Tough competition against the best of the best

The finals consisted of two parts: a project case simulation in the morning, and a presentation and reasoning of results for the jury during the afternoon. The simulation part was done online in STS’s simulation system, SimulTrain®. In the system platform teams could for example adjust the resource and competence management, plan tasks and schedules, update project risk log and make risk management actions, communicate with project resources by e-mails and phone calls and arrange different kind of meetings for the project personnel. The presentation and reasoning were an important part of evaluation, since leadership and teamwork skills are a vital factor for project success. 

 The finals case study was a familiar situation for many project managers: a project someone else had already started, project running in its execution phase, most traffic lights reported in red – and then the team needed to step in and take the lead. In this case more precisely, the project was already running late, with decreased quality and motivation of project personnel and risks poorly handled. Only comforting factor was that there were still some budget left to make adjustments. 

 In the simulation, the teams had 9 weeks to complete the project, that had been running for 3 weeks with poor management. The reported traffic lights were budget, schedule, quality, risk, and motivation (of the project resources). The case project was about an internal transformation project of an organisation. All teams consisted of 3 to 4 participants and the morning part of the finals lasted 3 hours in total. 

 In the afternoon all the teams presented the results for the jury. It was interesting to see how many different types of presentations and approaches of project management you can get out of the same case. The cultures and personalities of the participating teams were visible, in a good way, in the presentations. This was also a good reminder for all of us, how the different cultures enrich the project operations. Most teams, also the A-Team, had chosen the quality and motivation factors to be the priority targets since it was an internal transformation project.

Winners of the competition 

In the evening both the PMC finalist and the GMP seminar participants gathered to the Spreespeicher for a gala dinner, to network and for the winners to be announced. The remote teams could also participate to the winner’s announcement through Teams. The best scoring teams were Spain (1st place), The Netherlands (2nd place) and Italy (3rd place). The jury was pleased that so many teams decided to focus on quality and motivation in this particular project. The jury guided the participants to use more question cards in the future, meaning that communication and interaction with management in vital in transformation projects. 

Even though the A-Team did not score in top three, they did great job especially in building a tool for resource & competence management, which made it easier and time efficient for them to reallocate the project personnel during the simulation. They also had the courage to change decision-making method and try agile when multiple adjustment was needed in the simulation. Team reported that even though the pressure in the simulation was surprisingly high, they had a lot of fun and learned a ton. 

 - All in all, this was a great competition, with extremely tight results. Well, congratulations to Spain as they acquired the trophy of the night, but based on the statistics, every country would have satisfactorily fulfilled the project reorganisation goals. This has been a huge honor for me to connect with all these highly valuable people and meet all these professionals within the field from all around the world, comments Krisztina Racz after the competition.

Finally, Milla Ranta sends her greetings on behalf of IPMA Young Crew Finland: 

 -We want to encourage all young professionals and those interested in project management to sign up for our newsletter and to follow us in Linkedin, to stay tuned for upcoming competitions and events! Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information of IPMA Young Crew Finland!

Kirjoittaja: Milla Ranta