Skill Card and Certification System for Certified EU Project Manager

Transcription

1 Skill Card and Certification System for Certified EU Project Manager Romana Vajde Horvat, Katja Harej, Tomislav Rozman University of Maribor Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Smatanova ulica 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia Abstract. The cooperation among European organization/individuals is recently most often conducted within common projects under specific EU programs. Efficiency of cooperation depends great deal on knowing the principles of management the distributed project and additionally to comply with the administrative, financial and regulative rules, accepted in EU. Even though a lot of different programs by which the EU co-finances activities in Europe exist, the common characteristics could be defined to be able to manage all types of EU projects. The article defines the knowledge required to manage EU project. It is structured in so called Skill Card for Certified European Project Manager. The Skill Card Model could be used for the unification of job descriptions all over the Europe. The training and certification scheme for the skill card is also presented in the article. Keywords. Certified European Project Manager, ManagEUr, Project management. 1. Introduction Together with the foundation of the European Union (EU), the new mechanisms for cooperation of all EU members and candidate countries had to be developed and all parties cooperating with each other have to understand and deploy these mechanism. The co-operation arises on many levels of societies - there are 28 European Policies defined under which some activities are running as it is evident at For each area the long term strategies of development are stated and programs to support the development of each strategy are then opened accordingly to the priorities and time limits defined in priorities. Implementation of the programs is achieved by calls for cooperation in a specific program. The most often used form of cooperation is cooperation within international projects, joining the organizations, enterprises and/or individuals from EU members and/or candidate countries, and depending on type of the program sometimes also from other countries. The cooperation within project usually involves experts from some area (ex. information technology experts), who beside their specialist work also have to understand, how the EU projects have to be managed. In 2004 for research and development area over 500 contracts were concluded between EU and project coordinators. Within these projects which involved more than 4400 participants. In years from from 133 billions EUR up to 158 billions EUR per year is planned to be used for activities in different areas, where organizations, enterprises, or individuals will be able to participate. [5], Chapter XXII. For all EU programs similar administrative procedures are used therefore, the knowledge of general rules can help performing activities on projects for any program. The training materials and certification scheme for the job of Certified European Project Manager is being defined within the ManagEUr project. Further in the paper the Skill Card Model is described (chapter 2). The overview of the Certified European Project Manager structure and content is provided in chapter 3. Finally, chapter 4 describes the certification procedure and promotion of the certified EU project managers. 2. Skill Cards Model A skill definition concept (skill card) is an approach where by using NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) standards proposed by the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) in the UK, a common sense is created among different countries and institutions (as a collection of good practices and required skills)

2 and illustrated in a standard skills description structure. The idea is to develop the description of jobs, which can be used all over the Europe and if a person would obtain the certificate for the specific job anywhere in Europe, this certificate would be valid also in other European countries. The modularity of skill cards model also enables higher mobility of the people in Europe already in the training phase. Since the training materials and examination procedure and content are the same for training organizations all over the Europe, the participants could attend the trainings anywhere in Europe. The Skill Card Model is structured as follows: - Domains (ex. IT domain, Tourism domain), which represent an occupational category, under which the job descriptions are grouped. - Job Role is a certain profession that covers part of the domain knowledge (ex. EU project manager, innovation manager, e- commerce manager), - Units - the knowledge and skills required for performing a specific job are grouped in units within job role description (see Fig. 1) - Elements to provide better structuring of the units, the units are divided into elements. - Performance Criteria (PC) is the criteria for the minimum level of knowledge and performance required for a participant to pass the exams. Performance criteria are defined for each element. - Evidences for the evaluation of exams sometimes the proof of competence is required (ex. for Certified European Project Manager: files containing the project plans or reports and other documents which the participant prepared to solve some problems) Since 2003 projects within the Leonardo da Vinci program are running, aimed for development of unique set of job descriptions, valid throughout Europe. Pertaining training materials and procedures for performing trainings, train the trainers and examination are being defined for various jobs, like: - Certified EU Project Manager (Leonardo da Vinci project ManagEUr), [3] - Certified European Innovation Manager Leonardo da Vinci project ORGANIC )[2] - Certified E-Commerce Manager (Leonardo da Vinci project E-commerce) [2]. The results of ManagEUr project are presented in following chapter. 3. The Certified European Project Manager Skill Card The content and the structure of the European Project Manager Skill card were defined in accordance to the common characteristics of the EU programs. Knowledge, experiences and good practices of partners who developed the skill card are integrated in the model. For the purpose of trainings the - presentations which the trainer uses, - student notes, - trainers notes (guidelines for trainer) and are defined. For the purpose of the assessments the pool of multiple-choice questions is prepared. Throughout the training material the real examples of successful projects are given for the exercises of participants. 3.1 General knowledge about EU projects For the EU projects the detailed planning is usually required already in the phase of preparation of the project proposal. In that phase the person who is preparing the proposal should have the knowledge on complete methodology for EU project management. When a project is accepted by EU, the plan should not change in any general topic and in relation to finances. It should be developed in more details in order to assure efficient project management, though. It is important to know, which type of organizations (or individuals) could apply for the project as a project coordinator and as project team members. These criteria are defined in specific documentation like Guidelines for applicants, and Call for Projects published for each program. It is essential to ensure that the consortium has all the expertise required to perform all the project activities. The role of each partner should be clearly defined and the references showing that the partner is skilled to do the work should be described in proposals. It is possible to bring in some of the required expertise through subcontracting, but this approach is not favored by the EC. A general rule states that the bigger the number of partners, the more difficult the management of the project. Partners included only in order to increase the geographical spread of the consortia will handicap rather than help the project.

