PMItoday - June 2009

ADVANCED DEGREES: One Way to Meet the Need

niversity programs on proj- their careers with further training
ect management are grow- and education. These charts show
ing in popularity as more the growth in three programs
students discover project accredited by the PMI^®Global
management, and as existing project Accreditation Center for Project
management practitioners enhance Management (GAC):

Project Management Program Student Enrollment
2005-06 2006-07
613 775
276 669
94 115

More information on GAC-accredited programs can be found at www.PMI.org/accreditation.

University of Maryland, United States Boston University, United States La Salle - Ramon Llull University, Spain

2007-08

1048

1066

124

2008-09

1266

1642

160

What the Faculty and Deans are Saying

“a

special office within the French Ministry of Budget in charge of the ‘modernization of the

state’ has been created recently,
involving million to multi-billion
[euro] projects and their manage-
ment. Due to the need for project
management

talent, the
special office
signed a coop-
eration agree-
ment with ESC
Lille in March
2009 in order to
develop inten-
sive collaboration. This will include
the recruitment of masters/MBA stu-
dents, internship offers to current
students, training of the workforce
and of the project managers, consult-
ing and research work at various lev-

els (masters, MBA and PhD)…” —Christophe Bredillet, PhD

Director of International Postgraduate Programmes, ESC Lille, France

“In times like these it’s more than ever crucial for a company to manage their resources with maximum efficiency. This requires a far more project-oriented company structure with clearly assigned responsibilities. It’s obvious that more highly qualified project managers are required— our university makes an important contribution to cover this need by offering a GAC-accredited master’s degree in systems and project management for young business professionals.”

—Professor Dr. Thomas K. Stauffert University of Applied Sciences at

Landshut, Germany

“In today’s complex global environ-
ment, the most successful project
managers will be those who go
beyond the primary tools and tech-
niques of the

trade to apply critical thinking in reaching solutions that are consistent with organizational strategic goals and objectives.

Formal education locking hard and soft skills together with general management principles will be a must.”

—Frank J. Cesario, PhD, PMP

Program Dean

DeVry University and Keller Graduate

School of Management

What Students Getting Advanced Degrees Are Saying
t
o some project management
practitioners, bridging the tal-
ent gap means going to school
for advanced degrees in proj-
ect management. This is why they
are doing it (or did it recently), in
their own words:

Dianne O. Harris, MSM, completed her master’s of science in management—project management degree in 2005. At the time she was working on a design project with CH2M Hill

at one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the world, near Washington, D.C., USA. “If you are moving toward leadership positions, a post graduate degree in project management is valuable if you have project experience,” said Ms. Harris.

Luis D. Argüello Araya, PMO director at Aura Interactiva (Costa Rica), is getting his master’s degree in project management this year. He took a project management program spon-

sored by the Costa Rica Institute of Technology prior to starting his master’s degree program. He sought the degree in order to have a solid background on this field and also to improve his professional profile.

Mr. Argüello expects some career benefits from his degree. “I will have solid foundations to run the PMO of the company I work for,” he said. “I’m mostly oriented to manage IT and e-learning projects and I also have