Teaching project management in telecommunications engineering - introducing role-plays

Students of telecommunications engineering are usually not motivated by management subjects. After several years teaching project management, we conclude that working with role-plays based on the realisation of projects, has improved both the interest of our students and also the understanding of the methodology. Every student has to take part in a role-play during the course, based on workgroups from 8 to 12 students. One of the students takes the role of manager. Each group selects a hypothetic situation and a project to solve. During the course, they must simulate some of the areas of project management and actually carry out the project. Using this method, students learn by doing the theory explained in classroom, and also get exposed to several problems they will face when working in a real project. We have compared different indicators between courses using a traditional method and courses following the described technique. The conclusion is that using role-plays, students take advantage from the project management subject