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The Doctor of Project Management (DPM) @ RMIT University |
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This world first professional doctorate degree in project management is specifically designed for candidates to consolidate and better understand their existing skills and knowledge on how to manage projects. Currently 12 students enrolled, 1 in India, 5 in Melbourne, 3 in Canada and 3 in USA Learning Structure of the DPM |
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Course Fee Structure: |
Entrance Qualifications:
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Additional
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Business case for your employer support HERE |
Candidates will be enrolled full-time for 3 years (minimum) whilst working full-time in a project management environment.
This allows PM high-fliers to use their workplace operational experience to inform and provide the necessary research input to their research.
Candidates undertaking this program will be unlikely to have less than 10 years relevant work experience in project management and their academic record must indicate excellence. Candidates may be required to undertake a research methods subject to prepare themselves for their research studies.
The overall structure of the course follows:
BM601/DM501 Knowledge
Management
Candidates will develop skills and insights for
managing organisational knowledge, learning and strategically managing
information and information technologies. This will be enabled through the use
of web-based learning packages, chat rooms, working on group and individual
assignments. This subject must be successfully completed at the distinction
level (80%+ mark).
BM611 Knowledge Management
Reflective Learning
Candidates will take part in small group
seminars and internet chat group sessions to assist them write a paper on a
case study on how knowledge management is being/could be applied with the
candidate's workplace. A department research supervisor will guide the
candidate in producing a 5-6,000 word paper. The candidate will also make a
formal presentation of the work. The paper will be of a publishable standard.
This will significantly enhance the candidate's communication and presentation
skills. The reflection on the subject theory undertaken in BM601 will form the
basis of this subject. The candidate will be expected to maintain a
portfolio of working notes, diary of reflections on theory versus practice and
other data/information required for the case study.
BM602 Project Management Leadership
This subject will concentrate upon the nature
and practice of leadership, managing change, strategic planning, strategic
human resource management, encouraging productive diversity, and managing for
organisational learning. It will be undertaken over a period of 14 weeks in an
on-line mode with 5 meetings face-to-face or by teleconference. The
subject focuses upon project management leadership as an enabler for
productive growth in terms or organisations and individuals.
The candidate's learning experience can be summarised as follows:
- Individual learning - through private study extending beyond the guided on-line learning materials to encompass other available materials in the library and on the world wide web (useful URLs will be supplied).
- Group learning - through group assignments. The potential for greatest depth of understanding is through seeing issues through several/many different frames of reference. Students are exposed in working in groups, to conflicting and complimentary interpretations of what they see and issues discussed.
- Communication learning - 3. Communication learning - Often the best way to clarify and consolidate learning is being forced to coherently explain your understanding of issues. This is undertaken at a number of levels in this subject. At one level, students have to explain what they mean to each other in formulating responses (assignments, papers or presentations). At a more formal level the writing of a paper/assignment further supports learning through communication. At a less formal level, group submissions, oral examinations etc strengthen the learning experience through communication.
- Reflective learning - The individual assignment is specifically geared towards candidates placing their own group work in context with feedback and interaction with their work and reflecting on how their conclusions may be modified.
BM612 Project Management
Leadership Reflective Learning
This will provide candidates with the
opportunity to take part in small group seminars and internet chat group
sessions to help the candidates write a paper on a case study of how project
management leadership is being/could be applied with the candidate's workplace.
A department research supervisor will guide the candidate in producing a
5-6,000 word paper. The candidate will also make a formal presentation of the
work. The paper will be of a publishable standard. This will significantly
enhance the candidate's communication and presentation skills. The reflection
on the subject theory undertaken in BM602 will form the basis of this subject.
The candidate will be expected to maintain a portfolio of working notes, diary
of reflections on theory versus practice and other data/information required
for the case study.
BM603 Project Procurement and
Ethics
This subject will involve two important strands
of strategic project procurement knowledge. Procurement systems will enable
candidates to experience access to the development of options of acquiring
facilities, ideas or other project outcomes from inception to facilities
management. Ethical theory and application to procurement will provide an
ethical framework within which project procurement can be accomplished.
The pattern of delivery offered will be by a two-week concentrated seminar program. The following diagram indicates how the seminar program will be delivered. An examination will be held 8 weeks after the last session. Examinations will be in the form of 4 essays with the questions being provided to students at the end of session 13. The closed book examination will test student's individual grasp of content and context learned during the subject delivery and reflective learning supplemented by student private study.
