Academia vs. PM Reality

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Academia vs. PM Reality
Earl Campbell (September 30, 2008)

A project management instructor shares why he uses the scenario of a Business Intelligence system implementation in order to go beyond the textbooks and explore the many ways that real-world projects get messy — and how solid project management practices can help sort it out.

Project Yourself is an ongoing series that invites project professionals to share practical advice, personal insights and pet peeves based on their experiences in the field. Anonymity, if desired, is assured. To submit an article for consideration, contact the editor.

Teaching college courses always has challenges. There is the ongoing issue of how to connect with the students, as well as how to best present materials that reflect real-life scenarios. In academic situations, textbooks often oversimplify the complexities involved in trying to achieve business solutions. This can readily be witnessed when teaching a class on project management or systems analysis where vendors, clients and IT professionals all tend to work hand-in-hand to achieve the ultimate solution for an organization and in the end everyone lives happily ever after.

Anyone who has ever lived through a complicated system implementation knows that unforeseen problems will arise and personalities will clash.

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September 2010:

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