Midlam-Mohler,, S., & Linger, J., & Slavinski, J., & Fiorentini, L. (2015, June), Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24600

\bibitem{asee_peer_24600}
  Midlam-Mohler,, S., \& Linger, J., \& Slavinski, J., \& Fiorentini, L. (2015, June), \emph{Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24600

Shawn Midlam-Mohler,, Jason Linger, Jack Slavinski, and Lisa Fiorentini.  "Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://strategy.asee.org/24600 Internet.  28 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_24600}
  Shawn Midlam-Mohler,, Jason Linger, Jack Slavinski, and Lisa Fiorentini.
  "Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://strategy.asee.org/24600 Internet.  28 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24600
author = "Shawn Midlam-Mohler,, Jason Linger, Jack Slavinski, and Lisa Fiorentini"
title = "Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://strategy.asee.org/24600}
number = {10.18260/p.24600}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -        Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the                          Ohio State University           Jason Linger, Shawn Midlam-Mohler, Jack Slavinski, and Lisa Fiorentini                                      The Ohio State UniversityAbstractStudents typically gain exposure to project management techniques through capstone seniordesign, however, many students would benefit from a greater depth of study. This has beenindicated through student surveys and industry feedback. To support this, three departmentswithin The Ohio State University College of Engineering have developed complementarycourses that cover topics in project management. In addition, students engaged in extra-curricular student projects, such as the EcoCAR 3 project, must practice project managementtechniques in order to successfully lead multi-person teams on deliverable-oriented projects.This paper offers a review of these three courses within Electrical and Computer Engineering,Integrated Systems Engineering, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. An overview ofthe techniques applied by the EcoCAR 3 project are also included as a proxy for the manystudent engineering projects that are on OSU’s campus.KeywordsProject Management, Systems Engineering, Education, Capstone, EcoCARIntroductionStudents typically gain exposure to project management techniques through capstone seniordesign, however, many students would benefit from a greater depth of study. This has beenindicated through student surveys and industry feedback. To support this, three departmentswithin The Ohio State University College or Engineering have developed complementarycourses that cover topics in project management. In addition, students engaged in extra-curricular student projects, such as the EcoCAR 3 project, must practice project managementtechniques in order to successfully lead multi-person teams on deliverable-oriented projects.This paper offers a review of the three project management courses within Electrical andComputer Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Integrated SystemsEngineering. An overview of the techniques applied by the EcoCAR 3 project are also includedas a proxy for the many student engineering projects that are on OSU’s campus.The four experiences described in this paper are:   1. ECE 6070: Project Management in Electrical and Computer Engineering   2. ME 5194: Applied Project Management and System Engineering     3. ISE 3800: Engineering Project Management     4. The Ohio State University EcoCAR 3 TeamIn the following sections, information pertaining to each course is provided, describing themotivation and key aspects of each course. In the appendix, simplified syllabi of each of thethree courses can be found. In addition, the following summary table highlights the keydifferences and similarities between the three courses.Course Information                             ECE                                                MAE                                                     ISE                                                                              ME 5194 - Applied Project Management andOfficial Course Name        ECE 6070 - Project Management in ECE                                                                     ISE 3800 - Engineering Project Management                                                                                         System EngineeringFrequency Offered                     Once per school year                                   Spring and Fall                                         Spring and FallCredit Hours                                    3                                                   3                                                       3                         An Introduction to Project Management, FourthRequired Textbook                                                                                 None                                                   None                                       Edition (Schwalbe)Typical Enrollment Per                                                50                                                  30                                                     75Semester                           Requirement for ECE MS students on non-Class Type                                                                                  Technical Elective                                        Requirement                                          thesis trackTarget Audience                              Graduate                                Juniors, Seniors, and Graduate                                      Juniors                           Vast Majority are ECE but a Chemistry PhDOther Majors                                                                                       Yes                                                     No                           