Project Management Course

Blog Assignment Week 6- Dealing with Scope Creep

            Scope creep is defined as the natural tendency of the client, as well as project team members, to try to improve the project’s output as the project progresses (Portny, et al, 2008, p. 350).  When thinking about a project that was affected by scope creep, I immediately remembered a fundraiser event that I helped organize at my work. I am a co-chair of the Student Council at my elementary school. We regularly try to take part in service events which include raising money for charitable causes, food drives, and other events that will provide funds for the school. Each year, we have a canned food drive prior to Thanksgiving. We ask the students to bring in non-perishable items and we then donate them to a church, shelter or co-op that collects goods like that. Usually, the project goes off without a hitch. We have a specific timeline, which includes the beginning and end dates, and the students and parents are given a list of what kinds of items we were looking for. After you have determined the work involved in your project, you can organize it into milestones, phases, and tasks and enter it into a project plan (www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com, 2003). 

            For some reason, during this one particular year, the food drive went awry. We determined a selected start and end date to the project, during one of our Student Council meetings. The other co-chair was supposed to work with our Council officers to get the posters up on the walls to advertise, and they were going to get on the morning announcements to let the school know about our plans. However, for some reason, that did not happen. Already, the schedule was affected. Perhaps, the students forgot, or my co-chair got busy. Either way, the project started about a week late. When a scope is not originally clearly defined, many misunderstandings on what is to be accomplished or how it will be accomplished can result (Gurlen, 2003).

 We usually give the students and staff about three weeks to bring everything in, and we send all the boxes of goods out before we go on Thanksgiving break. However, with everything starting later than expected, and not enough people aware of the event, we really ended up only having about a week and a half to collect all of the goods. A risk factor we encountered was that our time estimates were developed by backing into an established end date (Portny, et al, 2008, p. 386). In the past, the students contributed almost 500 non-perishable items in three weeks, so we were hoping to match or beat that. Unfortunately, we did not get the results we desired, and decided to extend the food drive until Christmas time. Here is where the project got stressful. After all, we basically just doubled the time allotted from our original plan! This would mean more work, and unexpected challenges.

Fortunately for our cause, the word started spreading, and goods were coming in. Unfortunately for me, I became the only contact for the food drive, and all of the goods ended up getting sent to my classroom. This caused much distraction for the students in my class, and took up quite a bit of space. My co-chair seemed to “disappear”, and I knew I would have to take on the endeavor by myself, and with the help of our Student Council members. By the end of the time allotted, we had over 1000 cans and boxes. Although this was a positive result, the stress of counting them at the last minute, finding the necessary help to get them counted, and the lack of space in my classroom due to the boxes of goods all contributed to the negative scope creep in our project. I ended up spending the afternoon before Winter break packing up boxes of goods to be sent out to the local churches, shelters and co-ops.

Greer, (2010) suggests to analyze variances, or deviations from the plan, by comparing the “estimated” to the “actual” time. If we had stuck to our original timeline, by starting on our originally planned date, and ending on time, the stress of the project could have been avoided. Another way that the problem could have been remedied was for the co-chair and me to consistently communicate about the progress of the project. Although we did deliver a positive result by being able to provide food and goods for needy families, the project could have gone much smoother, if we had stayed organized and stuck to our original plan. We have since learned from our mistake, and when we create a schedule, we stick to it, regardless of the number of goods collected. There are just too many other things going on at that time in the school year to allow ourselves the stress of extending the food drive. This prior planning and being consistent has been applied to all of our service and fundraising projects, and has worked much more smoothly.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! Retrieved August 1, 2012 from https://class.waldenu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/USW1/201260_04/MS_INDT/EDUC_6145/Week%206/Resources/Week%206%20Resources/embedded/pm-minimalist-ver-3-laureate.pdf

Gurlen, S. (2003). Scope Creep. Retrieved August 1, 2012 from http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/gurlen/

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.

www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com (2003). Project Management. Retrieved July 24, 2012 from http://www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com/Information/ProjectMgt.htm

Week 3 Blog Assignment- Communicating Effectively

            The key to successful project management is effective communication-sharing the right messages with the right people in a timely manner (Portny, et al, 2008, p. 357). It is very common for people to misunderstand to possibly take the message the wrong way when given in various mediums. For example, in the multimedia program, “The Art of Effective Communication”, my view of the message that was being conveyed changed greatly from the first time I viewed/heard it until the last time. The first communication medium I viewed was the email. While it is an easy and spontaneous medium for business communication, its misuse can result in unclear messages, confused responses and frustrated recipients (insightcomm.ca, 2010). When I first read it, I felt that the message sounded unfriendly, impatient and kind of rushed. It almost seemed like the woman was angry. Email can become impersonal or misunderstood (passioncomputing.com, 2010). She got the message across, as far as what she needed from her coworker, but there wasn’t anything in there that showed compassion or respect.

