Project Management is about how to manage people and their expectations. Our assessment is always biased, only concerned with the outputs generated from a project. We often forget the most important thing, which is humans as the central subject of the project. Demand, process, and satisfaction with output rotate in the wheel of the human factor. Therefore, at each stage, project management can’t be free from human error.
This was conveyed by Bambang Trigunarsyah Suhariadi, Associate Professor of Project Management at RMIT University, Australia in the 2019 Simposium Cendekia Kelas Dunia (SCKD) at President University. Bambang was one of 55 diaspora researchers invited to return to their home country to educate the nation, especially the young generation through the 2019 SCKD with the objective of “Building Indonesia from the World”.
The Partnership Bureau of President University received an honor to host this SCKD on August 20, 2019. This event was the flagship program of the Directorate General of Science and Technology Resources and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti) in collaboration with the Indonesian Academy of Young Scientists (ALMI), the International Association of Indonesian Scientists (I-4), and the Directorate General of Diplomacy and Public Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main event of the first SCKD hosted by President University was a guest lecture that raised the topic of Project Management. This event presented Civil Engineering Lecturer Anaconda Bangkara as the moderator.
In this lecture, Bambang explained that project management cannot be separated from human factors, project management must prioritize visibility and accept the fact that requests, processes, and outputs cannot be perfect. However, with good project management, the percentage of success of a project will increase. Therefore, everyone needs to have good project management.
According to Bambang, President University students have been well-equipped in project management. This can be seen from the enthusiasm and good understanding during the question and answer session. No wonder President University is known as a campus that has many events (regional, national, and even international) with students as the main driving force in each of its events.
Besides giving guest lectures, Bambang also showed his interest in doing joint research with President University lecturers in the future. Head of Partnerships Bureau President University Marissa Astika said, “We are delighted to be chosen as one of the hosts for the SCKD. We learned a lot from the speaker’s many years of experience in dealing with different types of projects abroad. His lecture on Project Management certainly enriched our knowledge. PU is looking forward to becoming the host for the future SCKD programs.”