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Project management

Course objectives

The student will be able to:

  • Describe and understand the structure of organisations.
  • Acquire knowledge on methods and techniques of project management, in order to be able both to prepare and read a project proposal.
  • Identify and formulate objectives, tasks, resources, deliverables of a project.
  • To identify and specify the phases in a project, as well as to break down the project in activities and sub-activities.
  • To identify the need for human resources and allocate human resources within a geo-information project at an operational level (workflow management).
  • To handle the issue of data quality during a project, also in relation to the problem of integrating data from different levels of scale and accuracy.
  • To create a project based data management environment, that will allow for a transparent flow of data within a project.
  • To identify the need for geo-data within a (geo-information) project, taking into consideration type, availability, price, and quality of geo-data.
  • To identify the specific hardware needs also in relation to the costs, taking into consideration the data needed and the type of data processing needed with a project.
  • To use appropriate tools to evaluate geo-information project proposals and results.
  • To use indicators to measure project performance.

Content

The course is split in five parts:

  1. Introduction to organisations, general project management approaches, project management life cycle.
  2. Getting acquainted to project management related tools and issues in the project set up phase: definition of scope, objectives, resources, deliverables, activities, tasks.
  3. Getting acquainted to project management related methods and techniques (e. g. Gant, PERT).
  4. Applying knowledge and skills on project management for purpose of the operational phase: data management issues, human resource issues, workflow management data quality issues, risk management.
  5. Evaluating geo-information projects: project performance issues, reviewing project proposals, project presentation issues.

Type of education

  • lectures
  • distance learning
  • literature study
  • individual assignments
  • case study (group work)

Assessment

Students at Utrecht University
  • examination
  • individual assignment literature task (paper)
  • group assignment on initial project proposal, task 1
  • group assignment tasks 2 and 3
  • group assignment final project proposal / presentation
  • peer review, reflection on project proposal reports, active participation, process report

    • Literature

    Meredith, J.R. & Mantel Jr, S.J. (2010), Project management, a managerial approach. International Student Version (Paperback). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

    Study guide and website with references to publications.

    Entry requirements

    Letter of acceptance of the master programme Geographical Information Management and Applications.