If I Knew Then...

Many years ago I was hired to be the recess coordinator for the Kindergarten and First-Graders during a summer term. A friend told me about his school district’s summer program and how easy it was to make some good summer money. Since everyone likes easy money, I filled out an application. While my friend was selected to run the pool, a small area with five staff members, I was selected run recess at the early elementary building, a big playground with no staff. Having no personal experience with kids that age, I was more than apprehensive when I headed off to the land of the little people.

The building principal held an initial faculty meeting where the daily schedule was introduced and faculty received their personal schedules and rosters. The meeting took place three days before students would swarm the halls. In the meantime, the faculty prepared lesson plans and classrooms. I wandered down to the gym to survey the facilities. I looked over the equipment; I walked outside and checked out the playground. Everything looked fine and the only real preparation I made was to jot down some basic rules for the playground. I intended to discuss these rules with students before turning them loose on the playground.   

I did survive the first day—barely. It was around ninety degrees and since I was headed to the pool, I didn’t think to take sunscreen. Water was another thing I did not consider during the three days I had to plan. The closest water fountain was inside down by the cafeteria which is way too far to let a first-grader try to find on their own. Since I was the only one on the playground, no one could get a drink. Rain rolled through the area at the end of that first week, and I was caught trying to figure out what to do with forty little kids in a way-too-small gym at the last minute, since it did not occur to me in the three days of preparation I had to plan for such a situation.

The principal made rounds during that first week to see how the faculty was getting along, whether anyone needed anything or not. She did this individually. When she made it to the gym we were enjoying a rainy day inside. The kids were competing in a relay race with jump ropes and basketballs. Between classes she agreed to purchase two water coolers for the playground as well as some sunscreen for me. She readily agreed to purchase the stuff because she had something else to pitch to me. After two days of chaos in the cafeteria she decided she needed some extra help, and would I be willing to do it. She said she could swing a little extra money since I would not have a break all day long if I agreed to help. She would also throw in a free school lunch.

Although I ate lunch for free all summer, I never did get any extra money. Looking back now, and knowing what I know about Project Management, if I had approached that summer school job like it was a project, there are several things I would do differently to make it more of a success. Several factors that would fall under the Scope Creep category occurred that summer making the job very difficult. Dr. Budrovich’s (2011) advice to always get changes in writing is the first thing that comes to mind. Although the principal said she would find extra money to use for my additional cafeteria supervision, there was nothing in writing to make it a binding contract. Additionally, Portny et al. (2008) advises Project Managers to think about a project’s life cycle, considering things that need to take place and/or can take place during the conceive, define, start, perform, and close phases. Portny et al. (2008) and Stolovitch (2011) encourage the use of a risk management chart of some kind in order to keep track of potential issues that could disrupt a project’s momentum. The really hot days and the rainy days come to mind. Perhaps if I had charted out what each day of recess looked like, I would have anticipated and planned accordingly for days we would have to be inside. Even mapping out the playground would have helped me stay organized with where kids would be playing which games, not to mention it may have helped identify the need for closer water. It is impressive, however, to think of how the principal that summer utilized what Portny et al. (2008) and Stolovitch (2011) stress about maintaining consistent communication during the life of a project. The principal held an initial face-to-face meeting to explain our purpose and define the scope of our project. She distributed a document that described our roles and responsibilities. She made face-to-face follow-up visits just after kicking off the project to see if there was anything anyone needed.  

References

Budrovich, V. (2011). “Practitioner Voices: You Can’t Win Them All.” Video Program.

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

Stolovitch, H. (2011). “Monitoring Projects.” Video Program.

How Should Jane Communicate with Mark?

When approaching communication in our technologically advanced world deciding whether to send an email, leave a voicemail, or actually meet face to face can be a tough decision, depending on the situation. Should the communication be formal or informal? Is the content sensitive? Should it be documented in some way? These are questions that surround professional communication today. The situation posed in “The Art of Effective Communication” revolves around a message from Jane to Mark. These colleagues are working on different parts of a project, but Jane needs data from Mark to complete her part. Deadlines are approaching fast and Jane needs to communicate her position to Mark. The communication is pitched to as an email Jane sends to Mark, as a voicemail Jane leaves for Mark, and as an informal face-to-face meeting Jane has with Mark. What is the best way Jane should communicate with Mark?

Reading Jane’s email I couldn’t help but think that lines like “if I don’t get your report soon” and “I really need an ETA on the missing report” come across harshly. Is the missing report Mark’s? We are not sure, but it certainly sounds as though Mark is being of accused of losing reports—not a good morale booster, Jane. Dr. Stolovitch (2011) stringently points out how ambiguity can kill. Although Jane recognizes Mark’s busy schedule lately, her tone in lines like “I really appreciate your help” can sound sharp if one has read insult and/or sarcasm into the email. However heartfelt Jane really is, because she is ambiguous and writes accusatorily, Jane should not send this email to Mark. If she has already an established positive rapport with Mark, perhaps an email is fine. However, the electronic trail of this informally written, vague document now exists for both parties—Mark might be embarrassed such an email is out there, while Jane should be embarrassed for her grammar and mechanics. It looks as though she wrote this off the cuff without much editing.

