Herman Steyn is an experienced, practical project manager who has been pursuing his academic interests in project management since 1996.
His practical experience includes 22 years in project environments prior to joining the University. During this period he held senior positions, managed large and small projects and assumed responsibility for the management of portfolios of projects. Budget responsibility in 1990, for example, c.a. US$ 168 million (in 2017 US$ value).
Since joining the University, he has been actively involved in project management workshops, seminars and as consultant.
He has been registered as a Professional Engineer with ECSA for most of his career.
Since 1996, Herman has been a full professor specialising in project management at the Graduate School of Technology Management, University of Pretoria.
He co-authors an international book on project management with John M Nicholas of the Loyola University of Chicago.
He is also editor of a South African book on Project Management: Project Management – a multi-disciplinary approach. His book that is used on the online short course, Project Management Principles, Practices and Scheduling, as well as the book co-authored with John Nicolas, is available at Perlego.
He initiated the Master’s Programme in Project Management (MPM) in 1999 – currently the only masters’ programme in project management in Africa that enjoys accreditation of the Global Accreditation Center of the PMI, USA.
He initiated the certificate Programme in Project Management (PPM) in 1997 and is still responsible for the academic content of the PPM.
He has taught numerous courses and certificate courses in project management. Companies and organizations for whom in-house courses or seminars have been offered include: Eskom, Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor, Exxaro, Kumba, SABS, Arcelor Mittal, Department of Agriculture of KZN, Competition Commission, Department of Public Works North-West Province, Statistics SA, Bell Equipment, Post & Buckley International (Swaziland), SA National Parks, Habitat for Humanity, Lafarge (South Africa and Nigeria), Kwesi V3 Engineering, Armscor, Group 5 Ltd, Deloitte, CSIR, Harmony Gold, Sasol Polyolefins, Anglo American and British Aerospace.
His scientific papers on project management have appeared in journals such as the International Journal of Project Management, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business and in the International Journal of Project Organisation and Management.
His project management publications have been cited widely (more than 3800 times) in academic project management literature.
His qualifications include two engineering degrees, an MBA and a PhD in Engineering Management, and he has a Level C2 NRF rating as researcher in project management.
He has taught project management as a guest lecturer at the Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands, at the Gordon Institute for Business Science (GIBS) and at the Lagos Business School, Pan-African University, Nigeria.
In 2025, Prof Herman Steyn received the College of Performance Management Professor of the Year Award. This esteemed award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate excellence in teaching, produce significant research outputs, and has published influential academic papers or books in performance management.
His personal profile is available on LinkedIn.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.