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Meet Luis Fernando PEREZ ARMAS, Professor of Operations Management on the Lille campus.

With a team of over 700 professors, including 200 permanent researchers, IÉSEG shapes learning around a modern approach: active pedagogy, interdisciplinarity, skills development and personalized academic paths, offering each student a tailor-made experience.

In our “Faculty in the Spotlight” series, discover each month one of the School’s professors who reveals their way of teaching, their commitment, and anecdotes from their journey at IÉSEG.

Luis, can you tell us briefly about your background?

I come from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and I am a Chemical Engineer. I hold an MBA and a PhD in Economics that I both earned in France. I used to work in the oil and gas industry for a service company managing drilling projects before coming to IÉSEG.

What is your area of expertise and teaching?

I am an expert in project management, holding both a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from PMI and an Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP) credential. In addition to teaching project management, I incorporate topics like optimization and scheduling, as they are essential components of project planning and align with my research interests. My research focuses on operations research, specifically using current quantum computing technology to solve various optimization problems and speed up performance, including scheduling issues that are relevant to project management.

What courses do you teach at IÉSEG?

I teach Agile project management in the Master in Strategy and Digital Transformation program in Paris, and I will soon teach this subject for students in the Operations Management major of the Grande École Program. Agile Project Management implies understanding the basics of traditional project management first. In “classic” project management, you follow the steps carefully to get to the final result, and you plan a lot in advance. But how about companies that are constantly changing and evolving? They cannot predict one year ahead what’s going to happen. For example, tech companies need to innovate constantly to keep up with the market. In these situations, Agile Project Management is necessary because it allows you to adapt in real-time. You plan for a short period of time and then plan again.

Can you explain to us the subject that you teach at IÉSEG?

Any new endeavor with a limited timeframe and resources can be considered a project; whether it’s an innovation, policy change, startup, or product. The challenge lies in the fact that “new” means there’s no established recipe to follow, and time and resources are always constrained. Projects are vital to our society because they are the mechanism through which we introduce change. So, the ability to plan and execute projects successfully can be seen as a superpower. Unfortunately, here’s a sobering statistic: only 10% of projects are completed on time, within budget, and delivering the promised scope. This issue becomes even more pronounced with megaprojects, which, on average, experience delays of over two years. However, when we analyze successful projects, we find they adhere to clear frameworks and techniques. They don’t rely on improvisation but follow systematic approaches to planning, execution, and monitoring to ensure success. This is exactly what I teach: frameworks and techniques for effective project management. For example, did you know that simply changing the order of certain tasks can drastically reduce a project’s duration and improve its financial returns? This is the area of project scheduling. Navigating the chaotic project environment requires a system, not improvisation.

How has your subject evolved over time?

Technology has definitely transformed the field, making techniques once reserved for mega-corporations accessible to all. I’m referring to methods like quantitative risk analysis and resource leveling optimization, which I can now cover in my classes thanks to tools that are both more affordable and easier to learn. Students have also changed—they expect more active participation and hands-on, interactive experiences, and the curriculum must adapt to meet these demands. They are sharp and aware that much of the theory is available online in a YouTube video, so when they come to class, they expect something more valuable.

Why did you choose to become a professor?

Education is one of the most powerful tools for societal change, and much of our rapid progress and improved living standards can be attributed to it. If you look at meaningful policies implemented by governments and programs designed to build a better society, you’ll find that nearly all of them place significant emphasis on education. In my opinion, a more educated world is a better world. Devoting one’s life to sharing knowledge and helping others become better versions of themselves is truly meaningful, and I’m grateful for being part of that global mission.

Why did you choose IÉSEG?

There are many reasons why I chose IÉSEG. First, teaching at IÉSEG allows me to have an impact—our students are the future shapers of policies, products, and markets, so by contributing to their education, I can indirectly contribute to a better world, which will benefit us all in the end. Second, IÉSEG provides its professors with a great deal of autonomy, giving me the freedom to experiment and refine my pedagogical approach without being limited by rigid norms. The diversity at the school is unparalleled, and it constantly teaches me new things, making me grow. I look forward to every new class because I know I’ll always learn something new.

Being a professor at IÉSEG: what does it mean to you, and what do you like most?

For me, teaching is the brush that I use to paint the society that I want to live in. I also love being a professor because I grow out of it. Richard Feynman, American Physicist, pointed out that if you want to truly learn something, you should just go ahead and teach it. This is true, I truly improve my skills and knowledge thanks to my teaching. 

I consider myself a collector of moments. In class, I cherish the moments when a student grasps a difficult concept for the first time. You can see it in their eyes: the shift from confusion to clarity. They immediately start typing furiously, often on their laptops or iPads (notebooks and pens have become rare), and then they raise their hand to ask a question that pushes beyond the original concept, applying it to a new context. These moments are priceless, and I’m grateful every time they happen.

According to your students, what are your strengths as a professor? And what are the areas you could improve?

According to my students, I make the content engaging and show genuine passion for it. They say I’m able to make complex concepts understandable through activities, simulations, and serious games. They also enjoy my slides as I frequently incorporate memes, which students find fun, and they say it helps them understand the concepts more easily. However, there’s room for improvement. Students often mention that I’m too ambitious with the amount of content I try to cover within the available time, and they can sometimes feel overwhelmed by everything they need to learn. Like many others, I struggle with FOMO when it comes to my content! I want to cover everything, and it’s hard for me to leave anything out.

What pedagogical methods do you use?

I rely heavily on business games and simulations. As a gamer myself, I understand how powerful video games can be for learning. Many of the concepts I teach, particularly in optimization, can be abstract and difficult to grasp. Allowing students to experience these concepts firsthand, to see the consequences of their actions and engage in an experiential loop, is invaluable for pedagogy. Well-designed games provide strong feedback, enabling students to try again and improve; repetition, after all, is key to mastery. I’ve found that when students can interact with a concept, break it down to its fundamental parts, and experiment with it, they leave the class with a deeper understanding. Similarly, I use case studies, which allow students to explore and discover knowledge on their own terms and from their unique perspectives.

What is your best memory at the School so far?

I have so many to share! On the last day of one of my Python for project scheduling classes, a group of exchange students from Sweden asked me to come over and check a bug in their code. I approached, expecting to find a tricky error, only to discover that a cell in their Python notebook was running an animation of a red heart being drawn frame by frame, with the title “We love Python.” Once the animation ended, they explained how they had found a trigonometric function that produces heart shapes, and they thought it would be a nice gift to show me this animation. I had never taught them anything about this function nor making animations in Python; they learned it all on their own just to surprise me. I don’t have kids, but I imagine it’s how a parent must feel when their child draws something worthy of being pinned on the fridge!