Project Schedule

Are you looking for ways to streamline planning an ID’s project schedule?

 

Check out Harvest using the following link: https://www.getharvest.com/

                                         

                                                       (free 30-day trial)

Harvest has many time tracking and expense tracking features to keep your current projects on the right path. Time tracking data can transfer right over to invoicing. Overall, it is a simple system to use. It is compatible with many other systems that companies may already have in place. The website lists 56 integrations. There are many valuable data analysis reports. Investing in this software is an investment in granting the team insight into the following three critical areas:

·       Understanding past data to enhance future projects scope and pricing estimates

·       Knowing why particular projects yield favorable profits and others do not

·       Recognize when it is a good time to grow the company

Having a system like Harvest and reflecting on past projects in systematic ways, allows for continual evaluation of the company which provides longevity as well as opportunities for growth of the company. The price is $12 a month for unlimited seats and unlimited projects.

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  Also check out HUBPlanner using the following link: https://www.hubplanner.com/

 

                                                

                                                     (free 60-day trial)

This is a great program to plan, schedule, report, and manage the team, organized in one central digital location. Rather than having multiple spreadsheets in multiple locations, the information is clear, concise, transparent and at your fingertips within the HUBPlanner system. It provides an overview of the resource management for all ongoing projects. The most helpful feature allows the project manager to quickly visualize who may be over-scheduled with work and who may be under-scheduled to make better future project decisions. With a drag and drop scheduler, it is intuitive to use. The price of the software is between $7-$18 a month and there are no contracts, so it can be canceled at any time.

 

 

Communicating Effectively

 

                             Effective communication is more than words...

Effective communication is so critical to the overall success of the project. The Collective Leadership Institute explains just how important by stating, “the capacity for constructive, result-oriented dialogue and value-based collaboration is at the core of humankind’s ability to master challenges such as climate change, poverty, economic justice, energy security, resource management, peace, and population growth among others” (Aakhus & Bzdak, 2015, p.198). However, communication is so much more than just words or the content. How the message is received depends on many variables such as the overall tone, the timing, the body language, or even the personality of the recipient (Laureate Education, n.d.). The type of communication also may vary such as formal or informal, written or oral, as well as in-person or through online connections.

Project managers should figure out the type and style of communication that each stakeholder prefers. Troy Achong recommends that the project manager modifies his or her communication style to match that of the client’s preference (Laureate Education, n.d.). Although each stakeholder may want the same outcome at the end of the project, they each may have their agenda throughout the process.

In “The Art of Effective Communication”, the same words or content are presented using three different modalities: an e-mail, a voicemail, and a face-to-face meeting (Laureate Education, n.d.). Yet, I believe that the overall message can be interpreted in different ways, even though all three were sent in a business-friendly and professional way, as Dr. Stolovitch recommends (Laureate Education, n.d.). The preferences and personality of the client are what may differ and may have an impact on the success of the communication message.

If the client prefers email, he or she may be checking email throughout the all-day meeting and may be able to quickly send over the data needed. The client may feel satisfied that this was completed and there will not be a pile of work to do when returning the next day because of the all-day meeting. However, if the client gets frustrated by too many emails, especially ones that pile up while working on other important tasks, the actual data needed may be further delayed and a negative communication climate may start to develop. Also, since it is a written form of communication, it is more difficult to develop a shared-work relationship. It is more impersonal.

Communicating by voicemail lends itself to being a little bit easier to develop good working relationships because the tone of voice and sincerity levels can be more easily understood. However, it goes back to the client’s preference. If he or she is annoyed by voicemail boxes filling up, and would simply prefer an email instead, then that preference outweighs any benefits of voicemail over email.

Face-to-face interactions offer the full capacity to understand the intent and overall message because the tone of voice and body language can be interpreted the most accurately. In the video of the face-to-face meeting, it was apparent that the woman sincerely wanted to work well as a team, but also needed to make sure she was doing her job on time and making her needs known to make that happen. I think sometimes face-to-face meetings create a stronger investment by both parties into the discussions and outcomes. However, if the client is too busy for face-to-face meetings, and would be annoyed by them, then all of the benefits are still not great enough to disregard the client’s true preferred method of communication. When people say communication, communication, communication, it should be inferred that the preferred method is considered as well.

