How Kingston University is meeting the need for future Project Managers

Nataliya filled us in on how the course is preparing students for the world of work and implementing innovative tools and theories to prepare students for a career in project management.

The Project Management MSc programme is designed to cultivate leaders who possess not only the technical mastery of project frameworks but also the strategic foresight and adaptive capability to lead complex change initiatives. Graduates are being prepared to become architects of organisational value in a digitally-driven world.

Helping to meet the need for future Project Managers

There has always been interest, but now there is even more of a need because there are new jobs being created and new roles opening up every day. Businesses are in urgent need of specialists who can guide their teams. Imagine, in big organisations, let's say the BBC, you have a live stream. It needs to run via an Agile Project Management framework and then you have streaming services which might run better with a hybrid approach. The organisation cannot survive by utilising a single framework to run projects with different needs. Companies are in need of people with more expertise in the project management field.

You can pick any industry from software to banking to healthcare; there is always a need for project managers. With the growing project economy, every single organisation is running and managing projects on a daily basis. Projects used to be quite isolated and not really aligned to a business organisation. The way of working was formed within the frame of this technical expertise and language. Organisations are now executing more projects internally, at different scale and without having a specialist recruited from outside. This is driving the need for organisations to create project management roles in-house. There are no reputable organisations without project management roles. Project Management MSc bridges the gap of an urgent need for new project managers and provides students with the skills and knowledge required.

Bridging the skills gap. What organisations are looking for

Organisations need someone to transition them from traditional practices to new ways of working. Not just adding new technology, but training teams to work with the technology and upskilling their workforce. They need employees with technical expertise's as well as an expertise in people to make a transition smooth. As people, we generally resist change and what makes us uncomfortable. People fear using AI, which is in demand and quite widely used in project management now. Organisations are looking for people to encourage their teams to embrace new changes and start thinking, ‘okay, how can I keep my position or grow my career, but upskill myself?’ The most in demand skill organisations are looking for is a deep understanding of how to align people with a strategic goal. They're looking for how to align people to understand change. And how to make them feel comfortable and accepting of change. The aim of the Project Management MSc is to answer these fundamental questions to help prepare students for their future careers.

LEGO Serious Play and training techniques that set us apart

Kingston University offers a PRAXIS module. PRAXIS is a framework for how to manage a project and use more strategic thinking. It's a project, programme and portfolio management framework. It is quite a complicated framework which companies use to manage their portfolios.

Kingston University also uses LEGO Serious Play, which is used specifically to help students develop and practise Agile Project Management concepts through hands-on activities and simulations. Similar to the training approaches used in many larger organisations. This tool guides students to better understand Agile Project Management because it forces them to learn how to be adaptable and implement hybrid ways of thinking in business practices.

Discover how Project Management MSc provides in demand skills at Kingston University.