Youth and Project Management: 3rd Conference

At the end of May the 3^rd international conference ‘Youth and Project Management in Russia: Contemporary Challenges and Prospects’ took place at the HSE. It was organized by the HSE Department of Project Management in cooperation with the Russian Project Management Association SOVNET and Young Crew Sovnet. Valery Anshin, Head of this Department and Academic Supervisor of the conference, told us about the event.

— How did the idea of the conference arise? What is it all about?

— The idea came up three years ago. We invented this conference as a kind of festival for students of the master’s programme ‘Project Management: Project Analysis, Investments, Technologies of Implementation’. It was supposed to become the final event of the research seminar, after a semester where students had been studying various problems and carrying out their own research, as well as a platform where they could present the results of their yearly project.

But then it turned out that there are a lot of people from outside the HSE who want to participate in this kind of discussion. As a result, we decided to organize a conference together with SOVNET – a Russian project management association, and since then we have been running it as equal partners.

— Is cooperation with SOVNET, which is member of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) since 1991, limited to this conference?

— No, we have close ties with the association. Its President, Alexey Polkovnikov, is Head of the expert council at out Master’s programme. We are involved in joint research (in particular, regarding the value-oriented approach in project management), as well as master classes for Master’s students.

— The conference was a youth and an international one. Master’s students who actively participated in its preparation did their job perfectly. Which international experts in project management spoke in Moscow?

— Stephen Hayes, Director of the International Centre for Complex Project Management in Australia, was with us for a second year in a row. In addition to that, Daniel Collado-Ruiz, IPMA Young Crew Chairman, spoke at the event.

Daniel Collado-Ruiz wrote about his experience of speaking at the conference on his blog:

‘The organizers had kindly asked me to give a keynote speech during that first day, regarding the vision of IPMA’s Young Crew, and to communicate some of the activities that were taking place. By the way, it was the first time that I had a presentation with a translator. This was a new type of challenge for me, and I enjoyed every second of it!’