Learning to Walk

 

            There are many areas in education and instructional design in which I feel very comfy.  Project management, and specifically the territory we are entering now (schedules and budgets) is like learning a new a new language for me.  From the start, this class has been intimidating.  Though I am getting more comfortable with the language and the thinking process, it has been a struggle.  Therefore, in my search for this blog assignment, I looked for web sites that cast a wide net when it comes to project management.  The two web sites below are sites that allow one who is new to project management to gain insight in a variety of project management topics and resources. 

Allabout project management

            The title of this web site pretty much tells the story.  It is a web site that covers the basic topics of project management, and breaks down each into various resources and sub topics.  There are also links to scheduling and budgeting tools that could prove to be very useful for a novice project manager.

Project Connections

This web site is also a jack-of-all-trades web site for project managers.  Though it does cover various PM topics, it focuses on articles written by project manager experts.  Though some of the articles are far beyond the scope of my knowledge and experience, I did find some articles and ideas that are more in tune with where I am as a project manager.  

Wait....What?

 I am thinking back to an email that a colleague of mine responded to last year.  I can't remember exactly what the topic was, but it was addressed to all of the eighth grade teachers and to our assistant principal.  The email was a response to an email conversation that had to do with some discipline issues with students.  One of my colleagues responded very passionately to the email.  Words were sent out in all caps, there were countless exclamation points, and many bold and highlighted words.  As I read, all I could think was "wow, that is one mad eighth grade teacher".  As it would turn out, the email did not sit well at all with the assistant principal.  He was furious with this teacher.  He felt this email was completely out of line and very unprofessional.  As it would turn out, the teacher didn't mean for the email to sound angry, she just wanted to make some points about the topic.  What this teacher did not take into consideration was how this email would be perceived.  For many an email with all caps and many exclamation points means anger.  This is not effective communication.  This was also a pretty tough lesson for my colleague.

With as much technology as we have today, and as connected as we are as a species, it is fascinating to think that we still can have a difficult time communicating with one another.  If I have learned anything over the past couple of weeks about project management, I would say I have learned this; project management is an art form that mixes organization, vision, facilitating, management, leadership, responsibility and communication (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, with Kramer, 2008).  Maybe the most important of all of these pieces is communication.  A project manager has been likened to the conductor of an orchestra (Stolovitch, n.d.).  I would describe communication as the conductor's baton.  The baton is a tool that can greatly help the conductor because it helps clarify the music.  (Thompson, personal communication, May 16, 2012).  Communication is the same type of tool for the project manager.  Good communication helps create clarity in a project. 

For this week's blog post we were asked to interpret a message delivered in three different modes.  These modes were the message as an email, a voice mail, and as a face-to-face conversation.  We were then asked to synthesize our perceptions on the message in each mode.  The message is being sent from one worker to another, and the subject is a missing report.  The worker sending the message needs the report because they need data in the missing report to finish their own report by a given deadline.  Here are my initial thoughts on each mode immediately after seeing or hearing each mode.  I decided to have a little fun with this part, and delivered my thoughts in the modes presented to us in the blog assignment media presentation.

Email Response

The message seems pretty calm and straight forward.  The author is saying they need something very soon, and they are somewhat apologetic by saying they understand the recipient is very busy etc.  There is nothing in the email other than the text that says this is important.  In other words, no all caps exclamation points, bold or flagged comments.

Voice Mail Response

Face-To-Face Response

In the end, a couple of things can be taken away from this week's blog prompt.  First, of the three types of communication demonstrated this week, the one that seemed most effective to me was the voicemail.  The message was professionally conveyed with a tone of seriousness and without the apologetic nature that seemed to show itself in the face-to-face conversation.  The second take away from this week is that communication is as critical piece of the project process and cannot be overlooked.  One has to consider the experiences and of each stakeholder, and communicate in ways that will are most effective for the stakeholder.  In other words, it will be very important to get to know the stakeholders and communicate with them in the manner they are most accustomed and comfortable (Burdovich, & Achong, n.d.).

