Leadership and Project Excellence

The ZPM International Academic Forum will be an event for academics and researchers to come together, collaborate, discuss and create strategies with industry representatives from different countries inside and outside the Central European Region.

The Agenda for the meeting is expected to be the following:

1. What is beyond the IPMA Excellence Model?
2. Project vs. Organizational Excellence
3. EFQM vs IPMA Q Award
4. Open Discussion
5. Conclusions

The ZPM International Academic Forum will be a one-day event relevant for professors, researchers, consultants and senior experts as well as managers from different industries that have strong involvement in the project management profession.

The Regional Academic Forums represents one of the activities supported by the Research Management Board (RMB) of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). The June Forum will include introductions by Professor Brane Semolic, RMB Chair (University of Maribor, APM, IPMA – Slovenia), Professor Qian Fupei (IPMA, China), Adesh Jain (IPMA Chair, India), Professor Pieter Steyn, RMB member (Cranefield College, South Africa), Miles Shepherd, RMB member (IPMA, Open University, UK), Professor Nino Grau (IPMA, Friedberg University, Germany), and Otto Zieglmeier (IPMA Vice President, Germany). Other members of the IPMA RMB include Matti Ahvenharju (Finland), Jan Betta (Poland), Rajat Baisya (India), Martina Huemann (Austria), and Ou Lixiong (China).

Pod?etrtek (pictured above) is a village in the Slovenian countryside and well known for its spa centre Terme Olimia. The ZPM International Academic Forum is being organized by the Project and Technology Management Institute in the Faculty of Logistics at the University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia.

For additional information about the ZPM International Academic Forum for Project Management in Pod?etrtek, Slovenia, visit http://www.terme-olimia.si/en/ or contact Brane Semolic, President of the ZPM Experts Council and Chair of the IPMA Research Management Board at brane.semolic@siol.ne. Operational coordinator is Dr. Iztok Palcic iztok.palcic@uni-mb.si.

As part of the research, the team invites professionals worldwide to participate in this timely and important study to explore the impacts, trends, and challenges of the field of project management. They have developed a survey to collect the trends of allied disciplines that impacted PM over the last 40 years.

In addition to the survey, they are also reviewing various business and management journal articles that deal with project management. The goal of this study is to conduct some meaningful and comparative analysis between article trends and survey data.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes and can be accessed at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=959543540801

According to Dr. Kwak, “Questions should be answered to the best of your knowledge. Your best estimate is what we are asking for. All responses will remain anonymous and your identity will not be revealed.”

The deadline for responses is May 31, 2007. For additional information, Dr. Young Kwak can be contacted at kwak@gwu.edu.

Dr. Frank T. Anbari, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Project Management in the School of Business at The George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC, USA. Dr. Young Hoon Kwak, PhD, is Associate Professor of Project Management in the School of Business at GWU. Information about The GWU School of Business can be found at http://business.gwu.edu/.