ENCE 424 Communication for Project Managers
Course Syllabus
Course Description
ENCE 424 Communication for Project Managers. The fundamentals of communications for project managers. Emphasis on interpersonal and group communications, communication through voice, electronic, and written messages, project cycle and reports and presentations during this cycle, and communications for employment.
Required Course Texts
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Business Communications Process & Product by Mary Ellen Guffey (6th Edition)
ISBN-13 978-0-324-57868-3
Course Objective
Effective communication is essential to success in today’s engineering work environment. Recent surveys of executives and research in the field of positive psychology document that abilities in writing and speaking are major determinants of career success in many fields. This course will provide an overview of communications fundamentals to engineering and project management students. It will establish a framework for business communications on five levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organization, and public in both written and spoken format mediums.
Instructor
Dr. Steven A. Gabriel
Office EGR 1143
Telephone (301) 405-3242; Fax: (301) 405-2585
sgabriel@umd.edu
Grading
The overall course grade will be derived from the following areas:
- Class participation
- Weekly homeworks
- two pre-announced in-class exams
- projects
The distribution of the grade will be as follows:
| Class participation and homeworks | 25% |
| max {exam #1 score, exam #2 score} | 30% |
| min {exam #1 score, exam #2 score} | 20% |
| Projects (proposal, presentation, report) | 25% |
Note that there will be a real-life Department of Energy (DOE) request for proposal (RFP) that will be presented by a member of that organization. This RFP will then be used for the students to hone both their proposal-writing and presentation skills with feedback and advice from the DOE representative as well as from other invited guests as appropriate. In addition to these proposals and presentations, the students will be selecting a topic of their own in project management/engineering for which they will make a proposal, presentation, and final report.
Course Policies
Students are encouraged to attend all lectures since the take-home exam and the homeworks will be closely related to material discussed in lectures.
It is assumed that students will complete the homeworks by themselves although casual discussion with other class members is allowed. Homeworks will generally be given out each week and due at the start of class one week later, no late homeworks will be accepted unless it’s a family or medical emergency.
The course is subject to the Code of Academic Integrity available on the web. The Code prohibits students from cheating on exams, plagiarizing papers, submitting the same paper for credit in two courses without authorization, buying papers, submitting fraudulent documents, and forging signatures.
The University has a legal obligation to provide appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities. Please inform Dr. Gabriel of any accommodations needed relative to disabilities. Also, University of Maryland policy states that students should not be penalized due to observances of their religious beliefs. Please inform Dr. Gabriel of such instances well in advance so that appropriate steps can be taken.
Short Bio on Dr. Gabriel
Academic Experience: Besides teaching at University of Maryland, Dr. Gabriel has held appointments in the Mathematical Sciences Department at The Johns Hopkins University, and in the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Department at The George Washington University. In addition, he has served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory.
Industry Experience: Dr. Gabriel has over 25 years of industry experience involving mathematical modeling of engineering-economic systems with applications in energy, transportation, service performance, and operations management. His specialties include optimization/equilibrium modeling, econometrics, decision support systems, and software development. His most recent industry experience includes 5 years as a Project Manager at ICF Consulting (www.icfconsulting.com) involving projects with their oil and gas group (www.icf-oilandgas.com) as well as their electrical power group.
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