Collaborative Project Management (CoPM) Institute Evaluation Report

This report summarizes the evaluation outcomes of the Collaborative Project Management (CoPM) Institute project, a two-day convening centered on bringing proven project management skills and approaches in the for-profit world to the informal science education (ISE) community to support effective collaborations and successful outcomes. The CoPM Institute was conceptualized as a pilot effort to test the effectiveness of porting of tools and frameworks for collaborative project management from the business/for-profit environment to advance the following project goals:

1. Build the capacity of ISIs and their partners to gain critical alignment on their work and plans, through use of evidence-based collaborative project-management practices to manage complex partnership efforts.
2. Strengthen communications between organizations with the common purpose of broadening participation in STEM.
3. Explore some of the core dimensions of culture to understand audience and institutional differences.
4. Maximize strategic impact through a post-institute virtual mentorship session for each team and use of an online Collaborative Project Management Playbook.

Participants at the convening were selected through a team application process. Applications were reviewed by the project team and selected to be as representative as possible of the ISE community (organization type, geography, project type, etc.) and of the spectrum of experience around collaborative project management (new to the practice to experienced). A total of 28 attendees representing 10 collaborative projects were selected and attended the institute.

Appendix includes survey instrument.