Engineering Projects Management
Cod: 22158
Department: DCET
ECTS: 7
Scientific area: Engineering and Management
Total working hours: 210
Total contact time: 40

We facilitate a process in which students explore the fundamentals of Project Management (PM) in a contextual situated view, identifying actors and processes. Students learn how to prepare and apply a project plan, scheduling, resource allocation, monitor and control. Students by the end of the semester can show an enlarged culture on Project Management and some expertise on the use of PM integrated tools, namely Microsoft Project.
We integrate mainstream approaches (PMBOK) with complementary approaches (Critical Chain and Agile) and explore a diversity of views (papers on PM). We work on the development of a sociotechnical view on PM. With this approach we intend to facilitate the construction of individual knowledge and to let each one know the best practices in the field.

At the end of the course students will learn the fundamental concepts and have different perspectives and may work better decision making, should know - in terms of using integrated tools for Project Management, and should know-being in the context of an ethical attitude towards the project and its consequences.

1) A General Approach to PM.
2) Activities, processes, tasks, Work Packages.
3) Project life cycle. Performance evaluation, learning cycle, team learning.
4) Teams and Groups.
5) Communication competencies (informal, formal, internal and external). Communication validation (type 2). Reports and project evolution. Communication infrastructure.
6) Key competences (planning and scope, governance, change management, stakeholders management, risk management, resource management, quality management, communication reports, control, evaluation and closing).
7) Project Scope.
8) WBS.
9) Planning with PERT and GANT, critical path.
10) Time management.
11) Resource allocation.
12)Costs and estimates and control.
13) Risk management. Decision tables and trees, expected value, utility functions
14) Earned Value.
15) Contracting and Procurement.
16) Conclusion (closing) and Lessons learned.
17) Critical Chain and AGILE.
18) Social and Ethical responsibility

• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, PMI, 2008, PMBOK Guide
• Critical Chain, Eliyahu M. Goldratt, 1997, North River Press
• Managing Telecommunications Projects, Celia Desmond, 2010, Wiley, IEEE Press

E-learning

Evaluation is made on individual basis and it involves the coexistence of two modes: continuous assessment (60%) and final evaluation (40%). Further information is detailed in the Learning Agreement of the course unit.