Analyzing Scope Creep

Project Scope Creep refers to uncontrolled changes or added objectives in a project’s scope (Project Scope Creep, 2012). After researching the definition of project scope creep, I reflected back on a personal project that I had a few years ago. Every year Christmas Eve dinner is at someone’s home and this particular year dinner was set to be at my home. The guest of honors usually finds out that they are the “Guest of Honor” in June of the year. The year that my husband and I hosted the dinner, we found out in August, which gave us four months to prepare. For the dinner, the host is responsible for decorations, catering, cutlery, etc., and other attendees are responsible for the deserts and beverages. For this, we created a budget, with a list of vendors and their associated cost. We also gathered a listing of attendees who would be responsible for the wine and liquor for the event. We sat down and informed all of the key persons of their responsibilities.

After two months of planning, we found out the caterer was diagnosed with an illness and would not be able to cater the event for us. So, we were back to the drawing board with trying to find a caterer who was available and in the price range of our budget. This was my husband’s responsibility, so I did not worry much about the catering.  Three weeks after finding out about the caterer’s illness, I find out that we still did not have a caterer for the Christmas Eve dinner. We did not have a caterer because my husband was waiting on a friend to get back to him with information on his mother’s catering business. When his friend finally got back to him, we found that the price of the catering increase by $500 and this was going to take us over budget. We had to factor in incidentals and this was not a part of the incidental monies. In order to gain budget, we had to reach out to additional family members were able to contribute to the budget. Because the event was a month away during the holiday season, we did not have a lot of time to search for another caterer, we had to go with his friend’s mother’s business.

If I was in charge of catering, I would have taken the time that was spent waiting on the friend’s mother and researched other catering companies to see if they were available and able to complete the catering within budget. I would have also looked back at the previous researched vendors to see if they were still open for those dates. Those vendors were already a part of the list, we could have picked on from that list and negotiated charges and we would not have lost the time waiting and stressing about whether or not the mother could complete the catering for the event.

Reference:

Project Scope Creep. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.projectscopecreep.com/

Resources for Cost Estimation and Resource Allocations

In every aspect of project planning, including those of instructional design, there are many challenges; however, the most challenging is that of cost estimation and resource allocation. With every instructional design project, there has to be cost estimation and resource allocation. There are several resources that are available to project managers to aid in determining the cost estimation and resource allocation.  There are several websites that offer guides and resources to completing this portion of a project.  The three sites below provide great examples for estimating and allocating resources for instructional design projects.

Microsoft Office Project

Microsoft Office Project Support

Microsoft Office Project offers and array of support in their support section. There are several articles on the different phases of project management, making it easy to gain knowledge. These articles relate to the actual software. Those using the Microsoft Office Project software can benefit from the resources and support listed on the site. More importantly, this site is beneficial for project managers who use the site for their project management needs. The resources and articles are at their fingertips if needed.

The Training World

How Long Does it Take to Design and Develop a Training Activity

This resource provides a number of specific information on cost estimation, development hours, training cost guidelines, and how to estimate develop hours. This resource provides detail and specific information on how to estimate any associated cost with instructional design project. This site is great for instructional designers, who work as project managers. It will provide the instructional designer with cost estimations for developing training via course management software. This resource is beneficial for all instructional designers.

Bright Hub

Bright Hub

Bright Hub has an overabundance of information and resources that will provide knowledge for a budget template. Bright Hub provides a project template it outlines an entire project. Bright Hub has a link that offers insight on project budget goals and what the outcome of those goals should be. This information is a baseline on how to get started with the project. This site has all of the necessary terms that explain what project management is and how to complete projects.

References:

Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design. (2010, June 23). Retrieved from Big Dog & Little Dog's Performance Juxtaposition: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html

Bowen, R. (2013, July 31). Use Our Excel Project Budget Template to Simplify Your Life. Retrieved from Bright Hub PM: http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/75727-use-our-excel-project-budget-template-to-simplify-your-life/

Pcubed. (2013). About scope management. Retrieved from Microsoft Office Project: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/about-scope-management-HA001142303.aspx?CTT=1

The Art of Effective Communication

What are the implications of what you learned from this exercise for communicating effectively with members of a project team?

Ninety percent of a project manager’s time is spent communicating, whether it is to the team members, vendors, clients, or stakeholder. One of the project manager’s main focuses is to effectively communicate the status of the project with everyone. When working with stakeholders, it is imperative to know how communication can influence the message interpretation.

According to Portny et al. (2008), the key to successful project management is effective communication, sharing the right messages with the right people in a timely manner. Through communication people exchange and share information with one another, and influence one another’s attitude’s behaviors, and understandings (Portny, et al., 2008).

Most communication is done via email. Expressing your tone via email is not easy. There is not an accurate way to convey a message via email.

There are several ways to communicate effectively with a team of people, along with stakeholders, for instance, many people are used to communicating via telephone or voicemail. However, in the days of advanced technology, people find the easiest way to communicate. Communication can be distributed many ways. Anything can be communicated formally, informally, written, and/or orally. It has been found that the most productive form of communication is face to face. In organizations, face to face communications consists of presentations, reports, and conference calls. With large organizations, it is hard to connect with all employees in the same place, so many organizations use web-conference calls to communicate project statuses. When communicating using the telephone, keep the communication clear and thorough, not to leave a lot of room for interpretation (Luckey & Phillips, 2006).

Even though web-conference call is the best way to communicate with the entire team if everyone cannot meet, I believe that face to face is the most appropriate way to communicate. With face to face interaction, no one can misinterpret what is been said during the meetings. All parties included will have a clear understanding of what is being expected.

References:

Luckey, T., & Phillips, J. (2006). Software Project Management for Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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