.30 7.50
Practical usability of the acquired knowledge in the company role covered 7.50 7.60 6.90 7.30 8.00
Average global vote on the workshop was 7.65 The votes were in a scale 0-10 and it is to notice that the learner were very demanding, with high expectations, in consideration of their level, qualification and experience. The average vote is to be considered high. Some of the comments are significant as well, and we try to summarise the most significant ones in the following paragraphs.
2. Participation: which were the motivations and the aims which lead to the participation at the workshop? The topics to be touched, the use of a Case Study with interactive didactic, the widening of personal knowledge exchanging ideas with senior managers and academic world, good practices sharing and personal knowledge level check.
3. Which were the initial expectations? To which extent these have been satisfied? Identification and learning of new work methodologies. The implementation of risk management as a management tool, by means of the application to a “real case”. Some of the judgments were of complete success of this aim, few of the participants thought that more time was required for a further advance and deepening.
4. Which was the didactic module or the topic more interesting? Why? Someone reported Risk Analysis as a tool for investigating the critical areas, the causes and to find the proper mitigation actions. Others appreciated the Managerial Issues, as these are seldom treated in courses with the PM perspective. Contractual Issues were considered useful because some of the participants’ companies are facing risky international project with contractual clauses more and more severe.
5. Which was the less interesting topic? Why? Most of the participants considered very interesting all the topics with none of them to discard, but someone would have liked more time for some of the themes. Someone considered the Risk Insurance less interesting, probably because it was treated with less appeal by the professional who presented it, and others expected a different perspective in this topic, in relation to the project.
6. Which topic do you think that should be deepened? Why? The comments were very heterogeneous: the Risk Insurance in the perspective of presentation and analysis of claims, and challenging discussions; criteria and techniques for the team reorganisation (motivation, development, leadership, etc.); applicability of the huge mass of information and techniques learned in the negotiation; contractual issues and critical clauses, very important for the project manager; project finance and its reflection on the company finance; the extension of the Project Risk Management to the Corporate Risk Management, taking into account the enterprise risks as well.
7. Which usefulness degree had the frontal lessons? and the classroom simulation and role playing ? The judgements were very positive on both the questions. Someone considered the two didactical forms as well balanced, others appreciated the IT tools delivered, able to help not only in the simulation but even in the daily work. Some participants considered the simulations not as a learning tool, but as a stimulus for deepening the tools and techniques presented.
8. Do you think the classroom feed-back emerged during the plenary sessions and immediately commented, could be considered an actual and objective representation of the thought and opinions of the other participants? The answer was always positive, pointing out the role of “provocative” questions, the good class climate, the complete participations of all the groups’ members. Most of the participants considered the cross-fertilisation as the most value-added moment of the course.
9. Which applicability at your present or near future job do you think that the new knowledge, developed during the course, will have? Everyone evaluated an high applicability of the knowledge. Most considered that it was a mind opening to a different approach, risk centred, but that the mastering of the technique required a deepening. In any case the topics would have been discussed inside the company functions and the knowledge on them would have been strengthen and exploited.
10. Organisation and logistics: which are your comments and suggestions for the future of this course. Most of the criticism are in this area. Many participants thought that the Case Study was a little oversized with respect to the seven days of duration. The time required for analysing the material in
deep, and to grasp all the aspect of the case was too small, and many participants were able to cope with the problem, studying it not only at home but also at work, asking help to their colleagues. The Technical Office, although well established and equipped, was of few help, because the case analysis was limited in the quantitative aspects, due to the small time available. More independent space would be necessary for group work and the lunch should not take too much time. In few words more time were needed. As the above comments suggests the experience is surely positive, but still many adjustments are needed to exploit the group work and the so appreciated “cross-fertilisation”. In order to verify the efficiency and effectiveness of the group work, we proposed a selfassessment to the participants, and the results are a very interesting feed-back for the course.
EFFECTIVNESS
EFFICIENCY
SELF ASSESSMENT OF GROUP WORK Time management: Were the discussions performed by organising the available time? Has been there a positive pressure on time management? Role assignment: Was always chosen a methodological team leader? Were the other roles assigned and clear to the whole group? Procedures: Were tacit rules followed ? Were the critical points and their causes pointed out, choosing the decisional process best suited for each of them? Was a minimal planning fixed, from the very beginning, in order to keep the meeting organised? Formal results of each meeting: Were the actions formally decided, listed and assigned to group members ? Was the goal reached in every meeting? Personal contributions: Were all the participants involved in discussion? Was everyone able to present his point of view? Were all the points of view considered in choosing the final proposals? Idea elaboration methods: Was the aims and the priorities clear in every discussion? Was a logical method followed in order to find common agreements? Were the decisions taken with the agreement of the majority? Cross fertilisation: Was there full development and circularity of the interpersonal relations? Was there motivation enough to search solutions, by sharing each own knowledge and professional experience? Global effectiveness: Do you think that the solutions and conclusions reached at the end of the workshop are satisfying according to the primary objectives? Do you think to have obtained a professional enrichment by the interactions with the other group mates and with the Organising Staff?
Class averag e vote 7.30 7.30
7.10
7.45 7.40
8.00
8.50
8.15
CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES. The “Advanced Project Management Interactive Workshop” was a good experience both for all the participants and the organisers as well. But some problems still remains: • Applicability. Seen as a single educational initiative, such a course is not cost-effective at all. It was possible to prepare the case study, with all the requirements above listed, only basing on the voluntary participation of valuable human resources, as top managers, executives and specialised technicians, beside the academy. The budget coming from reasonable fees could only cover the teaching in the frontal lessons and some of the class presence of the Organising Team members. • Repeatability. The course could be repeated, with the highlighted tuning emerged from the participants’ assessment. In this way, most of the Case Study building effort can be amortised on the repetitions of the course, but some problems would arise. Iteration of the course in the
• •
same company may be ineffective, because information about the case and its solution certainly goes around. Eventually the case material, in printed or CD-ROM format could spread. Transferability. With an effort smaller that that required for its first release, but still relevant, this kind of workshop can be transferred to other sectors, as the civil constructions, infrastructures realisation, IT projects. Internationalisation. Almost all the course material is already in English, and the Case Study is inherently international. So it would be very easy to repeat the course in an international environment. As a matter of fact, the MIP and ANIMP already got in touch with important international Business Schools in order to organise the same workshop in their master degrees, and with multinational corporations to implement their training offer.
References Crawford, L. (2000), “Profiling the Competent Project Manager”, Proceedings of PMI Research Conference 2000, Paris Cross, R., Reiley, J. (1999). “Team Learning: Best Practices and Tools for an Elusive Concept”. National Productivity Review, 18(3), pp. 9-18 Zhang, L. (2003), “How to transfer PM research into teaching case studies?”, Proceedings of Peroject Management Conference: Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Assessment, Bournemouth, September 2003. Project Management Institute (PMI) at http://www.pmi.org International Project Management Association (IPMA) at http://www.ipma.ch Associazione Nazionale di Impiantistica Industriale (ANIMP) at http://www.animp.it
