Using Interactive Methods to Develop Project Management Skills in an Engineering Programme: Drawing on German Expertise

In order to address the need for project management in an engineering curriculum, the author presented interactive project management workshops to a cohort of forty electrical engineering project design students in an electrical engineering programme. The author is affiliated to a South African university and he collaborated with a Germany-based company, Training Development Consulting (TDC). Interactive campus-based training workshops were conducted by the author and Andrea von Gleichenstein of TDC at the beginning of 2015 in order to enhance essential soft skills required for project management. Subsequent to the training, the students were provided with opportunities to apply these skills in realizing a renewable energy project in a local community. The aim of the workshops was to empower students with project management skills through interactive hands-on training sessions. The focus of this study is an assessment of the extent to which students were able to apply project management skills to the design and building of an engineering artefact within the required time frame. The author supervised all the students registered for the course. The findings of the research showed that students who attended the workshops gained project management knowledge and skills and were able to transfer the knowledge and skills learned to a real world project. This paper elaborates on the effectiveness of interactive methods. The author argues that interactive training should be taught to students in project-based engineering subjects, to develop their project management skills.

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