Team Apex achieve the pinnacle of success

A team of students enrolled on the MSc Project Management have beaten teams from BAe Systems and Bournemouth University to win the Association for Project Management (Wessex Branch) Project Challenge competition.

The competition involved the delivering of a project on the theme of ‘Communications’. Team Apex comprising of Zhi Qu, Marija Jojic, Nur Farahin Binti Puasa, Edgar Obregon Morales and Harrison Phillips chose to deliver an ‘International Dinner Night’ event combining food, language and music from a rich variety of cultures. People from sixteen different countries attended the event on the 5th March. Their response was overwhelmingly positive with a customer satisfaction rating of 97%.

As well as delivering this engaging event team APEX also needed to deploy appropriate project management tools to the definition, planning and control of the project. The judging panel comprised of senior project management professionals recognised the teams in combining the selection of relevant project management techniques, with the rigorous application of these techniques to a dynamic project. In addition, they commended the team on the enjoyment seen in the team and their attendees and their honesty in reflecting on their journey to becoming project managers.

This is the first year that Southampton students have entered this competition. A second team from Southampton complemented the success of Team Apex.

Team Triangle (Yao Yao, Yin Boyuan, Huang Weijia, Weerut Treechoksuwan and Maiyasit Premkamol) developed an e-book providing valuable orientation information to incoming Chinese students. The merits of this type of publication was commented upon by the judges and it has also been warmly welcomed by potential students with over a thousand views and over 270 commendations received from its readers.

Special thanks are extended to the Association for Project Management (Wessex Branch), Joe McNeil (the external mentor for team APEX), Dr Ramesh Vahidi (MSc Project Management programme leader), Emma Lester (Education and Student Experience Advisor), Paula Higgins (Project Manager in the Programme Management Office, University of Southampton) and Laura Stevens (Programme Manager, University of Southampton) for their support and encouragement.

Any further questions should be directed to Dr Ian Cammack, Southampton Business School (0)23 8059 8612.