PPM Contributes To Other Objectives Of The University

We regularly get positive feedback from people who did the Program in Project Management (PPM) but does this program also contribute to other objectives of the University such as research?

People who did the PPM and the APPM (Advanced Program in Project Management) are sometimes asked to participate in surveys that contribute to project management research in South Africa and beyond our borders.  One such survey on project management maturity in the engineering and construction industries was recently published.

While previous studies attempted to determine how the success of South African Information Technology (IT) projects related to the project management maturity of the organisations that executed the projects, this study was conducted in the engineering and construction sectors. The paper reports on a structured questionnaire distributed to 1625 individuals mainly in the South African engineering and construction industries from which 255 responses were received. ‘Project success’ was self-defined by the respondents who identified project success within their unique environments and contexts. The bulk of projects (46%) were considered successful. The average perceived project management maturity level was 2.88. The full paper can be read at:

http://repository.up.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2263/20878/Pretorius_Project(2012).pdf?sequence=1

Another paper where people who did the PPM and APPM participated is on matrix structures in organizations that manage projects and on the effect of matrix structure characteristics have on project success. This paper is being submitted to an international journal on project management.

Furthermore, the PPM started before the masters’ degree program (MPM) that is specifically aimed at engineers. According to Prof Herman Steyn this masters’ program would not have materialized, was it not for the PPM.  The MPM in turn contributed much to research in project management. The two years that lecturers taught the PPM before the MPM was launched got several lecturers in specialized areas interested in project management and gave them the opportunity to start developing material in their specific knowledge areas of project management. This formed the basis from which they developed more advanced material for the masters’ program.