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The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2007: §2315
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| | Fri, Nov 2, 11:30 - 11:55, Ellwood 1 Paper (refereed)
| | Recommended Citation: Frank, R I. An IS Project Management Course Project. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2007, v 24 (Pittsburgh): §2315. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 8(18). ISSN: 1545-679X.)
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An IS Project Management Course Project
| | Ronald I. Frank [a1] [a2]
Information Systems Department
Pace University [u1] [u2]
Pleasantville, New York, USA [c1] [c2]
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Information Systems curricula should provide project management (PM) theory, current practice, and hands-on experience. The schedule usually does not allow time in Analysis and Design courses for development oriented project management instruction other than a short introduction. Similarly, networking courses usually don’t put project management into the syllabus even though network people need this skill in the field. One solution is to offer a separate one-semester “Introduction to IS Project Management” course. The problem is scheduling the course itself. This course usually can’t come before it is needed in development oriented courses, which come early in the curriculum. One solution to this scheduling problem is to offer some cursory introduction to and use of PM in the development course(s) and leave the full presentation to a later general PM course not directed specifically at development. When presenting that latter PM course, usually at the junior/senior level, the hands-on component becomes an issue. Should the course’s hands-on project be a mini development project, a networking project, or something else? Having a simultaneous parallel nontrivial hands-on project activity is not only distracting but draining of time and effort that should be going to the PM content. This paper presents one solution to this problem: a hands-on PM course where the course itself becomes the hands-on nontrivial project. The students cover the concepts of IS development using the text(s) but learn general project management theory and current practice. They experience the processes of PM by applying them to their own activities in the course itself, without the distraction of yet another different simultaneous activity (such as a mini development hands-on project).
Keywords: Project Management, Curriculum, Hands-on experience
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