On 28 January 2008, Dr. Chotchai and Dr. Hadikusumo organized "MPM and CEIM Introductory Seminar" in SEAMEO, Saigon. The purpose of the seminar is to explain our MPM and CEIM program and curriculum to potential students.Dr. Chotchai made a presentation on "The Need of Higher Education in Project Management". According to him, the construction growth in Vietnam is very high at about 12% of the National GDP. Vietnam is facing a new environment in constructing projects such as international investors and high complexity projects. He discussed that there is a big opportunity in the project management career especially for students who get their degree from international universities. Many Foreign Direct Investors project need qualified engineers who have good project management knowledge and English proficiency.
He mentioned that so far engineers learn project management through (i) short course training which is not sufficient to learn holistic view of project management and (ii) experience which may cost a lot of money since delay and cost overrun may happen.
Short course trainings usually only teach the hard components of project management such as cost estimation and control and project scheduling. However, due to the nature and characteristic of projects in which many companies and people work together at the same time, Project Manager needs to have the 'soft components' of project management such as communication management and skills, negotiation, team management, leadership, project organization and contract risk management which hardly can be learned through a short course training. This is one of the reasons for why CEIM offers higher education (i.e. master and doctoral) in Project Management in Construction.
Another reason, project manager needs to develop his/her problem solving skills. This problem solving skill can only be learned through intensive research work in which a scientific approach is used (observation, hypothesis development, hypothesis testing and analysis).
After Dr. Chotchai's presentation, Dr. Hadi made a presentation about 'Professional Master of Engineering in Project Management in Construction (MPM)' and 'Two-Phase Master and PhD'. Dr. Hadi highlighted that MPM is designed based on a balance between theoretical and practical aspects of project management knowledge while two-phase programs emphasize more on the theoretical aspects. Therefore, MPM is suitable for professionals who have been working in construction industry for at least three years, while two phase programs are suitable for fresh graduate engineers and researchers.
The seminar was attended by 25 potential students.
Posted by
Dr. BHW Hadikusumo
CEIM Coordinator
http://www.set.ait.ac.th/ceim/
" CEIM offers Master and Doctoral degrees in Construction Project Management and Infrastructure Management in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam "
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