Scope Creep – HUH?

Throughout the duration of this course on Project Management, my classmates and I have heard and read much on scope creep, so the concept has become well-known to all of us.  I was talking earlier this week about this posting assignment, and a couple of my work colleagues were not familiar with the meaning of this concept, so to begin my posting, I thought it wise to describe it for those who are not in the course and happen to stumble upon this blog.

One definition of scope creep, and the one I will focus on for this posting, is that it is 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, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 350.).  This may seem reasonable – of course, the goal should be to have the best outcome possible - but when the project timeline, budget and resources have been determined in a project plan, scope creep can be quite disruptive and challenging.

I have been involved in several similar projects to onboard new clinics to our organization.  The project manager set up a plan and several meetings that involved what seemed to be all of the departments who would be part of the process:  accounting, marketing, purchasing, pharmacy, lab, human resources, IT, building management, courier, and education, to name a few.  Our first clinic was ready to roll!  One of the major pieces of the onboarding was to give the clinic staff the appropriate education and training for applications they would need to best serve their patients.  The scheduling and registration system was a component that might have been underestimated in this first onboarding experience.  The patient access team was not included in the initial meetings, and once the need was identified, the scope of the training was much more involved than what was initially planned. 

The good news is that the director and manager of patient access were brought into the discussion, and a change was made to the project plan.  This involved additional training for the clinic staff, and additional hours from the patient access trainers.  One of the challenges was that the already functioning clinic couldn’t close for more than on day for required training, so these additional sessions needed to happen outside of clinic hours.

One of the suggestions from Portny et al is to have a formal change control system process to introduce and accomplish these modifications with appropriate communication and resource use (2008, p. 346).  In the addition of training to the clinic scenario, I did not see a formal process utilized, and the project did go off track a bit.

The good news is that we all learned of this need in the first onboarding experience.  One of the factors which might decrease the risk of this occurring in future projects is the experience that happened in the first.  And, we did.  I would like to say that we have the process down to a science, but a good project manager knows there is always some scope creep when a project is underway.  The key is to anticipate the creep, and have a system in place to communicate any changes.

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.

Communicating Effectively

Part of my job involves receiving and sending numerous emails, attending multiple meetings, and using voice mail effectively.  I often find that I misread email tone, although the message is documented and easily clarified.  Voice mail messages are challenging when the sender is not available by phone to clarify the message in case of questions.  Face-to-face meetings for me are the most satisfying as they can be documented and dialogue can occur regarding additional information that may be needed.

In this exercise, we were asked to review the same message in three different formats:  email, voice mail and a face-to-face context.   The message was a request from (I assume) a team member who was asking for information they needed to complete a report they were responsible for.  The missing information was apparently the responsibility of the message recipient and was to be given in an earlier report.

When I read the email version, it seemed a bit like the sender was chiding the recipient for not completing their piece of the project on time – and perhaps this was correct.  The email is a documented, although informal way of communication with a team member.  Any questions regarding the content (for instance, clarifying the specific need and timeline) could easily be gained in an email conversation.

In the voice mail, the vocal tone was pleasant and yet firm in the need for information.  The challenge I find with voice mail aside from the inability to immediately ask questions, is that it is not easily documented as part of a project communication stream.

As you might be able to tell, I found the face-to-face method to be the most valuable for team communication.  The recipient is able to see and hear the sender’s message, and it can be accompanied by clear dialogue and written documentation.

Additional thoughts are that how the communication modality is received is partly dependent on the receiver’s history and style.  The sender should know the team members’ individual preferences and styles, and attempt to meet their needs in the method of communication that is used.

Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”

My classmates and I have begun the eighth of ten courses to achieve a Masters in Instructional Design and Technology.  In this leg of the journey, we learn about project management.  For this blog posting, we were requested to describe a project that may not have ended so well, and briefly discuss the contributions to the success or failure especially in consideration of the project management process provided in our course text.

This project was to create a mail merge type of system that created orientation schedules for new employees via information from the HRIS system.  The PM was an IT specialist, and the team consisted of him and a HRIS analyst from the IT department.  After a lengthy period of time (I’m guessing over a year), the PM suddenly left the organization, and the project was turned over to me.  There was no clear direction or formal written out plan to achieve this project’s completion.  I worked with the HRIS analyst for approximately six months, and determined that the project should not move forward.

