Members Only

asapm Position Descriptions:
Director of Education

Major Responsibilities
1. Serves on the Board of Directors as a voting member.
2. Assures that asapm Education activities are aligned with the society’s strategic goals and plans.
3. Plans and execute activities in accordance with the Education budget.
4. Coordinates Education activities with other professional associations, as required.
5. Represents asapm on Education matters with other professional associations.
6. Ensures that Education activities are conducted in a professional manner.
7. Prepares a plan of actions for the next year and presents it to the Board of Directors.

General Duties
1. Develops annual plans to guide Education activities.
2. Contributes to the strategic plan for Education activities and long-term goals.
3. Manages asapm’s Education program, to include recruiting volunteers.
4. Establishes and appoints members to the Education Committee.
5. Develops policies and procedures for development and maintenance of the Education Program.
6. Coordinates the development and provision of presentations to Project Management Communities
    of Practice, or for use in Chapter meetings.
7. Manages the Learning section of the asapm website.
8. Classifies, inventories and maintains knowledge and learning sources that advance the Society in
    the field of Project Management.
9. Maintains and provides to members an inventory of vendors whose products or services advance
    the Society’s objectives in the field of Project Management.
10. Coordinates Education activities with other Directors and interested parties, as necessary.
11. Reports progress and status on Education activities to the Board of Directors at meetings, or as
      required.

Term Of Office: July 2006 – June 2009

Currently Serving: Dr. Gary Klein, Professor of Information Systems at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs

About Gary
Gary KleinGary Klein is currently a Professor of Information Systems at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.  Throughout his 25 year academic career he has held many posts relating to academics: in administration as the Dean of the College of Business at two universities, as a researcher in the field of management science and project management, and as an instructor in statistics, information technology and project management.  He currently teaches the course “Bridging Strategy and Tactics: Managing Project Managers” through the Distance MBA program at UCCS.

Before entering academics, he served with a major Information Technology consulting firm in the Kansas City area and as Director of Information Technology for a regional financial institution.  He has had a strong interest in project management for many years, has been a member of PMI for seven years, asapm for just one year, and is a founding member of the Project Management Special Interest Group of the Association of Information Systems – the leading professional organization for Information System interests among university faculty.

Statement of Intent
The gap between education and profession often seems large, but there are many common goals between institutions of higher learning and professional societies.  These include the advancement of the profession through a commonly understood set of knowledge and Competence standards, providing opportunities to improve our understanding of the duties of the profession, and the promotion of high ethics among the professionals in the work place.  I believe it crucial to the success of any institute of higher learning to develop intricate ties with professional societies, as well as private and public organizations, to better prepare tomorrow’s workforce and help to further advance practice.

With these in mind, there are a number of feasible activities that can be launched to develop more solid partnerships between the asapm and universities as well as actions that should be further explored. 

  1. The most evident is the development of PM curricula at multiple educational levels based on industry standards, such as the IPMA Competence baseline.  There are many curricular approaches that would make sense and also be feasible to a variety of academic programs.  This should be jointly developed with asapm members, organizations in need of employees with a PM background, and educators.

  2. The second is the partnering of asapm and faculty on research projects.  There are certainly questions of interest to asapm that can be addressed in a formal research setting that would also benefit academics seeking relevant topics to study.  Much fruitful academic research can be done with little cost if there is cooperation between industry and academia. This is one device that can benefit from the involvement of professional societies, industry, and academia. Topics might include the benefits of maturity models to organizations or the individual or collective benefits of certification. 

  3. Academics are also prolific readers on topics and could help to build a valuable database of readings categorized according to the association’s knowledge framework.

  4. The IPMA has an experiential learning program named “Young Crew”.  This would serve as a model for involving future leaders of project management in novel learning environments.  This type of activity has the potential to involve other professional societies, student organizations, and corporations through extensive experiential-learning, internship, and mentoring opportunities. 

There are several Educational programs already initiated by asapm for PM Vendors and those who are involved in Training. These include the Speaker’s Bureau, PMCoPs, and the Competence Enabler program.  I believe these have value and would, of course, be continued and possibly expanded. In turn, there are many good educational programs offered by colleges and universities that would benefit from a closer partnership with asapm, and now it is time to reach out to these institutions as well.

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