Introduction

In June 2001, the Southwest Ohio PMI Chapter Board of Directors began collaborating within the local chapter to develop a new program to award college students for developing project management planning deliverables.

These project management planning deliverables are presented to a group of PMI members, who judge the deliverables based upon standardized criteria. This document outlines the structure of this program in its current form, its status and the envisioned benefits of the program.

Background

Over the last several years, the Southwest Ohio Chapter of PMI has been working towards expanding the awareness of project management throughout the business and university communities.

This new initiative was started with the University Connections Committee and Xavier University to continue to foster project management in the university environment. During the summer of 2001, the chapter began working with Dr. Timothy Kloppenborg, a professor at Xavier University, in developing a pilot contest focusing on project planning.

The student teams developed project plans for highly needed projects within the local community. The student teams developed these project plans over the school semester as part of their project management studies. At the end of the semester, the teams presented their project plans to a panel of PMI judges, and the PMI judges evaluated the completeness, thoroughness and quality of the project plans and selected a winning team. The winning team received a monetary award and Xavier University also received a donation to support the growth of project management within the university.

Current Status (2004-2005)

After piloting this project for 3 years and refining its structure, the chapter wanted to expand this program to other academic institutions around the tri-state area. Hence, the academia outreach program of the chapter is currently working with four universities, viz, Northern Kentucky University, Xavier University, Cincinnati State and University of Cincinnati to implement this program and promote project management in the community. Currently, the chapter is also working with other universities to get them interested in this program.

For each university that has evinced an interest in this program, there is a volunteer relationship manager (RM) from the outreach program who acts as the PMI representative and the focal point for that university. Before the beginning of the school academic period (semester or quarter), the RM works with the professor to customize the program based on the syllabus of the professor and determine the minimum set of deliverables the student teams from the particular university will develop based on the school’s curriculum. The RM also ensures that this customized program meets the minimum standards set by our chapter.

The relationship manager then coordinates with the professor to visit the first class of the academic session. During the initial visit, the PMI representative and the professor introduce the competition to the students. The professor then discusses the syllabus and the deliverables contained within the syllabus with the students. The PMI representative will discuss the judging criteria for each deliverable and how the judging will occur during the final presentation.

During the semester, the students will complete the deliverables based upon the syllabus’ deadlines, and post the deliverables to a secured website that is accessible by the students, professors and judges. While the students are working their deliverables, the PMI representative will be identifying judges for the final presentation, and coordinate a judging training session. At the end of the academic period (semester or quarter based on the school), the students present their work to the PMI judges, who rate them for the completeness and thoroughness and quality of their work and declare winners.

Currently, the chapter provides a free student PMI membership and a small monetary gift for the winning student teams and  publicly recognizes them for their work and performance.

Benefits

The primary endeavor of the outreach program of the SWOHIO PMI chapter is to help different community organizations in developing and executing their project plans by involving the skills and interests of project management professionals and enthusiasts from our community. The program also aims to increase the awareness and project management maturity among our students and focus the resources of the business community to achieve these goals.

In this direction, the projects for the SWOPMI scholar program were traditionally obtained from an umbrella organization for community organizations in Cincinnati. Presently, the community outreach program of the chapter solicits projects directly from different community organizations, evaluates them against a criteria developed by the chapter and tries to assign projects to the student teams according to their syllabus and the deliverables they plan to create.

At the end of the academic session, we believe that successful student plans can be used by these community organizations to jumpstart their project work and students would have learnt from the real-world experience they have gained in project management.