The project that I have chosen departs a bit from the actual assignment, in that I was the closing PM, but not the PM who began the project.  The project did not seem to follow any of the formal phases suggested by Greer (2010, pp. 42-43), or include any kind of written Statement of Work (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 53).  After trying to move the project forward, and examining the scope, and benefits versus costs, it was decided that the costs and time resource were not worth creating the system.

If I had more formal PM experience, I probably would have started at the very beginning with the conceive phase (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 77).  This would have decided the outcome much earlier.  The project was technically feasible, but the benefits were not worth the expected costs (people and time resources).  The bottom line lesson for me is that a good project manager follows a process and writes it down in case something happens.

References: 

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

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.

Reflections on The Future of Distance Education

To begin reflecting on the future of distance learning, one should look at the development of distance learning through history.  Correspondence study to electronic communications to distance teaching universities have evolved relatively recently to meet the needs of students in the areas of flexibility, collaboration, interaction, and economical use of resources (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, pp. 37-41).  There are several advantages of online learning listed by Simonson et al (pp. 125-126).  The system must be available to any qualified individual in the world, at any time, on any computer platform.  The students must be able to work at their own pace, and have access to current information.  Active learning is promoted, accommodating different learning styles.

Several theories have been proposed that help guide the designer in the development of education.  These theories help to guide the designer and are separated into categories of independence and autonomy, industrialization of teaching, interaction and communication, and communication and diffusion (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 43).  Theories help the designer make decisions with confidence (p. 42).  What was emphasized in this course is that not just one theory may apply to a single design, but the designer may draw information from more than one to lay the foundation for the instruction.

Moller, Foshay, and Huett emphasize that the instructional design professional has challenges to evolve the field of distance education, and also assure that sound professional design practice leads this enterprise ((2008, p. 70).  The instructional environment should be a system that includes the components of instructor, learner, material and technology (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 151).

It is also important for the instructional designer to be aware of current technologies and utilize them to enhance the learner interaction and engagement with the education.  Beldarrain points out that technology not only plays a key role in the dynamics in delivery options, but also is responsible for distorting the concept of distance between learner and instructor.  It also enables learner to access education at any time and from any place (2006, p. 139).

I believe distance learning will continue to evolve and grow in the future, with the instructional designer leading the charge by providing quality, well-planned educational opportunities based on distance theories that meet the needs of learners with multiple learning styles.  Siemens discussed the future directions of distance education as involving new communication technologies; contribution by experts around the world; and increased use of multimedia, games, and simulations (Laureate, n.d.).  The future looks promising and exciting for designer, instructor, and learner.

References: 

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2),139–153.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer) (n.d. b). “Distance Education: The Next Generation.” [Multimedia program].

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Converting to Distance Learning: Best Practices

Distance education is found to be very effective, and successful attainment of learning outcomes occurs with this instruction (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 7).  The training manager seems to be going down the correct path in converting the face-to-face sessions to a blended learning format. 

Conversion should include analysis of the instruction and learners, development of performance objectives and instructional materials, and design shift to visual presentations and engagement of the learners (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, pp. 152-153). In other words, following the ADDIE process to ensure that all aspects of the training are included.

The trainer should consider the components of a successful system:  learners, content, method and materials, and the environment (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012, p. 152).  Since the quality of communication is what is frustrating to the trainer, this should be the focus of the distance environment.  There are several ways to enhance communication in this setting.  One tool is the online discussion, which the trainer can facilitate by providing information the students will use to formulate postings, responding regularly to threads, and giving supportive feedback to guide the learning in the discussion forum.  The trainer should maximize student interaction by monitoring, facilitating, and participating in exchange (Beldarrain, 2006, p. 149).  Piskurich indicates that the instructor should keep in constant communication with students and show that he cares about their success (Laureate, n.d.).

An important component to the distance systems will be the technology that is available to the learners.  Will they have adequate support in the resources they need to complete the learning?  Will there be technological support for potential issues?  The trainer will need to provide alternative plans in case of technical challenges (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 20120, p. 153).  Beldarrain points out that technology can achieve engagement and interactions not possible in the original training (2006, p. 147). 

The trainer could build on the original learning objectives, calendar, and instructional materials to support the transition to a distance environment.  With careful and thorough planning, this endeavor should be a success for both trainers and learners.

References: 

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2),139–153.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer) (n.d.). “Facilitating Online Learning.” [Multimedia program].

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.