Scope Creep...

Scope creep occurs when a project is changed for improvement and can often have a financial or timely effect.  Portny et al (2008) tell us that ‘avoiding scope creep is not possible.  However, monitoring it, controlling it, and thereby reducing some of the pain is possible…’ (p. 347). 

I can personally relate to scope creep when I reflect on the first play that I directed with a colleague in my past school.  Firstly, the play was a huge success and became an annual event.  Initially, the play was scheduled for one night with child performers between 6-11 years old.  The play was to be performed at Christmas and we began auditioning students in September.  The schedule and costs were monitored carefully and stayed on track.  The scope creep we encountered was much closer to the performance date and was brought on by the principal of the school.  After seeing rehearsals and seeing the talent of the young actors, she encouraged that the play be performed for all who wanted to attend in the community, versus the original audience of only parents and students.  Extra flyers needed to be printed and an additional performance night was added.  Due to the larger audience and larger venue that we had to change, we needed lapel microphones for each child and ended up paying for an additional night for the sound and light company.  The cost of the play escalated significantly.  After the second night, there was a request for an additional night the following weekend, but we chose not to perform again as this would have been added rehearsal time, added costs for the sounds and light and a little too much time and energy for the young actors and parents who had not anticipated it. 

The budget for the play came from the school and our original project plan did not exceed this.  When the scope creep occurred, we explained the implications of the cost increase on the budget and showed the principal the figures, leaving her to decide if she wanted to continue.  ‘Scope Creep may not be altogether preventable, but managing a project requires brutal honesty and courage to tell the client in a clear manner what they will get from the project; and if there are changes outside of the scope they be made aware of the cost overages and have the right to decide to pay for it or do without’ (Speyer, 2010).

This was our first production and the changes were unexpected but manageable.  As this became an annual event, we were better able to plan in following years and checked in periodically with the principal with the original plan, just incase she had any further requests!

References:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008).  Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son, Inc.

Speyer, B. (March 3, 2010). How to Prevent Scope Creep from Ruining Your Projects. Retrieved from: http://websuccessteam.com/WSTblog/2010/06/how-to-prevent-scope-creep-from-ruining-your-projects/

Estimating Costs

This week’s assignment calls for us to create a schedule and a budget for the project that we are designing for the course.  I am finding it to be a very overwhelming task as I am not at all familiar with this type of work.  Fortunately, in this technology era, Google is once again proving to be a great resource, as there seems to be numerous blogs and programs out there designed to assist a project manager in creating the many documents required for a successful project.  Here are links to some of the blogs:

How to Manage your Project Budget

http://www.ehow.com/how_4967497_manage-project-budget.html

This blog suggests immediate, exact recording of all expenses and requiring all team members to do the same.  There is also the suggestion to review the budget weekly and to deliver regular updates to management.

Project Management: 4 Ways to Manage Your Project

http://www.cio.com/article/684978/Project_Management_4_Ways_to_Manage_Your_Budget

This plan encourages project managers to not only continuously forecast your project to ensure that it stays on track, but also to regularly forecast your use of resources.  There is again the advice of sharing the budget – this time with the team, and to careful examine any scope creep.

After searching for budgeting a project, I have read lots of advice and the main advice seems to be to constantly review your project budget and communicate the happenings of your project budget with management and your team.

Communicating Effectively: Considering Different Methods

In this week’s readings we learned about how important effective communication can be when leading a project management team.  Portny et al (2008) tell us ‘both written and verbal communications  - as well as informal and formal communications – are useful, meaningful ways to share and collect important project information’ (Portny et al, 2008, p. 357).  We examined some communication between project team members and looked at the same words of communication in three different formats: email, voicemail and face-to-face conversation.   The words communicated were as follows:

“Hi Mark,

I know you have been busy and possibly in that all day meeting today, but I really need an ETA on the missing report.  Because your report contains data I need to finish my report, I might miss my own deadline if I don’t get your report soon.  Please let me know when you think you can get your report sent over to me, or even if you can send the data I need in a separate email.

I really appreciate your help.

Jane”

It was interesting to consider how I perceived each message in the different formats.

As an email:

I found this communication to be polite, concise and to the point.  There was a sense of urgency, so if I were the recipient I would understand the need to act promptly. The fact that the document is in writing means that this communication is on record and there is a need for me to, at minimum, respond to the email with a reason for the tardiness and an expected date of completion. 

