The Illusion of Control: Data-Driven Project Management

Watch the webinar with project management experts Jan Willem Tromp and Mario Vanhoucke based on Prof. Vanhouke’s recent book “The Illusion of Control. Project Data, Computer Algorithms, and Human Intuition for Project Management and Control”, shedding light on the phenomenon of data-driven project management and its role in complex multi-project environments.

Enrich your knowledge and gain insights on the following topics:

– Planning projects, managing risks, and controlling: main difficulties and ways to overcome them;

– The difference between academics and project professionals;

– The difference in data;

– Earned Value management;

– Efficiency control;

– Statistical Control;

– Building a bridge from a project level to a multi-project level;

– What about portfolio control, EVM on all the resources?

– Forecasting as an effective tool of project management and control, including in multi-project environments.

Find the key answers to essential project management questions: What is the role of project data in risk management and project control? What can a project manager control in his/her projects? How to ensure the seamless delivery of your project with data management? And how is this all applied in complex multi-project environments?

Webinar speakers

The webinar’s host is Jan Willem Tromp, a Dutch AI researcher with 25 years of experience in project and resource management, MPM and business consultant, and a co-founder of Epicflow – the world’s first AI-driven multi-project resource management software solution. Jan Willem started his career in production and supply chain environments as a consultant and then changed his focus to project management. He is certified as a TOC (Theory of Constraints) expert and is a partner of the Goldratt Implementation Group, Europe (GIG). As a consultant, Jan Willem also implemented TOC’s Critical Chain application in various project organizations.

Our special guest is Prof Dr Mario Vanhoucke, a Professor at Ghent University (Belgium), Vlerick Business School (Belgium), and UCL School of Management (University College London, UK). He teaches “Project Management”, “Applied Operations Research”, and “Decision Making for Business”. Until 2018, he was the director of EVM Europe and a partner at the company OR-AS. His research interest lies in the integration of project scheduling, risk management and project control, which has led to more than 100 papers in international journals, six Project Management books published by Springer and an online learning PM Knowledge Center (www.pmknowledgecenter.com). His research has received multiple awards, including awards from PMI Belgium, College of Performance Management and IPMA. In his books, he talks about the relevance and use of project data from an academic perspective. The book “The Data-Driven Project Manager: A Statistical Battle Against Project Obstacles” is written as a technical novel and tells the story of Emily Reed who is responsible for a tennis construction project. In his latest book “The Illusion of Control: Project Data, Computer Algorithms, and Human Intuition for Project Management and Control”, which has inspired us for this webinar, he tells a story of this team searching for new and interesting research ideas relevant for both academia and practice.