Serbia & Montenegro, Belgrade, November 22-24, 2005

The Role of a Project Management Module in

the Undergraduate Electrical Engineering

Program

Matej Zajc, Member, IEEE, Jurij F. Tasic, Member, IEEE

Abstract - The paper presents goals of the projectmanagement module as within the frame of theundergraduate study of the Electrical Engineering programof the University of Ljubljana. The objective of havingintroduced it within the curriculum was to increase students'understanding of their role in electrical engineering projectsfrom the system design point of view.

Keywords - project management, telecommunications,electrical engineering, curriculum, system development lifecycle, project life cycle.

I. INTRODUCTION

W5, tE do agree that learning project management skillsis not useful just for project managers. It isgenerally known that besides a solid technical

background, there are also other skills that define a goodengineer [1]. In technical literature, it is frequentlyemphasized that engineers need to understand their role inan engineering project as well as the project and productlife cycle. Moreover, engineers should have strongcommunication skills, understanding of team work, self-assessment, etc. [1, 2, 5].

In this paper we present a Project management modulethat is in the curriculum of the electrical engineeringdegree with major in telecommunications at the Faculty ofElectrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. Ourobjective is to assess its role in the engineeringundergraduate curriculum.We believe that the module on project management

must be closely associated with assignments of studentslater in their professional environment. It is for this reasonthat we set its focus on the role of electrical engineers inR&D, production, installation, maintenance and otherfields. Since the students have the major intelecommunications, the teaching of project managementis discussed from the perspective of telecommunicationprojects.

In contrast to different courses on project management,we do not assume that our students will all become projectmanagers or have their own business. On the contrary, this

might be true only for few of them who will seek foropportunities to increase their knowledge in the field ofproject management. Our module therefore focuses onvarious positions our students might have later in theirprofessional life in different either private or publicmanufacturing or service companies, technical orcommercial structures, governmental positions, regulatoryor control organizations, and research institutions.

Project management modules can usually be found inpost-graduate curriculums of electrical engineering andcomputer science degrees. There is a significant differencebetween objectives of a post graduate program comparedto those of the undergraduate program. The first majordifference is in the role of future engineers in a company.The next would be their awareness of the importance ofproject management and other non-technical skills.

In the paper we first describe the background of theElectrical Engineering program of the University ofLjubljana and present organization of our Projectmanagement module. We then analyze the accomplishedgoals and end with ideas for future work.

II. PROGRAM BACKGROUND

Our module on project management is taught in thethird year of the Electrical Engineering program which ismore application oriented (Table 1).

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Universityof Ljubljana offers two under-graduate degrees:

* Electrical Engineering degree (six semesters oflectures, six months of practice, three months ofDiploma Thesis work) (Table 1).

* University Electrical Engineering degree (ninesemesters of lectures, six months of DiplomaThesis work).

The difference between the two programs is that theElectrical Engineering degree (a four year program) ismore application oriented, while the University ElectricalEngineering degree (a five year program) offers moreextensive and in-depth theoretical knowledge. Graduateson the four year program, where our module is taught, cancontinue with specialization study while graduates on thefive year program can continue with M. Sc. or Ph. D.study.

M. Zajc is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University ofLjubljana, Slovenia (phone: 386-1-4768880; fax: 386-1-4768855; e-mail:matej.zajc@fe.uni-lj,si).

J. F. Tasic is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University ofLjubljana, Slovenia (phone: 386-1-4768492; fax: 386-1-4768855; e-mail:jurij.tasicgfe.uni-lj,si).

1-4244-0049-X/05/$20.00 (C2005 IEEE

EUROCON 2005

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TABLE 1: ORGANIZATION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA( )

1st year Common Curriculum2nd year Automatics Electronics Power Tele- Quality

Engineering communications Engineering3rd year Automatics Electronics Power Tele- Quality

Engineering communications Engineering4th year Practice

I I__ Thesis

III. OBJECTIVES OF THE MODULE

When planning the module our main concern was to:* increase the students' interest in their

professional life,* get an insight into technical topics from the

system design point of view, and* develop certain non-technical skills usually not

being a part of engineering programs.The students' interest in their professional life is

stimulated by enabling them to get in contact withvarious companies. The importance of such contacts atan early stage is threefold:

* finding an interesting position for theirPractice, which is part of the curriculum (Table1),

* easier selection of topics interesting for theirfinal diploma thesis, and

* finding a potential employer and/or grant.On the other hand, companies themselves are

interested in being in contact. This enables them todiscover the most promising and motivated ones andbring them after graduation into their teams. There is anincreasing effort observed on the side of companies topromote themselves among students.