student and a ME MS student took the class                                                                           In this course, students will learn a variety of                                                                           applied systems engineering and project                                                                           management topics. The course focuses on                                                                           giving students a realistic experience in these                                                                                                                                  The course will be a diverse combination of weekly                                                                           topics through integration with real engineering                                                                                                                                  lessons, reading assignments, student                         Topics include general PM principles, PM          projects and/or participation in “role-playing” case                                                                                                                                  presentations, team driven group work, labs                         processes and tools, team culture and             studies. Assignments will include tasks such as                                                                                                                                  (utilizing project management software), semester                         communication, risk and crisis management,        developing and maintaining timelines and                                                                                                                                  projects and individual case studies as well as                         application to ECE projects, project              developing and maintaining requirement trackingCourse Topics/Format                                                                                                              interactive class wide participation in                         documentation and reporting. Several case         documents for the projects. To support these                                                                                                                                  workshop/case study scenarios using varied                         studies are discussed to highlight the importance tasks, students will learn theory, be taught various                                                                                                                                  industry based real world examples. I will also bring                         of minimizing risk to avoid failure. Real-world   tools (such as work breakdown schedules), as                                                                                                                                  in outside guest leadership speakers occasionally                         ECE project designed to strengthen PM skills.     well as learn how to use commercial software                                                                                                                                  who will share their project management and                                                                           packages that are used in industry. In class                                                                                                                                  industry experiences.                                                                           discussion will also be used to facilitate peer-to-                                                                           peer learning between groups which will be                                                                           encountering different challenges based on the                                                                           particulars of the project they are working on.                                                     Figure 1: Summary Table of PM CoursesOverview of ECE 6070: Project Management in Electrical and Computer EngineeringThis course is unique in that the target audience is exclusively graduate students. This course isa requirement for the ECE department’s non-thesis Master’s degree option. Because of theimportance of project management skills in industry, the department opted to make the course arequired part of this graduate program. The learning objectives for this course are for studentsto:     1. Learn the principles of project management.     2. Apply project management tools and processes to solve Electrical and Computer           Engineering problems as done in industry.     3. Emphasize and practice teamwork.     4. Practice organizational, communication, technical writing and presentation skills.Overview of ME 5194: Applied Project Management and System EngineeringThis course was developed to fit into a newly created Professional Skills category in theMechanical Engineering program. This course meets this requirement and is among thefollowing list of options for ME students:   1.  BUSMHR 2500: Entrepreneurship   2.  ENGR 4194: Survey of Engineering Law   3.  ENGR 5680: Leading in Engineering Organizations   4.  ENGR 5050: Introduction to Humanitarian Engineering   5.  MECHENG 4194: New Product Introduction, Development, Design, and Lean Six         Sigma Manufacturing   6. MECHENG 4194: An Introduction to Six Sigma Concepts   7. MECHENG 5194: Applied Project Management   8. MECHENG 5194: Innovative Leadership for the Global Leader   9. PUBAFRS 3000: Introduction to Public Policy Analysis   10. PUBAFRS 5600: Science, Engineering, and Public PolicyThis course integrates topics from systems engineering as well as project management into asingle cohesive framework. This approach is driven in part by NASA’s approach of dealing withthese topics jointly to improve project and product performance. The learning objectives of thiscourse are for a student to:   1.   