Breaking News from around the World of Project Management IPMA Presents Research Awards at the 25 th IPMA World Congress Reported by Jouko Vaskimo in Brisbane International Project Management Association (IPMA) has recognized excellence in project management research, and awarded IPMA Research Awards 2011 at the 25 th IPMA World Congress. IPMA research awards are organized into four categories to appropriately recognize outstanding contributions: The IPMA Young Researcher Award honors rising young researchers. The IPMA Research Award honors established project management researchers. In addition to the award winners, the awards jury recognizes further excellent research contributions with the IPMA Outstanding Research Contribution awards. The IPMA Research Achievement Award is presented to honor an exceptional project management researcher for his or her achievements in research and contributions to the project management practice. The IPMA Research Achievement Award is the highest research-related award by IPMA, and highly respected by the project management research community. The awards were presented to the award winners in the 25 th IPMA World Congress Gala Awards Dinner by Dr Nino Grau, IPMA Vice President, Awards and Standards, and Mr Miles Shepherd. Two judges panels were employed to decide the winners: The IPMA Research Award panel in which Professor Rodney Turner, Professor Hans Georg Gemünden and Mr Miles Shepherd participated, and the IPMA Young Researcher Award panel in which Professor Constanta Bodea, Professor Peter Morris, Professor Mladen Radujković, Professor Brane Semolic, Professor Derek H.T. Walker, and Professor Xue Yan participated. The awards evaluation criteria comprised research results achieved, originality and innovation, theoretical foundation, transparency and professionalism of research process, practical relevance and management as research project. Dr Martina Huemann, a member of the IPMA Awards Management Board, and director of the IPMA Research Awards was very pleased with the outstanding quality of the entrants We had extremely high quality entries this year, which made it very difficult decisions for the jury panels. So thank you to the jury members for all their careful assessment and decisions. I am looking forward to receiving the applications for the next year s awards. Dr Huemann can be contacted at Martina.Huemann@ipma.ch. (photo courtesy Martina Huemann) Professor Lynn Crawford was awarded the IPMA Research Achievement Award 2011 for her contributions of the further advancement of project research and the project management profession. She has contributed significantly to the growth of project management research and teaching, as well as to the establishment of the profession project management, firstly, through her academic research and secondly through her involvement to compare and further develop project management relevant standards.
Dr Crawford is involved in project management practice, education, and research and is Professor of Project Management at Bond University, Australia. She works, through Human Systems International Ltd., with leading corporations in developing organizational project management competence by sharing and developing knowledge and best practices through a global system of project management knowledge networks. Dr Crawford contributes to ongoing research on project and program management competence, and specific research projects on management of business change and differences in project management practices across project types and industries. She provided the Australian contribution to an internationally conducted project on The Value of Project Management. The results of other completed research projects have been published as Project Categorization Systems: Aligning Capability with Strategy for Better Results, Situational sponsorship of projects and programs: An empirical review; and Exploring the Complexity of Projects: Implications of Complexity Theory for Project Management Practice. Dr Crawford has been actively engaged in the development of global standards for project management since the late 1990's and has been instrumental in the formation of the Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS). In the photograph (left to right): Mr Shepherd and Dr Crawford (photo courtesy Jouko Vaskimo)
Professor Jonas Söderlund and Dr Karin Bredin were awarded the IPMA Research Award 2011 for their research on Human Resource Management in project-based organizations. Professor Söderlund is since 2007 professor at the Department of Leadership and Management at the BI Norwegian School of Management. He is educated at IMIE, Linköping University, and Harvard Business School. He has been a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management and Cranfield School of Management. He has been a Visiting Professor at l'ecole Polytechnique, Paris and ESC Lille. Dr Bredin is currently Assistant Professor in Business Administration, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linköping University. She teaches on executive education programs, master programs and undergraduate programs and is the course director of several courses in Human Resource Management on masters as well as undergraduate levels. Besides teaching, Bredin is a member of the research groups KITE and epok at Linköping University, where she continues her research into human resource management in project-based organizations. (photo courtesy Jonas Söderlund and Karin Bredin) Dr Mehmood Alam was awarded the IPMA Young Researcher Award 2011 for his research Benefit Metrics of Project Management Professional Development. The aim of this research project was to assess the value of professional development programs to the effectiveness, efficiency and profitability of recipient organizations. Being typical of an MSc provision in the UK, the research empirically examined the effectiveness of the case study modular distance learning program: The Project Management Professional Development Program (PMPDP). It is an academic-industrial collaboration between The University of Manchester and Rolls-Royce, AMEC, Goodrich and EDS with some guest organizations also. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research instruments, five interrelated research studies were undertaken; each investigating different elements of the case study program (PMPDP) in light of the Phillips (2003) Return on Investment (ROI) model. (photo courtesy Jouko Vaskimo) Dr Kirsi Aaltonen was awarded the IPMA Outstanding Research Contribution 2011 award for her research Stakeholder management in international projects. The objective of the research was to explore external project stakeholder behavior and a focal project s stakeholder management activities in the context of multi-firm international projects that are implemented in challenging institutional environments. Despite the acknowledged importance of stakeholder management, project research still lacks both theoretical knowledge and empirical evidence concerning various project stakeholder related phenomena. The research was part of Kirsi Aaltonen s PhD undertaken at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University School of Science, Finland. Today, Kirsi holds a position as senior lecturer and researcher in Project Business Research Group at Aalto University, Finland. (photo courtesy Kirsi Aaltonen)