3 The work packages should be defined and responsibilities of each partner should be stated in advance. The partners commit to the responsibilities by signing the so called endorsement letter. It is important that only those activities relevant to the priorities of the program are included in the project. Beside technical work-packages also work-packages including activities for: - project management, - quality management, - project documentation and deliverables management, - dissemination of information about project and project result, as well as - activities for planning the sustainability of project results should be defined. According to work-packages the costs and effort are estimated. The type of eligible costs should be strongly considered. It is good practice to plan types of costs per each partner for each work-package. Usually types of costs include costs for staff, equipment, consumables, travel, and administration, other (including subcontracts). The level of own/eu financing as well as the dynamic of financing and reporting to EU differs from program to program. This should be understood already in project proposal phase in order to plan the financial model correctly. Since sometimes it is needed to negotiate with EU about the project results, finances, etc., the plans should be updated when the project is accepted. Usually only one partner (project coordinator) concludes the agreement with EU authorities. The relationships among coordinator and other partners are then defined with contracts between them. In EU programs the collective responsibility of all partners is emphasized, even though only the contract with project coordinator is concluded. The project teams in EU projects are typically distributed; therefore the efficient communication rules and proper infrastructure are needed. The project coordinator usually defines the rules for communication (workpackage and deliverable management, effort reporting, and financial reporting) and sets up the electronic support system. The way to meet all other team members in vivo is project meeting. Project meetings typically occur once or twice per year and all major topics should be discussed and agreed at those meetings. They have to be well planned in advance and all partners should know their obligations for the meeting in order to prepare required information/materials. The report on meeting should be prepared and sent to all partners. The cultural aspects are important factor in EU projects. The coordinator of the project must be able to solve any conflict in the consortia; therefore the soft communication skills (like negotiation skills and others) are important as well as understanding the formal mechanism (like exclusion of the partner and others) which could be used for conflict management. The progress and quality of the project work should be tracked. The internal and external (involving external experts or EU authorities) reviews can be used. External reviews are conducted by EU authorities and at the reviews the compliance of project performance (excluding financial viewpoint) with the definition of the project are reviewed. Any change in consortia (ax. Exclusion of partner, inclusion of new staff in the project team, transfer of budget among budget items) should be approved by EU authorities, which is time consuming. The project coordinator should be aware of these constraints. One of the activities within the project is also reporting to EU. The dynamic and scope of reporting is defined in guideline documentation for the specific call for which the project was applied. It is defined in contracts between EU and project coordinator and within financial rules for the program. The project coordinator is responsible to integrate reports of all partners and communicate with EU authorities regarding the reports. The project coordinator should require for partners their reports in a form, most suitable or final report in order to reduce the work. This means that already at the beginning of the project the form of reporting should be studied and a procedure for project evidences gathering should be prescribed. Document management is also one of important issues in EU Project management. It relates to the following: - Identifying the configuration of selected documents that compose the baselines at given points in time - Controlling changes to documents - Building or providing specifications to build deliverable from the documentation management system - Maintaining the integrity of project documentation baselines

