Abstract:

Project management is a key competence for any engineer, and it is common to find subjects specifically devoted to its development in the last courses of the university programs. In the case of Computer Science and Engineering, there is a white paper in Spain with some guidelines and requirements for the curricula design that includes the following as one of the most basic skills:

Ability to plan, conceive, deploy and manage projects, services and computer systems in all areas, leading its implementation and continuous improvement and assessing its economic and social impact.

Therefore, it is common to find a subject called Project Management in the fourth year of such Bachelor’s Degrees.

In this paper, we present a proposal for the development of project management skills, focused on four key aspects:
• Reflection and theoretical foundation for a person-centered project management
• Team working and leadership skills as key abilities for good project management
• Project based learning and service-learning as basic learning-by-doing methodologies
• Mentoring and team coaching as a method for greater awareness and more meaningful learning

So, the paper includes both a model for a person-centered project management approach and a proposal for training students from Computer Science and Engineering in this model.

We will also provide some results related to the students’ perception of the benefits of this new approach, especially about the implementation of the service-learning methodology and the team coaching.

Keywords:

Person-centered project management, service-learning, project-based learning, mentoring, coaching.