New Perspective in Project Management

The PM4NGOs partner IPMA International collaborated to create the international workshop: “New perspective in Project Management”.

This article was originally published on IPMA International. Written by Sandra Mišić and Amin Saidoun.

On 9^th of May 2018 Turkish Project Management Association in collaboration with IPMA and Gazi University organized an international workshop.

The topic with the title: “New perspective in Project Management” attracted over 150 attendees from private but mainly academic sector.

Both national and international speakers were invited to the event.

Dr Jesús Martínez Almela (Spain), IPMA President started the workshop with an opening speech, underlining that IPMA strongly supports the development of project management in the Turkey.

The workshop was organized in two sessions. The topic of the first session was New Standards in Project Management and the second one addressed Current Trends in Project Management.

The international workshop on project management starts with the national anthem of Turkey

During the first session, Reinhard Wagner explained the evolution of ISO-Standards in Project, Programme and Portfolio management, insisting on the importance of project governance He mentioned that today, it is critical to integrate and support the development of supply chains that are a key part of infrastructure megaprojects. Understanding the project, programs, portfolios and particularly in large megaprojects can help international standards to take into consideration the core challenges in these projects. He explained that Portfolio Management sits between strategy and projects. ISO standard covers the whole world. Using this standard in its own projects allows can help the company to increase international market access. The presentation underlines the involvement of the company’s leadership in making portfolios decisions. This is critical as project managers often are restricted to make decisions at the team level and not at the portfolio level. Consequently, many projects suffer from the lack of top management involvement. Roads, railways, and airports are key infrastructure projects in Germany which are often financed by the European Union and Public-Private Partnerships. Reinhard Wagner mentioned furthermore that ISO standards have been included in the ICB4 standard of IPMA. The European Commission recently issued a standard for EU projects, called PM² which for the moment does not include certifications ISO standards still stand as a practical standard that can be tailored to your needs.

In the context of a new perspective in Project Management, Gholamreza Safakish (Iran), IPMA Vice President Education and Young Crew explained the challenges of managing team members from different generations (X,Y,C). He particularly insisted on the fact that the definition of generation has changed and that the duration according to some definitions has come down to 7 years. This means a consequent adaptation of the project manager in his management style and efforts of team building.

Reception at the Deans office of Ghazi university of Ankara:  Jesus Martinez Almela, Reinhard Wagner, Joop Schefferlie, Gholamreza Safakish, Lixiong Ou, Amin Saidoun, Cetin Elmas Dr Adnan Sözen, Dean of Faculty of Technology at Gazi University

Amin Saidoun, IPMA Executive Director highlighted the peculiarities and lessons learned from “ Project management with multicultural teams”. He explained that the word culture has many facets. Based on well-known models of cultural dimensions such as Hoftede and the Iceberg Model, the understanding of multicultural teams in managing a project can be eased. He illustrated this with an example form the logistics sector He pointed that the classical outsets of project management with clear project scope, deliverables, work packages and adequate stakeholder management are fundamental to align different perspectives members of a multicultural team can have regarding the project approach. Building trust and delegating responsibilities are as important as leasing by example to keep the teams engagement and motivation. Creating a culture that tolerates helps to foster trust in the project team.  Joop Schefferlie, (Netherlands), IPMA Vice President certification presented “Trends in project management and leadership”. He underlined the significant impact of agility in today’s project context. He also mentioned that with the reduction of product life cycles and the need to adapt to a quickly changing environment, Agile Leadership was necessary to manage the challenges resulting from the increase of the pace of a changing environment. Lixiong Ou (China), IPMA Vice President research presented “Trends in project management research” where he particularly insisted on the need to increase the visibility of project, programme and portfolio management in research. Too often the subject is associated with the practice. Society underestimates the criticality of the PPPM among an increasing number of researchers and related networks and publications to which IPMA is contributing will increase the visibility of PM research in society.

Following the success of this event and the need to foster both the profession and the association in Turley, it was decided to organize the next event on project Management in October 2018 in Antalya.