EVENT REPORT
 

NM2 training on
managing complex international projects
 

Marian Ursu at his presentation on cultural diversity

NM2 has gained a lot of experience in managing complex international projects with geographically distributed partners. NM2 wanted to share this experience and therefore organised a training event on 25 January 2006 at the Eurescom premises in Heidelberg.

 

Moderated by Milon Gupta from Eurescom, 42 managers and experts involved in all kinds of international projects listened to the presentations about building, running and managing complex projects.

The programme included:

  • An outline of the characteristics of projects in EU research programmes by Kai Tullius from the European Commission
  • A report by NM2’s technical project manager, Doug Williams, on his experiences putting the project team together
  • Practical experiences of the NM2 coordinator, Peter Stollenmayer, on building effective project management structures
  • Demonstrations of various project management tools by Eurescom and Orbi Team
  • A panel discussions on knowledge management initialised by a teaser speech from Anja Walter, a consultant working for LearnAct
  • The interesting - not always serious - views of NM2 partner Marian Ursu from Goldsmiths College on cultural diversity
  • An overview on the special challenges of IPRs in research projects by TNO’s legal advisor, Folkert Teernstra.

The participants were actively involved and contributed to the seminar with many questions and remarks. The participants were particularly pleased with the practical, hands-on approach of the speakers. One of the key messages was that good project management always depend on good project teams. According to NM2 project manager Doug Williams, “you can never underestimate the value of selecting highly performing partners from the beginning”. NM2 coordinator Peter Stollenmayer said: “The personal relationships in such projects are extremely important. People who had a beer together can solve problems much easier than people who never met”.

See the agenda for more details on the seminar.