LV= BU Project Challenge

Bournemouth University hosted the finals of the 2011-12 LV= BU Project Challenge on Friday 3 February. Year 2 BA Business Studies (BABS) students who are studying project management completed 12 projects in teams to compete for the title. Ken Taylor, Group Change Delivery Director from the Bournemouth-based insurance and savings company Liverpool Victoria LV= was on the panel of judges.

Before announcing the winners, Mr Taylor told all the teams that he was very impressed by the high standards of presentation, and in particular praised the ambition of some of the projects. Paraphrasing a quote from Winston Churchill, he said that project managers who “fail to plan, are planning to fail” and that BABS students were learning the tools and techniques that would help them with their careers.

The panel of judges also included Jean Morgan of LV= along with a member of the winning team from last year; Ryan Walker, who is currently on placement at LV=; Marc Vernaeve, Global Environmental Management Champion with WDS, and Gwyn Jones, Director of the Association of Sustainability Practitioners. Teams were assessed on their project outcomes and their ability to manage the project.

The winning team was Dynamic with a consultancy project around information and communication requirements to improve performance of the Dorset runaways service ReRun. A particular feature of this project was the collaboration with the BU School of Design, Engineering and Computing (DEC), whose students will take the project on and develop a database for the charity using the work done by Dynamic. Team members were: Fay Potter, Benjamin Boxall, Christina Ebdon and Amy-Anne O-Neill.

After the awards, Mr Taylor said: “I was genuinely surprised and impressed by the standard. All the students had a high degree of professionalism and were learning great project skills.” This is the third year that LV= has sponsored the awards and the company works closely with Bournemouth University and employs placement students within the organisation.

The Association for Project Management (APM) provided five mentors to help the teams manage their projects, and BU was very grateful to them and to BT and PTEP who also helped with the Project Challenge.

Second place went to team ProVision for their project to raise awareness and increase participation in the local BT employee volunteering scheme.  Team members were:  Megan Ryder, Chloe Saunders, Kenneth Stene and Danielle Stillwell.

Team Pentad were awarded third place for their project to develop the concept of a 'Zero Waste Zone' on campus for Costa Coffee. Team members were: Andy Kimber, Joanna Janko, James Hickmott, Jennifer Lamond, Melissa Clarke.

Other projects were:

• Sustainable transport development for Christchurch and East Dorset local councils (Logic)
• Social and economic feasibility study into harnessing tidal energy in Poole harbour (Visionality)
• Raising awareness and increasing use of collaboration tools within BT (Impact)
• Green Beaches proof of concept project (Venture 10)
• 'Waste for Taste' student recycling initiative (Ambition)
• Capturing local 'Stories of Success' in collaboration with Carbon Sense (Discover)
• Web campaign to raise awareness of sustainable design for a local office furniture company (Venture 9)
• Business planning for starting up a local solar energy company (Generation)
• Education and community engagement with renewable energy around Poole harbour (Futureadapt).