Apply project management techniques to facilitate a engineering project   2.   Apply systems integration techniques to facilitate development of complex products   3.   Use project management and systems integration software effectively   4.   Appreciate the importance of class topics to successful execution of complex projectsOverview of ISE 3800: Engineering Project ManagementOf the three courses discussed in this paper, this course is the only one that is a requirement foran undergraduate major. This is the case with many ISE programs because of the importance ofthese skills for graduating ISE students. The learning objectives for this course are for a studentto:   1. Understand what effective project leadership, sponsorship and good communication         means and why it makes a difference   2. Conduct effective project planning from start to finish and measure progress   3. Apply and scale various project management methodologies (agile versus waterfall)   4. Organize and structure projects   5. Understand why projects often fail and how to potentially prevent that   6. Define and manage scope and what “done” means   7. Identify criteria for project success while resolving barriers to successful execution   8. Develop project schedules, event driven plans, work breakdown structures and tasks   9. Identify critical path roadmaps and phase gates   10. Apply constraint modeling and analysis to schedules   11. Depict project plan and dependency through visualization   12. Effectively identify, assess and resolve project risks and issues   13. Use various quality and defect management techniques   14. Scale project processes to small, low risk projects as well as large, complex projects   15. Understand how to appropriately leverage project management tools   16. Handle projects in a state of chaos or damage control   17. Managing project execution with the right level of discipline and rigorApplication of Project Management in EcoCAR 3The Ohio State University EcoCAR 3 Team is tasked with redesigning a 2016 Chevrolet Camarointo a hybrid electric vehicle. Effective project management has been critical to the success ofthe team. The tools and techniques utilized by the team include a balanced matrix organizationalstructure, a project charter, monthly status reports, bi-annual stakeholder status presentations, aproject management plan, and earned value management.The balanced matrix organizational structure of the team, in which team members report to botha project manager and a functional manager, allows for the proper balance between projectmanagement and technical oversight of project activities. This structure fosters the creation ofcross-functional teams that blend students with different skill sets, backgrounds, and experiences.Each team member with project management responsibilities has taken one of the projectmanagement courses described in this paper or has been trained by the lead project manager.At the beginning of the project, the team developed a project charter to serve as a roughschedule, scope, and cost baseline for the team. The charter has allowed the team to measureprogress, avoid scope creep, and judge how tasks and activities relate to the overall project. Thecharter includes a background of the team, team mission and vision statements, assumptions andconstraints for the project, project deliverables for the first year of the competition and beyond,and project authorization from the faculty advisor Dr. Shawn Midlam-Mohler.Monthly status reports are provided to competition organizers and the team mentor at GeneralMotors at the beginning of each month.               The monthly status report includes keyaccomplishments from the previous month, key planned activities, major risks the team currentlyfaces, and issues that are frustrating project performance. The team also uses stakeholder statuspresentations to convey the overall status of the project to advanced vehicle technologycompetition stakeholders. These presentations are held twice per academic year. In the first yearof EcoCAR 3, the first presentation was held in Austin, TX, and the second presentation washeld in Seattle, WA. These events are judged by industry and government experts withexperience in project management and stakeholder communication. In the stakeholder statuspresentation, the project manager must provide an overview of the team’s organizationalstructure, the history of the team, overall project status, accomplishments of the team, plannedactivities, and important program risks. In addition, the project manager must discuss teamknowledge transfer and lessons learned.The team has developed a project management plan to guide the execution and control of thevehicle redesign project. It consists of a schedule management plan, a cost management plan, ahuman resource management plan, a stakeholder management plan, an internal communicationsmanagement plan, a risk management plan, and a procurement management plan.The schedule management plan includes the methodology and software for scheduling, rules forestimates, the schedule baseline, change control procedures, and reporting formats. The teamutilizes a Gantt Chart and a cloud-based scheduling software known as Trello for schedule andtask tracking. The Gantt Chart consists of major team activities, milestones, project deliverables,dependencies, and percent completion. Trello, developed by Fog Creek Software, consists ofdifferent “boards” for each of the sub-teams (e.g. mechanical, electrical, communications, etc.).Each board contains “to do,” “doing,” and “done” lists of tasks. Team members are allowed toview, edit, and move tasks. The transparency and usability of this system allows for enhancedproject tracking