Berlin's Institute of Technology to host IRNOP IX

Reported by Miles Shepherd in Salisbury, UK

IRNOP – the International Research Network on Organising by Projects have announced that their biannual research conference for 2009 will be held in Berlin over the period 11 – 13 October.

The Berlin Institute of Technology will act as host and the Conference Chair is Prof Dr Hans-Georg Gemünden (pictured below left) , the renowned researcher and author of books and papers on a wide range of management topics related to project, programme and innovation.

The conference theme is ‘Organizing by Projects’ so the range of topics is likely to be wide indeed. The formal call for papers has not yet been made available publicly but the conference website is http://www.irnop2009.org/ where further details will be posted.

The IRNOP Project Research Conference aims to bi-annually gather scholars from all over the world who have a research interest in projects. Founded in 1993 as a loosely coupled network of researchers, IRNOP has developed from there, adding researchers in countries all over the world. The IRNOP network connects scholars with a background in business, economics, engineering and other fields, with a common interest in projects, project organizations and temporary systems. So far, IRNOP has organized eight conferences including Brighton, UK, in 2007 and Xi’an, PR China in 2006.

For further details, see http://www.irnop.org/

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Participants sought for Global Survey on Virtual Teams

Do you work on or lead a virtual or matrix team, where members are not co-located? Is it a challenge getting people engaged, finding the right level of governance, or making sense out of all the emerging collaboration technologies?

The Marengo Group, consulting arm of author Jerry Manas (pictured), in partnership with The Communication Partnership, Ltd, The Creating WE Institute, and Gantthead.com, is conducting a definitive study to reveal which variables consistently lead to high performing and co-creative virtual teams, and which factors are barriers. This groundbreaking research will no doubt lead to revealing insights that can help virtual teams overcome common challenges.

They are seeking participants to
take this 20-minute survey. In return,
participants will receive:

• An invitation to review the survey results via a live webinar

• A copy of the final research paper when it is published

• An opportunity to win one of three $20 gift certificates to Amazon.com.

Many have reported gaining insights just from taking the survey. That alone may be worth the required 20 minutes of time.

To participate, visit the following website, select, "Current User Login" in the purple box to the right, and use the supplied logon info below: http://www.infotool-online.net/Brochure/en/login.asp - ID: VT survey; Password: team

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IPMA Research Award Presented to Anbari & Kwak of The George Washington University at World Congress in Rome

Professors Frank Anbari and Young Kwak of The George Washington University in Washington, DC, USA, have won IPMA's 2008 project management research award. The award was presented at the 22^nd IPMA World Congress on Project Management in Rome, Italy on Tuesday afternoon, November 11, 2008. Young Hoon Kwak, Frank T. Anbari, and their team at The George Washington University's School of Business were honoured for their research on the Impact on Project Management of Allied Disciplines.

The goal of their research, which was partially funded by a grant from the Project Management Institute (PMI), was to identify the impact on project management of allied management disciplines and explore innovative project management theories, new trends, and challenges. The research explored the full range of technical and organizational dynamics of project management, contributing new insights to project management theory and practice. This should help achieve organizational and strategic goals of the project management community.

(photo: Professors Anbari & Kwak at left on stage in Rome to receive their awards, along with members of the IPMA Research Board and Martina Huemann, IPMA Research Awards Committee Chair at the microphone.)

According to the information provided to PMForum, there has been a long debate within the management academic community as to whether “project management” is a practice or an academic discipline. In the engineering world where the tools and techniques of project management have been applied and implemented successfully, the answer to this question is yes, it is an academic discipline. The civil engineering field has construction engineering and management disciplines where students learn and implement planning, managing, and controlling engineering construction projects. The industrial engineering field applies quantitative methods to manufacturing systems analysis and production planning and scheduling to achieve effective productivity.

However, when it comes to the business and management field, business scholars appear puzzled and unconvinced of the notion that project management is an academic discipline. The origin, history, and evolution of project management and its academic background, foundations, and underlying theory have been debated and studied only to a limited extent from the management field’s academic perspective and supporting literatures are greatly lacking. There has been some studies among project management researchers to identify and rethink project management (Winter & Smith, 2006), but the results were conceptual in nature, and the research did not transfer the message outside of the project management field to the broader management academic audience.

