Development of a management support tool for stricto sensu graduate programs

A contingency approach to project management

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contribution of a project management approach to develop a tool to support the management of Brazilian stricto sensu graduate programs (SS-GP). The Adaptive approach was chosen by applying the Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC) method. Design/methodology/approach – The study corresponds to the concept of applied research. The qualitative approach was used. The research strategy was the action research, where participants cooperate to understand their environment, identify problems and seek a solution, simultaneously producing and using the knowledge produced. Findings – The results showed one possible way to apply a contingency project management approach to develop the tool. In addition, indicated that its application facilitated the project work, especially when finding a solution for the project’s development and when dealing with the changes inherent to the uncertainties about the problem. Research limitations/implications – The lack of more updated information and the limitation of time and resources led to the reduction of the environment scope and of the number of functionalities developed. Practical implications – To contribute to the generation of knowledge and expertise to support the management of SS-GP in activities such as providing information to the CAPES evaluation system, academic production analysis, collaborative researcher network analysis and post-graduation program monitoring and evaluation. Originality/value – To fill a gap pointed out by several studies, that it is not possible to automatically generate input lists to be processed by ScriptSucupira tool, based on filtered criteria, comprising the entire universe of the Brazilian SS-PG. The creators of ScriptSucupira also declared to ignore the existence of an artifact similar to that.