Project Life Management

The Project Life Management (PLM) perspective aims to create a sufficient balance between work and private life. Its starting point is that the line between personal life and the enterprise is becoming more and more blurred. The one who came up with the PLM Programme, and its leader, Györgyi Lakatosné Szuhai – project manager, economist of the Leadership and Management course, and Ph.D candidate of the Szent István University’s Doctoral School of Economics and Organisational Sciences – realised how blandly we interpret and use project perspective during organising the results of her research, and filing them into a form which can be published. Therefore, she aimed to globally spread and re-evaluate project perspective, and help use it in private life.

„As a project manager, I’ve lived a long life in the world of projects and took part in the organisation and management of many projects, in structuring organisational operations based on projects, and advisory work related to projects. I believe that if we would live our lives following a project perspective – from our early childhood, we’d learn the success-oriented project perspective; the steps of planning, actualisation, evaluation and re-planning – we’d have a much more understandable and plannable atmosphere which helps us reach a harmonic balance between personal life and business successes.”

The main idea and faith of PLM is that using project perspective in private life and teaching our society to be ‘more aware’ could serve as the basis of an overall paradigm shift which aims to integrate a new thought into public knowledge which shows everyday business from a different perspective, therefore basing our everyday lives on new support.

Though at first, people were not accepting project management in the economic life, it did take roots, and proved that it’s useful. Nowadays, economic projects are mere parts of everyday practice. Many books, web pages and software help project planners and project managers in their work, expert associations were formed for making work more sophisticated, journals and training courses spread the newest scientific results.
It’s been proven that in the ever-changing world of economy, and among volatile market conditions, programme creation, planning, organising processes and resources, and relative forecast of conclusions can be done.

Why couldn’t we successfully adapt project management techniques, and its toolset for our everyday lives, to coordinate our everyday activities?

The Intentional Life Management handbook published as part of the PLM programme aims to answer this question. This is an important guideline which is in short supply in Hungary, which helps us with how we can use project perspective, and project management tools in everyday life, in motivating employees, obtaining their loyalty, integrating the younger generation, and creating a balance between work and private life. The goals of the book are spreading the steps and tactics of project management (as a professional field) on the one hand and introducing the feasibility of using project logic in everyday practice on the other.

Many companies understood that young people, those who just obtained their diplomas have the biggest problem of lacking key competences which are indispensible for their success in the labour market of the XXI. Century. By using PLM, those related may obtain competences and abilities which help them unravel their hidden talents, realise their dreams, or maybe dream bigger than right now, and succeed in defeating the challenges of the XXI. Century, finally becoming self-sustaining, successful, content and happy people.

Usually, international research into educational systems show that the main difference between American and European education is being problem-centric, and practice-oriented. Project perspective has a huge extra in making our thought process practical, in other words, practice oriented, determining the problem, and solving problems in an exact fashion.

The perspective change, intent and awareness, thought in the project perspective – these can’t be integrated into our everyday lives in a day. In order to live our lives with awareness, and transform our thought processes, we have to make planning a routine, find realistic goals, conduct risk analysis, or in case things go downhill, turn to hazard management and the mechanism of re-planning instead of panicking right away, which needs long years of hard and enduring labour.

This is why we have to stress it again and again – the earlier the individual realises the positive conclusions of being aware and intentional on any areas of life, the more balanced their everyday lives will be. This is why helping the usage of project perspective became one of the most important goals of Project Life Management and including it in everyday life and into education.

The goal is to integrate project perspective and educating to be aware into public education and every level of the educational system, as children, youngsters and young adults all have to be given different education. Each level requires us to hand over the knowledge adapted to the age group’s competence. For the youngest generation (primary school to middle school), priority is handling failure properly, and creating a healthy interpretation of self and self-assurance, for youths (high school), risk management, hazard management or financial awareness would also be beneficial, whereas in higher education, competences helping people integrate into the labour force have to be given.

By teaching children to live aware, they begin a process within themselves which results in a more balanced and responsible life as an adult. They learn to find realistic goals, the importance of a future vision, to communicate properly, and as part of having a healthy picture of themselves, they learn to manage themselves, and in case of a failure, they become able of using their failure as a guideline for a future success.

The foundation

EUROPÉER Foundation for European Development and Cooperation (EUROPÉER Foundation for short) was founded in 2009.

The goal of the foundation is to aid

  • realising strategies determined by the European Union;
  • spreading the idea and practice of horizontal targets – sustainable development;
  • the transfer of subsidiary – primarily EU – programme know-how and information;
  • building partnerships and cooperation between domestic and foreign experts, institutions and organisations aiming to realise the above-mentioned goals.

The foundation wishes to reach its goals mainly through the following activities (conducting and aiding):

  • programmes, events, conferences, both organising and managing;
  • creating research and studies;
  • creating educational and training materials, information materials;
  • conducting education and training courses;
  • organising educational outings;
  • helping knowledge transfer, and sharing experiences;
  • finding partners, helping partnerships with cooperation;
  • planning and conducting projects and pilot/sample projects;
  • participation, help with other organisations’ and institutions’ activities.

