Driving force for students Creating a Project Management Centre of Excellence is which takes an educational institution to realize their project management mandate. It encompasses the process of creating a strategy for creating values to students re-shaping the careers of students for future and to be more focused on the consistency in delivering quality value-based programs and implementing to create an infrastructure within the institution.
Creating a Project Management Centre of Excellence
A Centre of Excellence is a unit that has perspective of organization activities. The key elements of a successful Project Management Centre of Excellence include:
Vision and Strategies
- A clear vision of what the Centre of Excellence represents and the strategies to identify how it will reach this vision in the short and long term and creates values to students during there academic journey.
Competencies
- The Centre of Excellence can build solid productive result-oriented competencies in the student career compared to actual project they get into during the job phase. The identification of training and other project related activities to close any competency gap can be learnt in this Center of Excellence by the Educational Institutions.
Culture
- How to re-shape and create discipline amongst the students can be developed highly in this Centre of Excellence and especially while one learns the Project Management components. Definitely the subject Project Management teaches how to manage the projects in a way such that results are achieved rather looking into success of projects as whole.
Processes
- The Centre of Excellence teaches right processes, tools navigation and templates that are helpful and meaningful to students in order to be as Project Manager in future.
Create the Vision and Strategies
Today in this fast change world Educational Institutions should approach to create a vision for the Centre of Excellence and brainstorm ideas with all stakeholders that focuses on how the Centre of Excellence can be developed so that students can gain experience of projects, case studies. The Centre of Excellence should deeply encourage faculties to research in the Centre. Start by creating scenarios that describe what the Centre will be doing in the future. What are some of the things that they will be doing that reflect a success of Centre of Excellence?
The outcome of this establishment is the creation of a vision statement for the Project Management Centre of Excellence. Determine how this vision aligns and supports Institution Strategies.
The alignment of the Centre of Excellence establishment should create goals for students and translate this vision into reality. This should close the gap between the present aspirations and the “ideal” future. The Vision must be described clearly so that the Centre of Excellence achieve its results.
Vision Statement Examples:
- Institutions in collaboration with Industries should create a project culture where project management is a valued competency embedded in students’ career. By creating a Culture both Institution and Students’ embrace the project management values, its benefits to ensure that they together reach their DESIRED GOALS.
- Educational Institutions should foster and support developing Project Management Centre of Excellence to ensure greater accountability and consistency in developing student’s career and vast knowledge which helps them in building solid productive career.
Strategy Examples:
- Develop a productive project culture where institution involves both Student’s and Faculties in projects and create great value contribution within the Centre of Excellence.
- Create a continuous communication link between student’s, institution, industries and faculties and provide them the knowledge as how Industries execute and implement projects.
Identify and Develop Competencies
A key responsibility of a Centre of Excellence in Educational Institutions is to help student’s and faculties in strengthening their respective project management skills. Not collaborating with Industries institution can’t develop best students with the right project management knowledge, skills.
A competency within the Centre of Excellence is to develop knowledge, skills, ability and characteristics associated with high performance on a project. Competencies can also help distinguish high performance from average and low performance. Create a competency assessment to identify the competency requirements so that Institution can help students as what they can learn.
Develop Measurable Quality Standards
Students and Faculties within the Centre of Excellence can learn three international standards that help to provide the foundation for the development of quality standards for project during there career. These are:
- PMBOK – The Project Management Body of Knowledge created by the Project Management Institute.
- ISO 10006:2003 – Guidelines for Quality Management in Projects
- ISO 21500:2012 – Guidance on Project Management
Educational Institutions post establishing “Project Management Centre of Excellence” should focus on developing quality standards processes and documents.
FINALLY – The Project Management Centre of Excellence
A Project Management Centre of Excellence will help Students and Faculties to realize imperatives of projects. It will in-depth teach them HOW projects to be managed within their constraints and to meet their deliverable resources. It will also teach to reshape the culture being in the project.
Various research shows that a Centre of Excellence can have a profound effect for both Institution and Students. Preparedness for the changes will be learnt which is necessary and to understand the benefits of the change. As well, the Centre of Excellence also teaches Best practices and apply a structured process to each project while they get into job market. Project management best practises include a disciplined approach to planning, executing and learning from projects and applies quality management principles. And finally, the GREAT LEARNING as how successfully projects can be executed time after time.