As a voicemail:

I found this communication brought a sense of urgency.  I interpreted her tone of voice to be assertive and I would feel the need to get the information to her ASAP.  However, I personally am quite forgetful of phone call conversations if I am in the middle of another task and I think that although this method is useful for creating the urgency, it is useful to have the message in writing to refer back to at a later time.

Face to Face:

In this conversation, Jane uses a pleasant and friendly tone and body language, which is helpful in creating team morale.  I did, however, feel there was a much less sense of urgency and so if I had several other important documents to prepare, I wouldn't necessarily rush.

I learned a lot from this exercise and feel the form of communication that indicated the most urgency was from the voicemail as I could hear the tone of her voice and was unable to use any visual cues to read her facial expression and body language.  The method that I believe would be most useful in producing the information the fastest would be email, as I would feel accountable, as the communication has been recorded.  The face-to-face method would put me most at ease, as there did not appear to be negative feelings about my tardiness. 

Each person interprets body language and tone differently and different people work best with different methods of communication.  This shows the need to really know your team.  Portny et al (2008) tell us that a project manager can use several approaches to hold people accountable, including putting the information in writing and being specific (p. 300).  I think the most effective method of communication would be using a combination of two of the above, being sure to use email as a follow-up to one of the others.

Reference:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

I-pad Project: Post-Mortem

Last year I designed and implemented workshop sessions where I introduced I-pads to the Early Years classrooms at my school.   These workshops were designed in a previous Walden course and comprised of four teachers who were generally not familiar with I-pads.  Planning and delivering actual workshops helped me gain experience with instructional design but it was not necessarily realistic in that each teacher would not be receiving an I-pad for future use. However, at the beginning of this year teachers at my school were informed that we would be getting Learn Pads for different classes to share.  These are also small tablets, much more durable and arguably more educationally focused.  

I had discovered from my learners’ analysis for the I-pad training that most of the teachers had never downloaded an app for any ‘tablet’ and were not at all familiar with these as teaching tools.  I was happy to see that at the beginning of the training sessions for the new Learn Pads implemented this year, all of the teachers who had participated in my workshops had signed up for an intermediate class and felt fairly confident with using tablets.  I can reflect that the learners’ analysis stage significantly contributed to the workshop’s success. I had originally planned sessions pitched at teachers with experience with I-pads and needed to modify and simplify my workshop based on my learners’ needs. 

I do have concerns about the effectiveness of my workshop, as, especially now that we have these learn pads, we are not using them as often as I would like us to.  If I were to manage the project of implementing Learn Pads into the school, I would suggest using Portny et al’s (2008) recommended process of guiding a project: planning, organizing and controlling (p. 4).  There are many reasons why teachers do not embrace technology as much as we would like and the blog “11 Reasons Why Teachers Aren’t Using Technology” lists many.  Reason #7 tells us teachers may lack personal experience and reason #9 tells us these technologies are often optional.  Considering these two factors, and utilizing Portny et al’s  (2008) guide, I would be sure to identify in my planning an outcome specifying how often teachers use the Learn Pads in the classroom, schedule several workshop sessions to help increase familiarity and comfort with the Learn Pads and most importantly be fully aware of the controlling element where I would ‘monitor actions and results, addressing problems encountered’ (p. 4).  A project of this scale and with such diverse learners needs close monitoring and support. 

References:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Spencer, J. & Segersten, C. (2012, July 14). 11 Reasons Why Teachers Aren’t Using Technology #edchat #edtech. Retrieved from: http://www.educationrethink.com/2012/07/11-reasons-teachers-arent-using.html

Welcome: Project Management

Welcome to my blog!  As I embark on my final year of my masters’ degree in Instructional Design and Technology, I invite you to journey with me through this Project Management course.  So far, in week one, I have discovered that project management (PM) is very similar to instructional design (ID).  I have also discovered that one person may be expected to wear the hat of both the ID and the PM when working on a design/project. 

These courses so far have all been relevant to my work as a pre-k teacher in a school and it has been exciting to apply what I have learned to my educational setting.  I plan to work in this setting after receiving my degree and am interested to find out how a project manager best practices in this setting.  Lockit (2000) tells us 'projects undertaken in education and training environments differ from those undertaken in business and industry, partly because of the amount of dedicated project time available' (p.8).  

Reference:
Lockitt, B. (2000). Practical project management for education and training. London: Further Education Development Agency. (ED445252)