The association among project manager's leadership style, teamwork and project success

Managing and improving organizational capabilities is a significant and complex issue for many companies. To support management and enable improvement, performance assessments are commonly used. One way of assessing organizational capabilities is by means of maturity grids. While maturity grids may share a common structure, their content differs and very often they are developed anew. This paper presents both a reference point and guidance for developing maturity grids. This is achieved by reviewing 24 existing maturity grids and by suggesting a roadmap for their development. The review places particular emphasis on embedded assumptions about organizational change in the formulation of the maturity ratings. The suggested roadmap encompasses four phases: planning, development, evaluation, and maintenance. Each phase discusses a number of decision points for development, such as the selection of process areas, maturity levels, and the delivery mechanism. An example demonstrating the roadmap's utility in industrial practice is provided. The roadmap can also be used to evaluate existing approaches. In concluding the paper, implications for management practice and research are presented.

Assessing Organizational Capabilities: Reviewing and Guiding the Development of Maturity Grids

https://moodle.upm.es/innovacion/pluginfile.php/901/mod_forum/attachment/175/GIE-PROJECT-Agronomos.pdf

Project–based learning in engineering higher education: two decades of teaching competences in real environments

The changing business environment characterized by tense competitiveness and wide global links requires construction organizations to establish effective and efficient interorganization collaborative management systems. Collaborative working (CW), as a new term and especially as a working model, is emerging for improving performance and enhancing competitiveness by responding to the changing environment in construction. This research presents the definition of CW underpinned by the principle of collaboration. Through a thorough literature review of selected papers from the well-known academic journals in construction management, the business environment and human behavior are identified as two key areas which impact the performance of CW in construction projects. Critical reviews on these areas are presented by focusing on different subcategories in each area to investigate the state of the art and trends of CW in construction projects. Some limits of research and practice on CW in construction projects are discussed and future research directions are recommended.

Critical Review of Collaborative Working in Construction Projects: Business Environment and Human Behaviors

The changes in the engineering-construction industry of the 21st century require organizations to take a more active role in developing knowledge management and learning organization initiatives. The need to both retain knowledge within the organization and focus on continuous human resource development throughout all levels of the organization is becoming a primary challenge throughout the industry. This paper addresses this challenge by focusing on the question of the link between knowledge management and learning organizations, and how to transform an organization from a focus on knowledge management to a focus on developing a learning culture. Based on a series of studies by the writers into the characteristics of both knowledge management and learning organizations, this paper outlines models of each of these concepts and introduces a bridge that details the level of knowledge management implementation that must be in place prior to an organization having the capacity to move to a learning focus. Additionally, the case studies conducted during the current study provide a basis for presenting potentially unsuccessful paths that may be selected by organizations during the imple- mentation of a knowledge management to learning organization transition.

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Knowledge Management to Learning Organization Connection

The traditional civil engineering-based approach to construction engineering and management education focuses significant attention on core subjects such as scheduling, estimating, and contracts. This paper introduces an alternative approach to this education based on the concepts of project-based learning. Through the introduction of courses developed by the writers, the paper provides a foundation for changing current education approaches from a lecture-based format to a project-based format. In this format, students are challenged with open-ended problems requiring greater application of multiple engineering concepts as well as requiring interaction with outside experts from within the construction industry and related professions. An outline for a project-based learning course is presented with experiences and lessons learned from four implementations of the course. Student responses are presented to indicate the potential benefits of such an approach. This finding is further supported by the introduction of the Knowledge Landscape concept for construction education that emphasizes greater use of context, scope, and multiple intelligences in construction engineering education.

Developing Knowledge Landscapes through Project-Based Learning

The transformation of organizations from production-oriented entities to proactive learning entities that continuously leverage the knowledge of the workforce is a primary objective of management researchers. This focus has significant relevance to the construction industry where production-related research has predominantly overshadowed organizational development research. As one effort to change this emphasis, the writers present a research effort designed to study current organization learning techniques and technologies fielded by organizations both inside and outside of the construction industry. Through a series of exploratory case studies, the writers developed a maturity model together with the Construction Industry Institute that provides construction organizations with a framework for developing a learning organization culture. The maturity model focuses on learning organization characteristics of leadership, processes and infrastructure, communication/collaboration, education, and culture at the organization, community, and individual levels. This paper introduces the results of that effort including a presentation of the learning organization maturity model, framework application, and the overall characteristics of a learning organization.

Allison Realph

Papers

Developing Knowledge Landscapes through Project-Based Learning

Learning Organizations in Construction