References

Burdovich, V. (Writer), & Achong, T. (Writer), (n.d.).Strategies for communicating with stakeholders[Web]. Available from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher?type=Course&id=_551248_1&url=

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

Stolovitch, H. (Writer) (n.d.) Project management and instructional design [Web]. Retrieved from             https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/framset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id-2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/excecute/launcher?type=Course&id_51248-1&url=

Here Comes the Bride

Ok, so I have been wracking my brains over the last couple of days, trying to think of a project I have lead that would be appropriate to talk about for this blog discussion.  To be honest, project management as presented in this course is pretty foreign to me.  I have planned a thousand lessons, helped out with more than one large scale school or district project, but on the whole I have never taken the reigns as a project manager.  Or so I thought.  It did not occur to me until I had a conversation with my sister last night when she reminded me that I planned my own wedding.  She added, “as far as I’m concerned, that’s a project and a half” (Brothers, personal communication, May 9, 2012).  I chewed on this bit of information for a little while, and reflected on the process of planning my wedding, and yeah, she is right, I was the project manager for my wedding, and that was a pretty big project indeed. 

So let us break this wedding project down, and see how I did.  I am going to do this based on the questions that were posted with this week’s blog assignment from an article on project post mortem (Greer, 2010).

1.  Are you proud of the finished product?  Yes I am.  The wedding went off without a hitch, and to this day I get a lot of compliments on how fun the wedding was, and how everyone seemed so happy that day.  I have added a link to see some pictures of the final project.  Feel free to have a look.

The Wedding

2.  What was the single most frustrating part of the project? For me, the most frustrating thing was being so far away from many family and friends who were part of the planning process.  For instance, my aunt from Michigan made my dress.  It is tough to do a fitting when you live a thousand miles apart.  It did require some extra travel for me in order to get this done, but it was well worth the time.

3.  What would you do next time to avoid this frustration?  I am not sure I would have done anything different in this case.  I made the choice to have my aunt make the dress, and so I knew I would need to plan a time in the summer to make sure I could visit for a fitting.

4.  What was the most gratifying part of the process?  For me the best part was watching everyone interact, and enjoy him or herself.  I worked very hard to make sure that everyone had what he or she needed to really enjoy the experience.  I feel like we took great care to satisfy all of the guests, kids, adults, family and friends.

5.  If I could change anything about the process, what would I change?  There really is not anything I would change.  We accomplished the goal of having a really fun wedding that would honor the vision shared by my husband and I, but would also satisfy our families in terms of the formality and grace of the ceremony.  We did this in a way that provided an excellent experience for our guests, and we did so well within our established budget.

6.  The stakeholders in this wedding took a very active part in the process.  To be honest, this wedding was more for my family and close friends than my husband and I.  The two of us were very content to have a private ceremony in the Denver county courthouse, but we also knew a wedding was something our families really wanted.  So we went ahead and planned the wedding.  The stakeholders took an active role in many ways.  As stated earlier, my aunt Julie made my dress.  My sister (the maid of honor) took care of all of the travel arrangements for my Michigan family to come to the wedding in Denver.  My mom arranged to have a wedding shower when I was visiting Michigan the summer before my wedding.  My aunt Carol and Uncle Phil made and decorated our wedding cake.  A group of close girl friends of mine took charge of decorating both the ceremony and reception areas, and my sister-in-law helped design and print our wedding invitations.  I took care of securing the spot for the ceremony, and reception.  I also made arrangements for the catering, bar, DJ, and on-site babysitting for our friends and family with young children.  My husband managed the budget, and he and my brother-in-law had the all-important job of selecting which beer would be served at the reception.  In all, this was a very team oriented project.

In reflecting on this week's discussion of controlling scope creep, I would say I did a pretty good job.  Did we experience scope creep?  Yes, particularly when it came to the guest list.  As stated in this week's video "Overcoming Scope Creep" Dr. Burdovich discusses how difficult it can be to control scope creep when supporters are asking for little favors here and there (Van Rekom, Achong, & Burdovich, n.d.).  It feels the same when your mom is asking you to invite just one more of her friends or distant cousins.  It can be very hard to say no.

The good news is that the wedding was successful, and I can now look back on that project from the viewpoint of a project manager.  Would the information I am learning in this class have been helpful in the project planning process?  Absolutely.  Who knows, maybe if I succeed in this class, and become a successful project manager and instructional designer, I can apply those skills and become a wedding planner.  Or maybe not.

References

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

custom ed.) Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc. (p. 42-43)

Van Rekom, P. (Writer), Achong, T. (Writer, & Burdovich, V. (Writer) (n.d.)  Practitioner voices:
Overcoming "scope creep" [Web]. Retrieved from
https://class.walden.edu/webapps/portal/framset.jsp?  tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/
blackboard/execute/launcher?type=Course&id=_551248_1&url=

I Hope I Can Manage This

Hey all,
Well here we go week 1 of the Project Management Course.  Here's to new adventures.

:) G