The activities conducted by the Foundation primarily are aimed at:

  • sustainable development, SCR;
  • education and cultivation, competence development, information transfer;
  • health preservation;
  • cultural activities;
  • activities with Hungarians living beyond the border;
  • sports.

Main target groups:

  • The target group of the foundation is very wide – in accordance with the many faces of its activities:
  • private individuals,
  • private organisations,
  • fellowships,
  • enterprises,
  • government organisations, institutions,
  • municipalities,
  • research institutes.

The activities of the Foundation on the expert field in recent years concentrated on realising international projects funded by the EU subsidies.

As part of this, the Foundation took part in realising the following projects:

  • Health Info (HUSK Programme, lead partner)
  • SUSTAIN (HUSK Programme, lead partner)
  • TREND (ERASMUS Programme, partner)
  • CHREN (HUHR Programme, partner)
  • FEDREE (HUHR Programme, Partner)

 

Professional experts working on implementation

Györgyi Lakatosné Szuhai – EFOP 5.2.2.-17 code tender’s co-leader
Curatorial president of EUROPÉER Foundation

Györgyi Lakatosné Szuhai is the concept designer and leader of Project Life Management. As a project manager, she’s been living in the world of projects for more than ten years, and still takes part in organising and managing projects, designing project-based operations, and project -related assistance and advisory work. Based on her experiences gathered throughout the years, while she was organising her experiences, and scientific results, she realised how rigidly we interpret and use the project perspective. Therefore, she made it her goal to redefine project perspective, and spreading globally, in order to aid its usage in private life. Her Handbook about aware life management, written together with dr. József Poór sums up the basis for this, and the scientific background of the theory. She was the president managing the conference organised as part of the programme.
As the curatorial president of the EUROPÉER Foundation, she mainly focuses on finding partners, and improving partner relations. The foundation prioritises projects related to education and competence development as part of its social responsibility. She is a candidate for Doctorate in the Szent István University’s Doctoral school for Economics and Organisational sciences, and all of her English and or Hungarian publications are about human resource, project management, and writing tenders. The topic of her dissertation is: The importance of educating the project perspective in private life, within a success oriented world.
her exceptional organisation skills and competencies, furthermore, the experiences in advisory work make her highly competent in organising and managing domestic, and international conferences, and the all-round structuring of human resource. She has an vantage level language certificate in English, and a professional vantage level language certificate in Spanish.

Dr. Zsolt Pásztor – EFOP 5.2.2.-17 code tender’s field leader
Curatorial member of EUROPÉER Foundation

Zsolt Pásztor has more than 20 years of experience on the field. Ever since he began his career, he dealt with coordinating projects, managing them both in Hungary and abroad, therefore, he obtained project management experience which is exceptional on the field. The projects he managed are in the hundreds, the variety is wide, from advisory projects to huge (above 5 million Euros) environment protection and transport infrastructure projects. Among his references, we can see working out the project management guideline and necessary steps for usage of EU subsidies for institutions handling said subsidies. In recent times, he had a significant role in spreading the Project Life Management Programme, and its development. He was a member of the organisational committee of the May 2017 conference, organised as part of the programme. Regarding the programme itself, his tasks included identifying the opportunities of usage, working out the concept and the strategy, cooperation with the partners, activities related to CSR, and coordinating marketing and communication activities.
During his career, he had a part in many initiatives and projects related to sustainable development and CSR. He performed such activities as part of the foundation after it was formed (of which he was a founding member).
He obtained his diploma in the University of Veszprém, and got his doctoral title in France, at ENSIC. As such, he also has an expert level French language certificate. Also, he speaks fluent English, and has an intermediate language certificate.

Dr. Imre Madarász – EFOP 5.2.2.-17. code tender’s expert

Dr. Imre Madarász is currently retired, obtained his diploma as a sociologist at ELTE. For 26 years, he worked as a lecturer, and took part in various research projects. Between 1994 and 2013, he worked at the Gödöllő University of Agriculture (later called Szent István University) at the Department of Sociology, of which he was a department head, starting 2000.
During this time, he conducted research of many topics, and took part in multiple research programmes. For example, he researched the competences required at the Hungarian labour market, the financial culture of university students, the place and role of E-learning in Hungarian enterprises, and atypical employment.
He’s an active member of the Project Life Programme’s development. One of the authors of the handbook issued for the topic.

 

Ágnes Leveles – EFOP 5.2.2.-17. code tender’s volunteer expert

Apart from his financial qualifications, he also completed a course on Human Resource Management in the Szent István University, therefore, both her experiences related to finances and to HR management aid the Project Life Management Programme and have done so since its beginning. She was a member of the organisational committee for the conference organised as part of the programme. She did pre- and post-tasks related to the conference. She’s responsible for material that goes to the media, and online platforms.
One of the authors of the handbook, in her chapter, she stresses how precise planning, implementation and coordination eases the task of taking up multiple challenges at the same time and keeping the balance of work and private life intact.
She worked for the Budapest office of an Austrian enterprise for years, where she kept in touch with partners in English and German day by day.