Note: Examination 8 weeks after the last session examinations will be in the form of 4 essays with the questions being provided to students at the end of session 13. The closed book examination will test student's individual grasp of content and context learned during the subject delivery and reflective learning supplemented by student private study.
BM613 Project Procurement
and Ethics Reflective Learning
This will provide candidates with the
opportunity to take part in small group seminars and internet chat group
sessions to help the candidates write a paper on a case study of how project
management leadership is being/could be applied with the candidate's workplace.
A department research supervisor will guide the candidate in producing a
5-6,000 word paper. The candidate will also make a formal presentation of the
work. The paper will be of a publishable standard. This will significantly
enhance the candidate's communication and presentation skills. The reflection
on the subject theory undertaken in BM603 will form the basis of this
subject. The candidate will be expected to maintain a portfolio of working
notes, diary of reflections on theory versus practice and other
data/information required for the case study.
BM604 Project Management
Practice 2
The learning experience will vary with the
subject and delivery type selected. The candidate and course director will
develop a learning contract, which will detail the postgraduate level subject
content chosen and the requirement of the reflective learning diary.
BM614 Project Management
Practice 2 Reflective Learning
This will provide candidates with the
opportunity to take part in small group seminars and internet chat group
sessions to help the candidates write a paper on a case study of how project
management practice is being/could be applied with the candidate's workplace. A
department research supervisor will guide the candidate in producing a 5-6,000
word paper. The candidate will also make a formal presentation of the work. The
paper will be of a publishable standard. This will significantly enhance the
candidate's communication and presentation skills. The reflection on the
subject theory undertaken in BM604 will form the basis of this subject. The
candidate will be expected to maintain a portfolio of working notes, diary of
reflections on theory versus practice and other data/information required for
the case study
BM605 to BM608 Thesis
Preparation 1 to 4
The candidate will interact with the research
supervisor and a research tutorial group in completing these subjects. This
will allow the shape and form of the thesis to be developed in readiness for
the final year thesis submission. It is expected that the work will draw
together papers written as part of subjects BM611, BM612, BM613 and BM614 and
to extend these into an holistic review of project management practice in the
case study investigations.
Candidates will also explore research methodologies appropriate to fit the investigation/research project need. Candidates will work with their research supervisor and industrial mentors to develop a research plan that ensures maximum synergy between the study of theory, and discovery and reflection upon workplace practice in a positive feedback loop. The agreed plan should allow employers to gain demonstrable outcomes and positive contribution to their projects.
The learning experience will be one of
gaining confidence in undertaking case study investigation work and empirical
research. Candidates will be undertaking extensive literature reviews during
these first two years of the program represented by this subject. Research
proposals, management and progress and examination will all follow the
established procedures for PhDs. The above figure illustrates the learning
model.
BM609-BM610 Advanced
Project Management Research 1 & 2
Candidate's research learning experience will
encompass discovery and reflection upon the practice of project management in
their organisation. Their research will focus upon case studies drawn from
practice in which candidates compare best practice as identified in the
literature with observations made with regard to the research cases. The
reflective process is based upon not only review of what has been seen to have
occurred in the case studies but also on the course participant's reflection on
their attitudes, beliefs and actions resulting from their reflections.
The depth and originality from this form of research will be demonstrated as being of doctorate level in two ways. First, the work requires critical review of the literature and development of assessment methods to compare the case study examples. Deep insights will be demonstrated in terms of root causes rather than symptoms. Second, the candidates will be undertaking action research in that lessons learned will be fed back into a cycle of improvement, measurement of impact and reflection upon the nature and characteristics of the impact. This will require participants to understand how their understanding modifies their interaction with their workplace.
The dimensions of the case studies will accord with the subject matter of the 4 coursework subjects. Assignments and reflective learning diaries will form the preparation for the BM609-610 subject. Coursework and research elements will be integrated. It is expected that the learning experience will be diffused to industry and the colleagues of candidates. Progress seminars will be open to industry and peer review to facilitate this. The dissertation will be approximately 40 to 50,000 words in length. Research proposals, management and progress and examination will all follow the established procedures for PhDs.
The following figure illustrates the
learning approach.
The DPM represents a significant innovation in project management knowledge development. It provides a structure and framework that assists high quality research in project management practice to be undertaken.
Contact Person: Professor Derek H.T. Walker derek.walker@rmit.edu.au
Interested applicants should contact Professor
Derek Walker with details of their qualifications and experience. Faxed
information may be sent to the RMIT Faculty do Business (Research Development
Unit) at (61) 3-9925-5595
Send feedback comments
to: derek.walker@rmit.edu.au