                Listening to Jane’s voice mail made me feel a little better, but again, I experienced tone issues due to word choice problems. Jane’s diction, using phrases like “I know,” “I really need,” “Because your report” and “I miss my own” really makes Jane sound self-centered. Portny et al (2008) says to “Work through conflicts together” (304). Perhaps Jane should use a lot more “we” and a lot less “I.” Jane’s tone came across a bit harsh in places, but I contribute that feeling to her word choice. Maybe Jane could utilize a stronger buffer sentence to before getting to what she wants. Portny et al (2008) says “Team members also need to know that wheat they do makes a difference” (309). Maybe Jane could compliment something specific about Mark’s part of the project. It would certainly come across better than it did over a voicemail.

                Seeing Jane in person made me feel better than the email and the voicemail. Tone is certainly something that changed with each type of communication, and the face-to-face communication conveyed the most pleasant and cooperative message. Seeing Jane’s facial expressions, eye roll about the all-day meeting, combined with her pause before “missing report” suggested the missing report was not Mark’s fault. Even hanging over the cubical wall when she addresses Mark suggests more of a plea rather than a demonstratively standing over Mark. Budrovich (2011) encourages Project Managers to discover how people would like to communicate and accommodate it much as possible. Jane obviously wants to come across as a respectful, professional colleague. Therefore, when possible, approaching co-workers like Mark one on one, face to face, in a non-formal way, strengthens relationships. Through this exercise I learned that consistent, unambiguous communicate, preferably in a face-to-face situation, gives a project a greater chance to succeed

References

Budrovich, V. & Chong, T. (2011). Practitioner voices: Strategies for working with stakeholders. Video Program.

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., & Sutton, M. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboke, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Stolovitch, H. (2011). Communicating with stakeholders; Project management concerns: Communication strategies and organizational culture. Video Programs.

“The Art of Effective Communication.” (2011). Multimedia Presentation.

Project Post-Mortem

My project post-mortem revolves around adapting an educational hybrid course to an online-only format. The deliverable: a year-long virtual course for high school seniors. The major stakeholder, the School District, had already acquired a course management system (Blackboard) to house the course itself. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)—teachers of the hybrid course—were hired to develop the units of study for a fall and a spring semester. The Project Manager (PM) had seven teams designing different courses; the PM also served as the Instructional Designer (ID) for each team. The ID was responsible for taking the SMEs’ development plans and designing the online content.

An initial meeting was held to acquaint everyone with the Work Plan which included a timeline. The meeting concluded with each team informally setting organizational methods for communicating and completing their work independently. Although this gave a certain freedom to the SMEs, it did not provide a platform for open and consistent communication, as Portny et al (2008), Allen and Hardin (2008), and Murphy (1994) suggest. PMs should know the organizational methods of a project and develop a Work Matrix so there is transparency with who is responsible for what and when—an Accountability Matrix could have helped us. Communication between team members was fine at the beginning, but waned until ceasing half way through the project. However, team members randomly communicated with the PM until the project was completed.

In addition to poor communication, SMEs had no formal training for online-only development. There was little information shared at the initial meeting about developing online learning activities, but SMEs were encouraged to include video and audio files rather than provide document after documents to be read and downloaded. Although our PM/ID made some adaptions to content for a better online translation, because of the volume of courses in the set time frame, much of what the SMEs developed was simply inserted into the online course without a lot of editing and revision. Two un-refined semesters developed by two non-communicating SMEs result in an error-filled series of downloadable documents that have no design uniformity students are expected to read. Knowing what I know now about the ID process (and the PM process) I am frustrated with how the project turned out—it could be so much better and this is the most frustrating thing now.

The end deliverables, in my opinion, are not designed with enough online instructional strategies nor do they meet the needs of the learners taking the course as much as they should. The course seems to me to be little more than a face-to-face class converted to an online environment through a myriad of documents shared through an online course management system with few distance learning tools incorporated. If we were to attack this project again, creating an Accountability Matrix and more open communication between team members and the PM/ID would be advisable. However, we did contribute to the project’s success as we completed the project on time, despite our little communication and a lack of online instructional design training. The project did meet approval from the School District and an Oversight Committee made up of high school teachers. Perhaps if the PM did not also take on the responsibility of the ID the project would be of higher quality.

References

Allen, S., & Hardin, P. C. (2008). Developing instructional technology products using effective project management practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19 (2). 72–97.

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education.

Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33 (3). 9–11. 

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., & Sutton, M. (2008). Project Management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Getting Started in Project Mangement

Fellow Distance Learners,

While I am excited to see how Walden's EDUC 6145 Project Management shapes me in pursuit of an Instructional Design degree, I welcome your comments, insights, and observations to any or all of my blog posts.

Thank you in advance for your contributions,

Joseph Pittman