Dr. Beverly Pasian, M.A.(ODE), DPM, FPMAC

Beverly Pasian has worked in the project management community as both a practitioner and researcher for almost 20 years in both the public and private sectors. Her work has had three primary dimensions: project management, teaching and research.

Beginning her career with the federal government, Beverly was instrumental in the development of the online presence of both Environment Canada (EC) and the Department of National Defence (DND) during its formative years in the 1990s. As a national communications officer for EC, she was a key member of the project team for the award-winning Web site, The Green Lane. From there, she was promoted to the position as Interactive Media Manager for DND where she was directly responsible for the management of Web site development projects through the office of the Director General, Public Affairs.

During these critical years of Web development, Beverly was actively involved in the development of best practices, policy statements and competency development across the government. Some of her roles included co-chair of DND’s primary committee for Internet site content development, a member of the inter-departmental team responsible for the creation of the initial Treasury Board Internet guidelines, and the author and instructor of training materials used by the national communications officer community.

Beyond the public sector, Beverly’s project management experiences and responsibilities have grown in scope and complexity: McGraw-Hill Ryerson chose Bev to manage its first national content development project for wireless delivery. Grant Thornton LLP hired Bev to manage its first national knowledge management project. Other recent project engagements include the City of Sydney and the ABC Public Broadcaster (Australia), and IDC Canada.

Teaching is also a significant dimension to Beverly’s professional life in both higher education and corporate training. Project and strategic management (related to e-Learning) have been the focus of material she has developed and delivered across Canada, in the United States, China, and Australia.

A common thread to Beverly’s project management responsibilities and teaching has been e-Learning. Early in her career, she decided the focus of her Internet development projects would be of an educational variety. This decision lead to obtaining a Masters degree in Open and Distance Education at the prestigious Open University of the United Kingdom where her research analyzed a pioneering online educational supplement that trained medical students in the procedures and practices of taking patient histories.

Beverly’s research career continued when she was accepted into the professional Doctorate at the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia). After having achieved distinction throughout her course work, she moved into her primary research where she looked at the maturity of project management capabilities within an e-Learning project context.

Publishing and editing are ongoing and significant components of Beverly’s professional life and a natural extension of her research activities. She has co-edited two books. Plan to Learn (2006) is a widely known collection of case studies written by project teams from around the world where they detail their experiences managing e-Learning projects. A follow-up book—e-Learning Project Management: Canadian perspectives—also offered case studies but from a Canadian framework.

Editorial and reviewer roles include several journals: Journal of Distance Education, Journal of Project, Program and Portfolio Management and the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.

In addition to her professional and academic engagements, Beverly has been and remains a leading member of various associations. Beginning with the Canadian Association of Distance Education (now known as the CNIE) where she quickly moved into the committee responsible for the professional development programming for the membership. From there, she assumed a leadership role in the sponsorship committee, raising over 100k and introducing innovative conference elements. In her final three years with CADE, she served as the Private Sector representative on the Board of Directors.

In August, 2010, Beverly took a position as an Associate Professor and Researcher within the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht (The Netherlands). Recently elected to the IPMA International Research Management Board (as the Netherlands representative), Beverly also serves on the IPMA Delta Baseline project group and is the Academic Chair of the upcoming 2014 IPMA World Congress.