Background
A few years ago, when internet safety began to be a rising hot topic amongst law enforcement and children’s services agencies, my employer (a child abuse pre entered into a partnership with our state’s Attorney General’s Office and a notable Cable provider (local). Our agency and the AG’s Office jointly received grant funds from the State to provide internet safety education and awareness to middle and high school students. The local cable provider had a national campaign on internet safety as well. The three entities determined that an Internet Safety Summit for high school students, from across the state, would be the best route to spread the safety message quickly and to the largest audience. Each stakeholder brought certain key aspects to the partnership, law enforcement, technology, and child abuse prevention. The project (Internet Safety Teen Summit) was to produce a 1 day summit for an estimated 350-400 teens, with workshops/trainings, Keynote speakers, group activities (including visiting the State Capital to discuss legislation), and lastly, a culmination event.
What contributed to the project’s success or failure?
The entire project had a timeline of six months from concept to completion. When we initially held a planning/kick off meeting, everyone felt prepared for and understood the tasks required for the project. There were problems that could have potentially caused the project to fail. For starters, each stakeholder had a team assigned to the project, and each team worked at different speeds. Those, including myself, assigned to the project at my company, were managing multiple products at the same time. All too often, there may be a tendency to place secondary job assignments, such as project work, on the back burner, and they are not completed as scheduled (Murphy, 1994). Communication was problematic, with calls and emails not being responded to in timely manner, and multiple planning meetings had to be rescheduled due to time conflicts. Each team worked independently for most of the project until we neared the completion deadline. At that point, we were working at a frantic pace to finalize and complete tasks that should have been reviewed earlier in the process. The project, though, with its many problems, was completed with great results. The evaluations gave great insight into “rework” needed in the content, planning, and coordination of the project for the following annual events.
Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?
When considering the PM process, in my opinion, the Define and Perform phases would have made the project more successful. The success of a project depends on how clear and accurate the plan is and whether people believe they can achieve it (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008). What we considered planning, more or less, would have been a mixture of the Conceive and Define phases. Too many areas were left un-clarified. Though the end result was a great event and accomplished the objectives and goals of the project (to an extent), much more could have been accomplished.
References:
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.
Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9-11. Copyright by John Wiley & sons, Inc. Used by permission via the Copyright Clearance Center
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that what contributed to the project's problems was that the project manager did not define and enforce roles amongst the teams that worked "independent" of each other throughout the life of the project.
ReplyDeleteWas there a project manager or was the team(s) in control of the day to day decisions? (Greer, 2010) suggest that "It's important for project managers and team members to take stock at the end of a project and develop a list of lessons learned so that they don't repeat their mistakes in the next project."
Reference:
Greer, M (2010). The Project Management Minimalist: Baltimore, Laureate Education, Inc
Ms Matthews
ReplyDeleteThe post-mortem of the project, Internet Safety Teen Project was comprehensive and very interesting. A major issue seemed to have resulted from the fact that many team members were assigned to the project. Murphy (1994) explains that he focus of assigned team members, as opposed to that of dedicated teams, is divided, and their project “assignments do not take precedence over their main job functions, but rather, are secondary responsibilities” (p. 11). It therefore imperative that the project manager ensures that the project stays on schedule by explaining to each member the importance of not placing project tasks on the back burner, but completing them as scheduled (Murphy, 1994, p.11). You also indicated that “each team worked independently for most of the project until you neared the end”. I believe that a robust communication plan would have been very useful in your situation, as it would have kept everyone informed and on the same page (Allen, S., & Hardin, P. C., 2008 p. 80).
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Reference:
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.
Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9–11.
The project seemed to place a lot of items on several plates. "The role of the project manager is to identify the objectives of the project and to monitor the progress of the project as it moves from stage to stage" (Murphy, 1994). When taking on projects, big or small, it is easy to get disorganized or even reorganize the priorities of the project in a way that suits the individual as opposed to those of the project. The project manager needs to ensure that everyone is able to see the importance of their portion of the project in the grand scheme of things. This will help ensure that timelines are met and that everyone remains invested in the project.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9–11.