References

Aakhus, M., & Bzdak, M. (2015). Stakeholder engagement as communication design practice. Journal of Public Affairs, 15(2), 188–200. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1569

Communicating with stakeholders [Video]. (n.d.). Laureate Education. https://class/waldenu.edu

Multimedia Program: “The Art of Effective Communication"  http://cdnmedia.waldenu.edu/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html

Practitioner voices: strategies for working with stakeholders [Video]. (n.d.). Laureate Education. https://class.waldenu.edu

 

 

Project Review Post-mortem

                                    Scope Creep Can be Overwhelming

Reviewing projects post-mortem, or after the finished product has been delivered has important benefits. Learning from experience can be very beneficial (Terzieva and Morabito, 2016). Taking the time to develop a list of pitfalls, can help instructional designers and project managers avoid those same pitfalls in future projects. For this blog post, the project being reviewed post-mortem culminates in a multimedia presentation of an organizational profile, including, the analysis of a change that the organization underwent.  For the assignment, it scored high marks. However, in retrospect, it was not a completed project backed with enough pride to be included in the instructional design portfolio.

The processes included in the project that were successful were all related to the analysis phase which included staff interviews. Explanations of the company culture, which was a school district, the leadership, in this case, district administration, and the effects of crisis remote teaching during the pandemic from the teacher’s perspective were done well. Part one of the deliverable document was comprised of descriptions of the change process, the resistance encountered, communication strategies, and overall effectiveness. Part two of the deliverable document was composed of further analysis of the change and how the leaders planned and implemented the change process. As a leader, it is always better to gain insight and input from your team before making big decisions (Schermerhorn et al., 2008). Part three was a 5–7-minute video presentation. The part one and two deliverable documents were thorough and rooted in theory. The video presentation had some decent instructional design components, but overall, was too deep in scope. Conclusions and recommendations were not clearly communicated because the topic was so broad. Overall, the multimedia presentation complied with Mayer’s instructional design principles, such as the principles to reduce extraneous processing including the coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial, and contiguity principles (Mayer, 2014).

The change analyzed was crisis remote teaching, which became too large of a topic. Scope creep set in as a passion for the subject grew in the design and development phase. Narrowing down the content in the deliverable analysis documents to create a sound multimedia presentation, with only 5-7 minutes of viewing time became difficult and frustrating. Choosing to uncover how crisis remote teaching affected the organization in one specific area, such as student engagement for example, rather than an overview of all the effects of pandemic teaching would be a better path to take in designing a project like this one again. Creating a statement of work (SOW) to define the project’s approach, deliverables, timeline, and budget, would have made the end product more successful (Laureate Education, n.d.). Overall, the final video presentation complied with Mayer’s instructional design principles in general, but the design could have been of higher quality. Without the scope creep issue, the content would have been more concise and more time could have been spent designing and developing the best quality materials.

When looking through the rearview mirror, it is clear that this project is an example of the negative effects of scope creep. All of the ideas included in the project are valid and beneficial, however, they should not all be included in one project. There is enough content for several more projects when broken down into smaller topics with clearer objectives. Now that an understanding that scope creep happens frequently has been gained, a plan to avoid this pitfall with new projects can be created before it ever has a chance to set in.

 

References

Mayer, R. E. (2014). The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. The University of Cambridge.

Project kickoff [Video]. (n.d.). Laureate Education. https://class.waldenu.edu

Schermerhorn, J. R., Hunt, J. G., & Osborn, R. N. (2008). Chapter 1, "Introducing Organizational  Behavior". In Organizational Behavior (10th ed., pp. 4–12). John Wiley & Sons.

Terzieva, M., & Morabito, V. (2016). Learning from experience: The project team is key. Business Systems Research, 7(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1515/bsrj-2016-0001