The Interprofessional Classroom; Integrating Project Management With Supply Chain Management

Koskela and Howell (2002) suggest that the traditional methods of educating project managers are becoming outdated. In order to respond to this, universities need to adapt the way that project management skills are taught in order to produce graduates with the necessary skills to work within the modern project management industries, in cross-functional inter-professional teams. This paper explores the concept of utilising an integrated approach to project management and supply chain management education within a UK University Business School, in order to develop the project managers of tomorrow with the skills needed to gain employment in an increasingly complex field. Both graduates and employers rank skills which are common to both project and supply chain management highly, such as procurement, quality and risk management (McArdle K., Gunning J.G., and Spillane J.G., 2012) highlighting the need to train these two related professions in an integrated manner.
Corsini et al (2000) suggest that the traditional silo approach to education most commonly adopted in universities is producing graduates which are technically competent but do not have the knowledge or expertise to work within cross functional teams. As this is a fundamental part of the Project Manager role, this paper presents the rationale and developments on integrating two large modules at a UK University Business School with the aim of providing students with knowledge and skills which are more appropriate for work within cross-functional, inter-professional teams. The innovative use of an integrated assessment across these modules will provide students the opportunity to work and reflect on a real project, as well as exposure to taught sessions to ground the underpinning concepts that link the specialisms of project and supply chain management together. Challenging established methods of assessment will allow these two innovative modules to better prepare students for inter-professional working as well as developing many of the key soft skills needed to be a successful project manager. This paper will discuss the issues and challenges with adopting such educational methodology, and will be of interest to all within the project management training sector.