For my review “post mortem” this week I would like to use an
example in my collegiate career at The Ohio State University. I was chosen as a
part of an organization to run a large student run event on campus called “Scarlet
and Gray Ag Day.” This day is planned by Ohio State students and area
elementary schools are invited to come and rotate around to several dozen
stations with hands on activities all centered around teaching the students a
topic in agriculture. Needless to say, it was a huge undertaking and involved
working with several committees and many different stakeholders such as
elementary school teachers, college organizations, college students, companies
around campus and supporters of the event. Although not an instructional design
project, there are similarities. I served as the chairman of the event which
could relate to a project manager. We then had several different committees or
perhaps in terms of project management; teams. In order to take a closer look
at the project and learn something from it, I used the questions from the
Project Minimalist to evaluate it.
1.
Are you proud of the deliverables? If so, what’s
so good about them? If no, what was wrong about them?
I was very proud of the outcome or deliverables
which would have been the day in general, the student’s learning, and experiences.
Many teachers, stakeholders, were very pleased with the quality of the day and
the value that it held for their students. Many standards out of the elementary
school’s curriculum was hit and the teachers were able to go back to their
schools with ideas of how to use agriculture as a learning platform in the
classroom.
2.
What was the single most frustrating part of our
project?
The most frustrating part of our
project was the complexity of the entire thing. The event had been done year
after year and each year more aspects are added to benefit the event but provide
hurdles for planning. With this complexity came the increased need for
communication and organization which was not always there at times causing
issues.
3.
How would you do things differently to prevent frustration?
Like I mentioned before, I would be
sure that there was an increase in communication and organization. I would have
may also added more committees/teams in order to spread out the workload.
4.
What was the most gratifying aspect of the
project?
Talking to the teachers and receiving
feedback from them and other stakeholders about the level of quality and usability
of the day for teachers and students was rewarding because it felt as though
the work throughout the entire year had paid off and was validated.
5.
Which methods worked well?
The committees had a group meeting
with all of the other committees to report on their progress and receive updated
duties if required. As the project manager, it was great to have those meetings
in order to touch base and be sure there was progress in the right direction
being made and collaboration of ideas being held.
6.
What methods were frustrating?
As college students, putting this
event together was not our jobs nor were we getting paid to put it together.
Therefore, a lot of students that were working on it may not have put their
110% effort into it. It would slow everyone down with one of these individuals
and if they would delay responding to an email, it hurt the project a few
times.
7.
If you could change something, what would you
change?
As I stated before, I think that I
would try to minimize the complexity of the event. I would focus on making the
main event solid and quality without trying to add too many extra things before
making sure the rest of it is planned solidly.
PHASE 1
Our audience and market was the elementary schools of
Columbus, Ohio. It helped that year after year we have this event and have
contact with the teachers of the area. This particular year, we communicated
with the teachers and asked for their input on the event and what they could
benefit from us teaching their students. We also held a workshop with the
teachers who would be participating to have an overview of the event so that
they could be prepared. Our team did an excellent job looking at the elementary
school curriculum and standards and translating them into the interactive and
hands on learning experiences at Scarlet and Gray Ag Day.
PHASE 2
In the initial
planning phases we had not planned for the growth that the event would take on
and complexity that would then ensue. It would have been more beneficial to
have stuck to the plan and not tried to spread our team too thin by adding more
and more to the event throughout the year of planning no matter how beneficial
it may have been. We had many supporters of the event financially and as a
presence at the event. We needed each and every one of those supporters because
we were limited by the finances of the event as well as facilities,
transportation and the elementary school’s schedules. There were a few issues
with vendors that may have been prevented by simply using clearer communication
and having more experience working with vendors on the part of the college
committee members. Roles and
expectations were clearly laid out in the planning meeting which worked well
for setting up the committees and teams and as I said before, there were
students that didn’t hold this project in priority. Their absence at some
meetings was felt as it was important to have clear lines on communication each
week when we would collaborate. One thing that should have been planned and
communicated more clearly was the milestone goals. For some aspects of the
project there were no milestone goals which didn’t motivate team members to accomplish
them.
PHASE 3
The blue prints for the project were a little gray. We had
ideas and goals to accomplish but throughout the year they were modified so
many times they should have been a little more concrete for the team members to
visualize and follow along with. Creativity was involved and all members of the
team were involved in the blueprints. We needed input from each one of the
committees or teams in order to make the blueprints or plan of attack on the
project.
PHASE 4
I was very proud of my deliverables as mentioned before. All
stakeholders delivered on their part. If one committee, supporter or other
stakeholder did not hold up their part, the event would have not happened or
had major problems which it didn’t.
PHASE 5
The test audience was the real audience in this case and the
deliverables worked in the real world. We aligned the teacher curriculum with
what the students were learning at the event which helped teachers teach their
actual required curriculum as well as gave them ideas on how to utilize
agriculture in the future for their classrooms. Because the nature of the
project, implementation was fairly effective. Motivation could have been
increased but overall the project was pulled together effectively with quality.
Overall, teachers comments would be the artifacts that I
would point to uphold my opinion of success of the program. The artifacts that
I would point to to suggest a struggle or frustration in the project would be
the evaluation that the committee members or teammates returned. Many of them
cited communication and organization issues within the team.
Greer, M. 2010. The
Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Project!
