Project Management

ISTUD Foundation’s experience in research and training in the area of Project Management has been consolidated over more than 15 years. As a result of our constant interest in project management during this period, we have set up a dedicated faculty and have established a continuous working relationship with the major international centres working in this area (including the PMI – Project Management Institute).

Throughout these years we have been in constant contact with many different companies, we have set up and carried out many specialized training programmes, provided consultancies, have overseen the introduction of project management into companies, published case studies. In short, we have been constantly working with companies to achieve significant change and, as a result, we have developed a comprehensive overview and vision, which is constantly updated and in line with the current developments in the general theory, methods and practice of project management.

ISTUD’s work with a company develops from the ground up. We start with basic training, then move on to guidance and support (also in-house) for the project leaders, to the study of project issues, to raising management awareness, until we arrive at the ultimate goal: the organization, planning and set up of the systems (which can be extremely complex) governing projects in the company - in short, the set up of a Project Management Office (PMO).

The ISTUD Foundation has developed its own vision of Project Management, which we understand as principally a philosophy of management and organization, not merely a set of techniques and tools. This philosophy has proved to be ideal for setting up initiatives and processes of innovation, and, at the same time, responding to the following needs which companies see as fundamental:

• inter-functional and inter-organizational integration;
• organizational flexibility;
• teamwork orientation;
• decentralization of decision making operations;
• focus on critical problems and tasks, through correct use of planning and monitoring techniques.

As a result of this approach, ISTUD Foundation’s Project Management sector has been structured into three basic areas:

• Organization: here we study the fundamental principles, theories and practice of project organization which will guide the choices made by management regarding the definition of the structure and context of the projects to be set up, as well as monitoring systems for these projects;
• Relational/behavioural area: here we study the competences of observation, interpretation and management of the relational dynamics that occur as the project develops;
• Methodology: here we study the definition of the aims and the context of the project, the methodology to be applied in the approach and in the work, the identification and management of the different interlocutors, the interconnection between the project and the company’s project system and with other ongoing projects, and the tools and techniques of planning and management, where more general issues of quality and risk are incorporated into the strategies of project management.

This is the vision that has always informed our planning of the programmes for training and development of Project Management competences –single company and intercompany - that ISTUD Foundation has provided for our clients.

Projects (IT)

Publications (IT)