and performance.The cost management plan is comprised of the cost baseline, methods for documenting costs, androles and responsibilities. The team uses a project budget to manage income (from theuniversity, company sponsors, etc.) and expenses (on vehicle components, marketing materials,etc.).The human resource management plan defines roles and responsibilities of the team and theteam’s organizational structure. The team uses a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, andInform) Chart for managing ownership of tasks. Included in the HR management plan is therecruiting strategy for the team. A strong recruiting strategy is essential for success in thecompetition because the team’s roster, comprised of undergraduate and graduate students, ishighly dynamic.Competition stakeholders include government organizers, company sponsors, university backers,students, faculty, and local community members. The stakeholder management plan is used astool for managing the expectations, influence, and engagement for all of these stakeholders.The communications management plan documents the models, technology, and methods that areused for communicating with teammates and stakeholders. The team holds twice-weeklymeetings for all team members. In addition, there is a weekly meeting of team leaders to discussproject status, risks, and project issues. The team uses email and a cloud-based communicationapplication called Slack to communicate quickly.Proper risk management allows the team to pro-actively deal with risks—both threats andopportunities—as they arise. The team uses a risk register in which risks are ranked by severity,occurrence, and detection. In addition, risk triggers and potential responses are identified.One of the major challenges in the EcoCAR competition is recruiting sponsors to provide thehundreds of components that will be included in the redesigned vehicle. Robust procurementmanagement is critical to this effort. Each component is identified along with costs, justification,and timeline for arrival.The team uses earned value management to measure project performance against scope,schedule, and cost baselines. Communication of planned value, earned value, and variance withappropriate team members and relevant stakeholders generates better project results.ConclusionsThree different departments at The Ohio State University have developed project managementcourses which address a different need in the curriculum. These courses share common roots inthe fact that industry requires students with improved abilities to manage projects and function inorganizations with formal project management processes. In addition to this curriculum,students involved in the more than thirty engineering student organizations practice projectmanagement to some degree. In projects like EcoCAR 3, the team has developed a very formalprocess for project management and is supported in this effort by the competition throughtraining, project management milestones, and close collaboration with a mentor assigned to eachteam from General Motors.                                        APPENDIX A:   ECE 6070 Syllabus: Project Management in Electrical and Computer EngineeringCredit Hours:         3 HoursCourse Description: General principles of Project Management; Project Managementprocesses and tools; Case studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering.Required Textbook:Revised an Introduction to Project Management, Fourth EditionKathy Schwalbe, Schwalbe Publishing, 2013 ISBN-‐10: 1448607531Suggested References:   • A guide to the PROJECT MANAGEMENT BODY OF KNOWLEDGE (PMBOK GUIDE),      Fifth Edition. Project Management Institute, 2013 ISBN: 978-‐1-‐935589-‐67-‐9Learning Objectives:Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:   1. Students will learn the principles of project management.   2. Students will apply project management tools and processes to solve Electrical and      Computer Engineering problems as done in the Industry.   3. Students will emphasize and practice teamwork.   4. Students will practice organizational, communication, technical writing and      presentation skills.Course Topics:   •   Introduction to project management (2)   •   Project Selection (2)   •   Project Management Process Groups:           o Initiating (2)           o Planning and Engineering Design (9)           o Executing (2)           o Monitoring and control (4)           o Closing (1)   •   Best Practices and Overview (1)   •   Case Studies and Project Presentations (4)   •   Guest Lectures (1)                                   2015 ASEE Annual ConferenceAssignments:Homework:                          60%Midterm:                           5%Final Project:                     15%Presentations & Participation:     10%Final Exam:                        10%                         © American Society for Engineering Education, 2015                                   2015 ASEE Annual Conference                                         APPENDIX B:                    ISE 3800 Syllabus: Engineering Project ManagementCredit Hours:         3 HoursCourse Description: This course is intended to provide foundational project managementeducation. The course will focus on relevant project management topics and case studies thatwill prepare students to plan, organize, engineer, lead/manage and participate in the multi-faceted and complex conditions that arise during planning and execution of small to largeprojects and programs.Course Narrative: The flow of the course material is designed to provide a broad perspectiveearly in the semester and then get in to detail topics as we progress. The material will coverproject management discipline, which is a true art and a science. We will also discuss how toachieve the right project management behaviors. Some might find project management to becommon sense and we will discuss why the common sense theory does not always work inreality