IPMA’s vision is to promote competence throughout society to enable a world in which all projects succeed. We facilitate co-creation and leverage the diversity of our global network into benefits for the profession, economy, society and environment. We offer know-how, products and services to the benefit of individuals, projects and organisations across public, private and community sectors. We also promote the recognition of project management and engage stakeholders around the world in advancing the discipline. We strongly believe that children need to learn how to use Project Management becouse they become more and more necessary in our agile world. That is how IPMA Kids Programme was born.

The project society is using a lot of different words for the same thing. It is therefore important to choose one set of words and be consistent. IPMA has chosen a set of words through the ICB 4. We created the standard applicable for children which we called ICB4Kids. It helps the kids to develop critical thinking and problem solving, learn more about collaboration and leading by influence. We want to teach them how to act with agility and adaptibility, take initiative and show entrepreneurialism. Our goal is to learn and have fun.

The project-based approach in the form of workshops allows kids to take part in their learning because they learn to work more independently. They think about the means they are going to use to achieve the objectives: “How am I going to do it?” The construction of tools and methods being done by themselves, these take more sense and allow them to use them more effectively. In addition, the students practice self-assessment, which allows them to be actors in their own production as well as that of the other groups. The tutor is only a facilitator. 

The idea of IPMA Kids workshops for children was originally born in one of the IPMA’s Member Associations – IPMA Poland. We have been running such workshops for many years there. The IPMA Kids Team is therefore an experienced group of people, convinced that children are open minded, aware of projects and they need to develop their project management skills both at their schools and everyday life. The idea is not new – but now it goes global.

In order to run this programme globally we need to build a network of crucial partners. Primarily they are our Member Associations who actually run this programme locally. This programme is designed for schools, teachers, companies, institutions or volunteers who want to get engaged in sharing popularisation of Project Management among the new generation. It may also become a great CSR (corporate social responsibility) tool used by any organisation – helping young people to start their proffessional life in the best possible manner.