Mauricio Díez and Maricela Montes at the campus
Mauricio Díez Silva and Maricela Montes Guerra read their PhD theses at the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) on a new methodology for facilitating the organisation of tasks regarding project management and the interrelation of players involved in their execution. Their proposal has already been applied in a number of cases, in Spain and in Colombia, and “it has been verified that the instruments devised can be employed relatively easily and are useful for each of the players who have applied it”.
The two researchers, from the University of Pamplona in Colombia, carried out their PhD theses within a research programme on the direction of projects. The two research projects are closely linked and both were codirected by university teachers Ms Amaya Pérez Ezcurdia and Mr Faustino Gimena Ramos, from the Department of Rural Projects and Engineering at UPNA. In concrete, Mr Mauricio Díez’s thesis is entitled Management methodology aimed at project players. The promoter, while that of Ms Maricela Montes focused on the Project Executing Body. Both obtained the maximum cum laude distinction.
The proposal for these theses was based on analysing how the main players intervening in the management of a project are structured and the influence that their appropriate organisation has on the results and on the final success of the process for its execution. “When players are degrouped or belong to different organisations” pointed out the authors, “a new work model should be implemented which interrelates them and enables the management of all project activities independently and jointly at the same time.”
Satisfactory results
One of the principal contributions of these research PhDs has been precisely to resolve the problem that, although different project management methodologies exist, what is lacking is a focus which links all the participants. To this end, Mauricio Díez and Maricela Montes designed an integrated management system made up of processes, procedures, diagrams, forms, templates, resources and clearly defined activities, which enable the project director, the promoter or executing body to organise the work necessary to achieve the project targets successfully. The application of all the documentation has enabled, for example, an ONG in Spain to carry out its cooperation projects more rapidly and in a better organized manner; or a group of farmers in Colombia to implement resources which the State had provided them in order to improve their productive activity.
Their proposal has been applied to cases of cooperation for development, agriculture and health, both in Spain and in Colombia, and the instruments devised have been verified in that they “can be employed with relative ease and be useful for each one of the players with which they have been applied”. The results of these research activities have been expounded in five papers at international congresses on project engineering and in a number of scientific journals.
* Elhuyar translation, published in www.basqueresearch.com