                                                           

            The next communication medium was the voicemail. Hearing the woman’s voice completely changed my view of her mood when she created the message. While the email made me feel like she was angry and impatient, the voicemail helped me figure out that she was just stating what she needed. She sounded calm and friendly, yet also professional. The woman stated what she needed without sounding angry. I felt the same about the third medium, which was face-to-face. The thing that changed the most with the face-to-face method was that she smiled at the end, and you could read how she felt in her facial expression. Her body language showed that she was relaxed and simply asking her coworker for the materials she needed from him.

                                                                  

            All in all, the face-to-face method seemed to get the message across the most effectively. Sometimes, the person might not be at their desk to read the email or look at the voicemail. This is why it would be helpful to find the person and speak to them directly. Also, you can understand their message better by watching their nonverbal gestures, and listening to their words. With so much to do at work, it’s not always easy to find time for personal discussion. However, in the long term, face-to-face communication just might assure that communication is clear and understood (Martin, 2007). This is useful knowledge to use when dealing with project management. A project manager doesn’t want their team members to misunderstand what he/she is asking of them. Also, with how busy everyone is, the PM can’t rely on technology methods to make sure they have gotten messages. The best thing to do is constantly communicate with the team in face-to-face meetings to make sure everyone is aware of the expectations and progress of the project.

References

Insightcomm.ca. (2012). Communicating through email. Retrieved July 11, 2012 from             http://www.insightcomm.ca/newsletter10.html

Martin, C. (2007). The Importance of Face-to-Face Communication at Work. Retrieved                    July 11, 2012 from       http://www.cio.com/article/29898/The_Importance_of_Face_to_Face_Communication_at_Wor            k?page=1&taxonomyId=3154

Passioncomputing.com. (2010). Using Email Effectively. Retrieved July 11, 2012 from                        http://www.passioncomputing.com.au/Copywriting/Using-email

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

Blog Entry Week 2- “Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”

            Since I am an elementary education teacher, I haven’t been involved in many Instructional Design related projects. I have noticed that others in my class have a lot more experience with those types of projects, and I wish I had something to relate to that. Consequently, I’m going to base my post on a project that I was a part of during my time so far at Walden.

            During my third course at Walden, we were asked to work as a group to create a training opportunity that would actually be implemented in real-life situations during our fourth course. It incorporated lots of hard work, communication and team work to complete our project. Our group created a Wikispace page, and each member had a specific role in the project. We had to use the ADDIE model to complete the training module, and my role was the Evaluator (or the final step.)

            This is where the struggle arose for me. Since I had to complete the final step in the project, I had to compile all of our individual documents, or pages of the Wikispace, into one working document that we would submit. The majority of the group members had everything edited and had submitted their portions to me. However, I was forced to wait until the very last minute on one of our group members for her submission. In all the advantages and disadvantages of working in groups is the time factor one needs to evaluate all the members of the group. Most organizations look at the overall output and don't look into the details if the work is presented as they wanted it (Joshi, 2011).  All of the project artifacts were complete, but it would have been more helpful if they were all submitted in a timely manner so that I could have had enough time to put together a cohesive paper.

            The final project came out looking professional and complete. However, it was interesting assessing all of my teammates’ writing and learning styles. Considering that we would have to submit a project that looked like one person wrote it, I had to make some changes in reference to grammar and word usage.  Another issue was that of how we were to communicate with each other. Since we were completing our portion individually from our homes, we had no other communication other than email, or the discussion boards to talk about the whole process. Virtual projects can link team members from anywhere around the globe (Portny, et al, 2008, p. 293).

            I think that even though the end result was a success, it would have progressed more smoothly if we had created a timeline for each part of the project, and each team member would have to stick to that timeline. This would have allowed time to edit the portions and submit the paper with enough time to get feedback. As it was, I submitted it on the final day, and hoped for the best. Since it was part of an online course, it was okay to do that, but in a real life ID situation, that would have never worked. Hence, the reason communication, responsibility and punctuality are so important when working on any project.

References

Joshi, N. (2011). Advantages and Disadvantages of Working in Groups. Retrieved July 5, 2012 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-working-in-groups.html

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.