Though engineering modules make studentsunderstand various systems from the algorithm point ofview, they often lack the design and implementationskills. The target of our module is to arouse thestudents' interest and curiosity and give them guidelinesfor their individual investigations.

Usually, engineering curriculums neglect non-technical skills though they are many times as importantas the engineering skills [1-5]. Let us mention onlysome of them: understanding team work and leadership,good oral and written communication skills, etc.

Project management textbooks usually addresscomplex software engineering projects and managerspositions [2]. For the above mentioned reasons classicalproject management textbooks were not directlyadopted for this module.

IV. MODULE DESCRIPTION

The various project management topics are coveredin one hour weekly classes. Once a particular topic isoutlined, a discussion is motivated. Generally, simpleexamples from life are given so as to make studentsrespond quickly. The topics discussed in the classfollow the five steps of the project life cycle (PLC) [3,4]:

* definition of the project goal,* project planning,* executing and monitoring the project plan,* closing the project,* project evaluation.

As the emphasis of our module is on system designmethodologies, our focus is on the system developmentlife cycle (SDLC) steps [3, 4]:

* system planning,* system analysis,* system implementation,* system maintenance.

The SDLC methodologies are illustrated with selectedexamples from telecommunications projects.

After each class, students are given two hourcomputer assignments associated with topics havingbeen discussed in our lectures. Technical examples tobe solved are selected in the way allowing the studentto use the acquired knowledge about the particulartopic. With the laboratory classes we acquaint studentswith MS Project and Excel.

For example, a project planning class would coverthe following: work breakdown structure (WBS), effortestimation, task dependencies (network diagram andGantt charts), and resources allocation. Another classwould cover project plan optimization and projecttracking and monitoring step.An important part of the program are team projects.

Students grouped in teams are asked to select, prepareand defend their project plan which has to be related toengineering problems from the field oftelecommunications. The teams are instructed to contactdifferent companies in order to get realistic data. Ingeneral students' projects can be divided into twocategories:

* Small business projects involving topics fromthe area of e-commerce, infrastructureinstallation (mobile communications,telephony, LAN networks, fiber optics, etc.),etc.

* Analysis of industrial projects, R&D of newproducts (telecommunication equipment,consumer electronics, embedded systems,etc.), IT, maintenance (infrastructure,industrial plants, etc.).

Some of the specific topics focused on in the teamproject preparation stage are:

* Team work, team roles, conflict management,managing meetings, etc.

* Presentation skills, writing skills, etc.

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At the end of the semester, students hand in andorally defend their project plan. Within their oralpresentation they have to defend their contingency planfor a particular critical event in their project. This eventis selected together with the lecturer within the projectpreparation phase.

To assure efficiency of our module, we organizeseveral invited lectures during the semester. Theselectures are given by engineers from differentcompanies, in particular those employing our students.They are asked to prepare a lecture covering thefollowing topics:

* Presentation of the project managementapproach in their companies with analysis andachievements of previously accomplishedprojects.

* Determination of role of electrical engineers intheir company.

* Demonstration of the importance of topicscovered in the lectures.

The invited lecturers usually select a specific productfor which they present its system development cycletogether with the most important events and lessonslearned. Other topics also discussed by the invitedspeakers are for example the importance ofdocumenting, innovation, communication skills,speaking foreign languages, life-long learning, etc.

The invited lecturers are advised to deal with topicsalready discussed in the lectures. They are also asked todevote a part of their lecture to the role engineers areexpected to have in their company.

V. CONCLUSION

The module on Project management has been taughtby the authors of this paper for the last six years.Judging from the students' effort and students'evaluations we can conclude that the module is popularand well accepted. Also, graduates report its usefulnessfor the professional life.Our plans for the future is to include widen the

selection of invited lecturers and organize visits to theircompanies. Moreover, to improve integration of themodule with the overall program, we also plan toincrease coordination with courses in the same year inwhich technical projects can be managed with theproject management skills.

REFERENCES

[1] A. Venetsanopoulos, "Advice to Young Engineers", IEEESignal Processing Magazine, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 10 -12, July2004.

[2] J.R. Meredith, S. J. Mantel, Project management: a managerialapproach, Wiley 2003.

[3] A. Dennis, B. H. Wixom, Systems analysis and design, Secondedition, John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

[4] J. T. Marchewka, Information technology project management:providing measurable organizational value, John Wiley & Sons,2003.

[5] J. Liebowitz, "Teaching the importance of communication inIT", IT Professional, pp. 38-42, Jan-Feb 2004.

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