Dr Rene Bakker was awarded the IPMA Outstanding Research Contribution by a Young Researcher 2011 for his research Time and Learning in inter-organizational projects. The overarching theme behind the 3,5 year research project was to contribute to the ongoing development of project management as a scholarly discipline by linking PM to the field of organization science. Within this broad theme, the specific objectives were to support the theoretical base of project management by building on theories in organization science with a particular emphasis on how organizations learn and develop through projects over time; disseminate the findings from the research in both specialist project management journals and mainstream organization science journals, and both project management conferences and mainstream management conferences, and to undertake a large scale multi-method study of project-based learning that established linkages between PM and the more mature field of organization science and general management. (photo courtesy Rene Bakker) Dr Jingting Shao was awarded the IPMA Outstanding Research Contribution of a Young Researchers 2011 for her research impact of program managers' leadership competences on program success and its moderation through program context. The aim of the research was to investigate the relationship between the program managers leadership competences and program success and how program context influences the relationship. To achieve the research aim, the measurement constructs of program context and program success had to be developed first. So the achievements of the research mainly lie in two parts: a) operationalization of program context and program success; b) testing the relationship between the three variables: Leadership competences, program context and program success. She found that the program managers leadership competences, in terms of their intelligence competence (IQ), managerial competence (MQ) and emotional competence (EQ), are positively correlated with program success, and program context positively moderates the relationships between IQ/MQ and program success, but not EQ and program success, which implies that EQ is a pre-requisite for the role of program managers. Based on these results, she developed a leadership competence based theory of program success, which enriches the project management success school and leadership competency theory. (photo courtesy Jouko Vaskimo) Dr Daniel Jonas was awarded the IPMA Outstanding Research Contribution of a Young Researcher 2011 for his research Project Portfolio Management Management Involvement and Performance of Multiple-Project Organizations. The objective of his research project was to explore the performance impact of the interplay between the different managerial roles involved in the portfolio management process on portfolio success. The overall thread through the research framework consists of coping with the involvement by the different management roles, their potential tensions and resistance that might appear due to the change from a line supported by projects towards a projects supported by line organization. In particular, this research defines and empirically tests the focal constructs in project portfolio management that describe the management system as a whole.
It further analyses how the managerial activities and the degree of middle management involvement relate to each other in their influence on project portfolio success, and finally describes how the quality of the portfolio management process impacts success. The research framework was tested based on scientific methods and building a longitudinal sample of quantitative data from more than 250 companies across several industries. The project was to be framed as a benchmarking study in order to deliver valuable outcome for both scholars and practitioners. (photo courtesy Daniel Jonas) The Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) is the peak body for project management in Australia. Formed in 1976 as the Project Managers' Forum, AIPM has been instrumental in progressing the profession of project management in Australia over the past 32 years. AIPM role is to improve the knowledge, skills and competence of project team members, project managers and project directors, all of whom play a key role in the achievement of business objectives, not just project objectives. AIPM also aims to ensure that those involved at other levels in an organization and the community understand the key role of project management in today's society. AIPM vision is to be recognized by business, industry, and government, as the key promoter, developer, and leader in project management professionalism. AIPM goals include: to increase the awareness of project management as a profession to progress the globalization of project management to recognize excellence in project management to promote competency-based assessment for those working in project management to grow AIPM membership to promote AIPM as the peak body for project management in Australia For further information, please navigate to www.aipm.com.au. Founded in 1965 and registered in Switzerland, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) was the world's first project management professional organization. IPMA is an international federation of more than 50 national PM societies in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. IPMA offers an International Competence Baseline standard, a four-level project manager certification, expert seminars and global knowledge. IPMA's annual world congress is one of the most important meetings of the world's project management experts and leaders each year. The president of IPMA for 2011-12 is Mr Roberto Mori; the Chair of the IPMA Council of Delegates for 2011-12 is Mrs Brigitte Schaden. For further information, please navigate to www.ipma.ch.
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