Managing student projects with Projektron BCS
Success story from the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau
We, Hanna Neuling, Claudia Schmidt, Constance Müller, Kristin Linzel and Ulrike Seehagen, are a seminar group from the Master's programme in European Management at the Faculty of Business, Administration and Law at Wildau University of Applied Sciences. Wildau University of Applied Sciences is located south-east of Berlin (near Königs Wusterhausen) and, with its 3,500 students, is the largest university of applied sciences in the state of Brandenburg. With its special focus on application-orientated research, it is a selected location in the ‘Germany - Land of Ideas’ competition, among others.
Introduction and objective of the project
As part of our studies, we were given the task of creating a project concept for two companies in the course Project Management of European Companies with Prof. Dr. Bertil Haack.
One project group, Scarabaeus GmbH, dealt with the construction of a production and distribution facility in Russia, while the other project group, SolarEMM GmbH, dealt with the production, delivery and construction of a solar park in both Sweden and Finland. Both companies are based in Germany.
The task required detailed planning and thorough preparation for the project implementation due to the complexity of the cross-border activities of a company.
Training on Projektron BCS: Introduction to the planning tool
For this purpose, we were introduced to the web-based tool Projektron BCS from the company Projektron as part of a two-day training course. The training, conducted by Mr Martin Döring, offered us a first insight into this tool for planning, monitoring and controlling projects. We were shown the numerous possibilities for planning projects using the software, for deploying the available personnel resources in a project-adequate manner, for monitoring the project in terms of time and for taking into account the material costs incurred by a project. The latter offers the user not only pure project planning but also a corresponding cost control of the project to be carried out.
Thanks to the continuous maintenance of the project database, it is possible to quickly adapt to unforeseen developments in personnel and material resources during the project.
Practical application of Projektron BCS in project planning
All participants found the training to be positive, since it is difficult to get started with BCS without prior knowledge. Familiarising oneself with the software by means of small tasks was therefore very helpful in getting to know the software and testing the various options and applications. However, it should be noted that the software's scope of application was limited to a small part of the possibilities in the context of our projects and therefore the many additional options were not examined in detail. The software was used in the conceptual planning of the two projects and in their timely review during the semester by the Scarabaeus and SolarEMM project groups.
For example, sub-projects, work packages and individual tasks were defined on three levels, as required by the respective project. In the course of the project, each team member recorded the time required to complete the tasks assigned to them. The time tracking meant that the processing status and the progress of the entire project could be continuously monitored by means of green markers.
A particular advantage of this was that the current status of the tasks still to be completed was immediately apparent to each individual project participant.
Another point that particularly stood out in the project work with Projektron BCS is the option to view the exact costs and processing statuses of the tasks and to use these to estimate the progress of the project. This BCS functionality also made it possible to filter out any resource bottlenecks within the project and thus to make the necessary adjustments to the tasks.
Evaluation of the project management tool and outlook
BCS thus provides a suitable aid for considering restructuring within the project. All in all, the Projektron BCS project management tool is rated positively, but the ‘real’ advantages of the program, which are seen in particular in cost and employee planning, will only become apparent when a realistic project is carried out. For us, the tool was primarily a helpful instrument for keeping an eye on our own working hours for individual tasks and – as a result – to achieve optimisation of our own time management. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to the Projektron company for the rights of use granted to us, and to Martin Döring for his support.