in the corporate world and what can go wrong. The lecture material will emphasizespecific project management processes, conditions and best practice disciplines and techniques,inclusive of leveraging certain project management software tools. It will also seek to groundthe project management lessons in realistic industry and business based examples.Required Textbook: None.Learning Objectives:Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:   1. Understand what effective project leadership, sponsorship and good communication       means and why it makes a difference   2. Conduct effective project planning from start to finish and measure progress   3. Apply and scale various project management methodologies (agile versus waterfall)   4. Organize and structure projects   5. Understand why projects often fail and how to potentially prevent that   6. Define and manage scope and what ‘done” means   7. Identify criteria for project success while resolving barriers to successful execution   8. Develop project schedules, event driven plans, work breakdown structures and tasks   9. Identify critical path roadmaps and phase gates   10. Apply constraint modeling and analysis to schedules   11. Depict project plan and dependency through visualization   12. Effectively identify, assess and resolve project risks and issues   13. Use various quality and defect management techniques   14. Scale project processes to small, low risk projects as well as large, complex projects   15. Understand how to appropriately leverage project management tools   16. How to handle projects in a state of chaos or damage control   17. Managing project execution with the right level of discipline and rigor                         © American Society for Engineering Education, 2015                                 2015 ASEE Annual ConferenceCourse Topics:   •   Reasons for Project Failure   •   Effective Project Leadership and Communication   •   WBS   •   Project Charter   •   Team Organization   •   Status Reporting   •   Scope and Requirements Management   •   Organizational Structure   •   Critical Path Method   •   Risk Management   •   Schedule Acceleration   •   Global and Virtual Teams   •   Quality Management   •   Cost Management   •   Lessons LearnedAssignments:Midterm:            20%Final Exam:         20%Quizzes:            20%Projects:           20%Lab work:           15%Peer assessment:    5%                       © American Society for Engineering Education, 2015                                   2015 ASEE Annual Conference                                         APPENDIX C:         ME 5194 Syllabus: Applied Project Management and System EngineeringCredit Hours:         3 HoursCourse Description: Students will learn and apply concepts from the fields of systemengineering and project management in product development team environments. Students willlearn relevant theory as well as tools and techniques used in industry.Course Narrative: In this course, students will learn a variety of applied systems engineeringand project management topics. The course focuses on giving students a realistic experience inthese topics through integration with real engineering projects and/or participation in “role-playing” case studies. Assignments will include tasks such as developing and maintainingtimelines and developing and maintaining requirement tracking documents for the projects. Tosupport these tasks, students will learn theory, be taught various tools (such as work breakdownschedules), as well as learn how to use commercial software packages that are used in industry.In class discussion will also be used to facilitate peer-to-peer learning between groups which willbe encountering different challenges based on the particulars of the project they are working on.Required Textbook: None.Suggested References:   •    Project Mangers Portable Handbook, David I. Cleland and Lewis R. Ireland, ISBN        0071741054.   •    NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, NASA/SP-2007-6105.   •    NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Handbook, NASA NPR 7120.5   •    A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 5th Edition, Project        Management InstituteLearning Objectives:Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:   5.   Apply project management techniques to facilitate a engineering project   6.   Apply systems integration techniques to facilitate development of complex products   7.   Use project management and systems integration software effectively   8.   Appreciate the importance of class topics to successful execution of complex projectsCourse Topics:   •    Course Introduction and Team Formation   •    Project Initiation   •    Project Planning   •    Project Planning Tools                         © American Society for Engineering Education, 2015                                 2015 ASEE Annual Conference   •   Project Execution   •   Project Execution Tools   •   Project Monitoring and Control   •   Project Monitoring Tools   •   Project Closeout   •   Alternative Project Management Techniques   •   Project Management Wrap-Up   •   System Engineering Overview   •   Systems Engineering Phases   •   Top-Level Requirements, Concept of Operations & PBS   •   Writing Good Requirements & Requirements Verification Matrices   •   Functional Flow Diagrams & N2 Diagrams   •   DFMEA and FTA TechniquesAssignments:Student and Team Presentations:             20%Homework Assignments and Quizzes:           50%Final Report Written Submission:            30%                       © American Society for Engineering Education, 2015
AU  - Shawn Midlam-Mohler,
AU  - Jason Linger
AU  - Jack Slavinski
AU  - Lisa Fiorentini
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Project Management Inside and Outside of the Curriculum at the Ohio State University
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/24600
DO  - 10.18260/p.24600
ER  -