A principle-tactics based approach for guiding student project management

Although many problems encountered in student project development are also common to the development of any professional or commercial projects, supervising student project is significantly different from managing project development in a real workplace. In this paper, a principle-tactics based practical guideline for student project management is proposed for guiding students learning project management during project development. When an event occurs, in most occasions the supervisor only gives advice to students by outlining all the possible solutions and their consequences to the project. Students in the team then make the decision on which action they should take on the event encountered. In such a way, students effectively learn more useful knowledge in project management from their own practice. Case studies presented in this paper demonstrate that this approach is useful and effective in guiding student project management and development.