4 - Providing accurate status and current configuration data of the documentation to developers, end users, and customers. The consortium of partners in EU project should agree, who will be responsible for the definition and support of document management for the project. In EU projects, the project coordinator is usually most interested in proper document management, since the reporting and integration of documents form partners is usually done by project coordinator. Above described issues are specifics of the EU projects. In addition to that, the project manager of these projects should have the detailed knowledge on general project management methodologies (like PRINCE2 and PMBOK - Project Management Body of Knowledge) [4, 6] and project planning and finance management tools. 3.2 The structure of European Project Manager Skill Card Using the terminology outlined in the skills cards model (chapter 2) and including the skills identified as required for the management of EU projects, the skills hierarchy and content definition presented on Fig. 1 for the job role Certified European Project Manager has been designed. First, the performance criteria for each element of each unit were defined in order to be able to present the correct content for each element. Figure 1. Skill Card Model for Certified European Project Manager The number of performance criteria varies from element to element, but in all elements these criteria are baseline for developed training material and developed multiple choice test pool. The Performance criteria represent also the basis for development of learning objectives of each learning element within each unit. The table 1 shows the example of performance criteria for the unit Contract management and planning, element Planning.

5 Table 1. Example of PC definition PC Evidence Check: The student can demonstrate - MAN.PL. She/he knows how to select synergetic, mutual beneficial and multinational teams PLAN.PC1 who share a joint vision and motivation. MAN.PL. She/he knows how to synergistically integrate the know-how of different partners into PLAN.PC2 a more complete solution and idea, so that by a joint effort the project will realise a bigger solution by sharing competencies. MAN.PL. She/he knows how to agree specific work packages, define objectives and tasks per PLAN.PC3 work package, and agree effort per partner to contribute to that work package. MAN.PL. She/he knows how to use effort and cost estimation tools to simulate and estimate PLAN.PC4 MAN.PL. PLAN.PC5 cost models before entering data into the forms provided by the EU. She/he knows how to plan specific outcomes of work packages in form of deliverables, agree the content and intellectual proprietary rights of the deliverables in the multinational partnership, and to set milestones of delivery within a complete time plan across all phases of the project. 4. Certification and assessment model The common certification and accreditation system for the Skill unit model is being developed under Leonardo da Vinci scheme. Until the end of January 2006 already more than 500 certificates for Certified EU Project Manager participants at trainings in 7 Countries have been already issued to training participants and cca. 300 certificates were issued to those who passed exams. The trials of the model proved to be efficient and also interesting for the market. The web-based system for performing tests is available to participants. They can identify skills gaps required to become a skilled EU project manager with an available up-to-date solution (system stems from the previous project, MM 1032 multimedia project CREDIT- Accreditation of Skills via the Internet, ) which offers an online system ( for browsing the presented skills card, performing self assessment online, collecting evidences, and receive a formal assessment of the evidences online. A skills gaps profile shows which course modules the student still have to attend to manage the accreditation as a certified EU project manager (learning recommendations). The online skill assessment bases on defined skill units (see Figure 1) and a skill profile displaying how much of the skill units are covered [1]. Figure 2: An example of view of self-assessment profile

6 After an online self-assessment or formal assessment, a skill portal enables to a participant (an assessment) an insight to results as presented on Figure 3. An assessor may also put the specific notes for participant to understand more in details what specific results means. Assessor may also suggest additional references or guidance list that participant should look to fill up a specific lack of knowledge/skills. 6. Conclusion The topic related to EU project management is very interesting according to development strategies of EU. The knowledge about methodologies, regulation and administrative rule for EU projects should be disseminated to broader community in order to assure that all countries will be able to use the financial resources as planned for them. The skill card model presented in the paper provides an important input to the dissemination providing the infrastructure (software and required hardware) and training, examination and certification rules and materials. The Certified European Project Manager project also uses the knowledge about skill cards his allows benchmarking of required skills against a European proposed skills set and the establishment of learning portfolios to upgrade the skills of nowadays European project managers to a higher efficiency. 8. References [1] Best Practice in e-commerce and Job Role Descriptions [Available:30/01/2006] [2] Certified European Innovation Manger; The ORGANIC Project [Available:30/01/2006] [3] Certified European Project Manger; The ManagEUr Project [Available:30/01/2006] [4] CREDIT Project, Accreditation Model Definition, MM 1032 Project CREDIT, Version 2.0, University of Amsterdam, [4] Duncan W., A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guides), Project Management Institute, 1996 [5] General Report on the activities of European Union for e.htm [Available: 30/01/2006] [6] Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2, OGC, 2002, UK. 7. Acknowledgements We acknowledge the project partners who cooperated in the development of Certified European Project Manager skill card and training materials from Certified European Project Manager: M. Biro (Budapest University), R. Messnarz (ISCN), A. Fenz (APS), G. Velasco (FGUVA), J. Ivanyos (Memolux), J. Bremer (icube), M. Lutas, A. T. Tudor (Babes-Bolyai University), J. Kiss (ITF HAS) and many others.