Course
| Course title | Project management: Failed large-scale projects and the BER airport |
| Course type | Tutorial |
| Department/Institute | Management |
| Degree program | Business Studies |
| Lecturers | Timo Braun and Stephan Bohn |
| No. of participants | 100 |
| Phase | during the academic lecture period |
| Duration | one entire semester, ongoing |
| SWS/CP | 2 SWS (+ lecture 2 SWS) |
Tools
- Blog - https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/ber/
- Social media channels; especially Twitter, Instagram
- Multimedia and videos
External tools can be optionally implemented as a supplement to the central systems of the Freie Universität (wiki, blog, LMS etc.). The description of the external applications (information on tools, implementation scenarios, practical examples) can be found in the IdeasBar for teaching and science 2.0. Please observe the data protection provisions of the Freie Universität Berlin: Using the central IT solutions at Freie Universität Berlin.
Response to the course
- projektMANAGEMENT aktuell: A stakeholder perspective on the failure of large-scale projects 2018/12 (article on the seminar and the teaching concept in a journal for project management):https://www.gpm-ipma.de/know_how/publikationen/projektmanagement_aktuell/probelesen.html
- Learning from the big players mistakes (article in Campus Leben): https://www.fu-berlin.de/campusleben/lernen-und-lehren/2018/180628-ber-projekt-timo-braun/index.html
- Final vernissage: http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/fachbereich/bwl/management/braun/News/20180629_ber_abschlussvernissage.html
- Evaluation result: 1,07 (relevant for a teaching prize)
Realization
The lecturers set up the blog and of course they coordinated the project. However, a student project team managed the continuing design and moderation of the blog and published the work being undertaken by the tutorial groups in various social media channels.
The blog fulfilled several overlapping aims for the seminar:
- Learning targets
- Critical reflection on an unsuccessful project (BER)
- Practicing project management practically (all participants are assigned to project teams)
- Overlapping perspective of all groups through e-learning tools and especially a blog
- Practically realizing project work, dividing seminar participants into teams (separated into various different project groups)
- Set-up and structure of the learning content
- Research
- Holding interviews
- Writing several blog articles
- A common perspective of all groups via the blog
- Practical realization of what was learned in the lecture project management
- Setting up project groups
- Realizing joint projects
- Final presentation (vernissage) in the plenary session
- Function and the splitting up of face-to-face and e-learning offers
- E-learning introduction to the topic (blog as knowledge database)
- E-learning in order to work on joint results (blog as a growing knowledge database especially for the stakeholder perspectives)
- E-learning in order to present results to the public (blog as exchange)
- Implementation of e-learning tools
- Media group manages the blog (especially with regard to content)
- IT sets up and administers blog (especially on a technical level)
- Blog, Wordpress FU (administrators are the lecturers and two cross-section groups IT and PR)
Experiences made by the lecturer
The course was all in all successfully completed. This is especially recognizable due to the students' very positive reception but also due to the results shown in the blog and the social media integration. The course does, however, also require a lot of, especially personnel, resources and is based to a large degree on the commitment by the students.
Altogether a very good and high resonance of the course, also with regard to the general public (see the separate point above).
Support offered by CeDiS
- Consulting services for the implementation of digital solutions in teaching: The Center for Digital Systems (CeDiS) has extensive experience of many years when it comes to the implementation of digital media and systems within the fields of teaching, learning and research. We offer a wide variety of consulting services on the implementation of these tools and systems within the entire academic scope and especially at Freie Universität Berlin.
- Training courses and workshops: For lecturers at Freie Universität Berlin (professors, employees, tutors) as well as lecturers of other universities CeDiS offers training courses and workshops on the topic of teaching and learning with digital media. These courses enable participants to implement online elements within their own sphere of teaching.
- The Executive Board of the Freie Universität supports e-learning initiatives: With the e-learning funding program financial resources are provided to lecturers that enrich and improve their courses quality-wise by implementing technological and media-related support. All of the academic staff teaching, the lecturers or even the institutions of the Freie Universität - without the Charité-Universitätsmedizin - can be supported within this program.