The study by Anbari and Kwak (pictured at left) investigated project management research from the perspective of its relationship to allied disciplines in the management field. By exploring, identifying and classifying top management journal articles related to project management research in its allied disciplines, the origin, evolution and trends of project management research in the management field were revealed. This study specifically investigated project management research in allied disciplines from the management academy’s perspective by not observing project management research trends from the perspective of the project management community.

The goal of this research was to better understand project management from the perspective of the management world and the trends of specific disciplines and to provide compelling arguments that project management is a legitimate academic discipline. More information about this study can be found at http://home.gwu.edu/~kwak and http://home.gwu.edu/~anbarif.

Frank T. Anbari (PhD Project Management and Quality Enhancement, MBA, MS Engineering, PMP^®, PE, and ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt) is a faculty member and past Director of the Project Management Program at The George Washington University (GW). He taught in the graduate programs at Drexel University, Penn State University, and the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Anbari gained extensive industrial experience serving in leadership positions at the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), Day and Zimmermann, and American Water Works Service Company. He developed and taught seminars in project management, quality management, and Six Sigma method, for public sector and private industry organizations globally.

Dr. Anbari serves as co-Editor of Project and Program Management Abstracting Journal, Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN) and as member of the Editorial Boards of Project Management Journal, International Journal of Project Management, and International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. He served as the first Chair, Project Management Academic Committee at GW, as Vice President–Education and Certification, College of Performance Management, Project Management Institute (PMI^®), and as examiner (1993–1995) and alumni examiner (1999–2000) for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. He is also an International Editorial Advisor to PMForum and the eJournal PM World Today.

Dr. Anbari conducts rigorous research, presents widely, and publishes extensively on significant, timely topics in project management, quality enhancement, technology management, and Six Sigma method. Results of his research appeared in over 90 papers, book chapters, books, conference proceedings, and case studies, and are further highlighted by over 80 successful presentations at prestigious conferences.
Dr. Anbari can be reached at anbarif@gwu.edu.

Young Hoon KWAK, Ph.D. is a faculty member of the project management program at The George Washington University’s School of Business (GWSB) in Washington, D.C. He earned his B.S. from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Engineering and Project Management from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a visiting engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught at the Florida International University in Miami before joining GWSB. Dr. Kwak currently is a specialty editor (associate editor) for case studies section of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (ASCE) and serves on the editorial board for International Journal of Project Management (Elsevier), Project Management Journal (Wiley), and Journal of Management in Engineering (ASCE). He is an elected member of the construction research council of American Society of Civil Engineers and a three-time recipient of the Project Management Institute’s research grant and IBM’s research grant.

Dr. Kwak has over 70 scholarly publications in the area of Strategic Issues in Project Management, Project Risk Management, Project Control, Performance Improvement, and Engineering, Construction, and Infrastructure Management. For more information, visit his website at http://home.gwu.edu/~kwak or contact him at kwak@gwu.edu.

The local hosts for the ROMA 2008 World Congress – Project Management to Run - are the Italian Project Management Academy and the Italian National Association of Industrial Plant Engineering (ANIMP). The President of ANIMP is Mr. Fabrizio Di Amato; the President of the Italian PM Academy is Mr. Roberto Mori; the Congress Chairman is Mr. Luigi Iperti; and the Project Manager for IPMA 2008 is Mr. PierMarco Romagnoli. For registration, schedule and other information, visit the conference website at www.ipmaroma2008.it.

Founded in 1967 and registered in Switzerland, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) is the world’s oldest project management professional organization. IPMA is an international federation of more than 45 national PM societies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. IPMA’s Annual World Congress is one of the largest and most important gatherings of project management authorities and leaders each year. The president of IPMA for 2008 is Veikko Valila; president-elect for 2009/10 is Brigette Schaden. Additional information about IPMA is available at www.ipma.ch.

Reported by David Pells and Nelson Soucek who were covering the 22nd IPMA World Congress in Rome for PMForum and PM World Today.

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