Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

This URL takes you to one of the United Kingdom’s project management e-handbooks entitled EnrichUK good practice guidebook. The content include Acknowledgement, Introduction, Project definition and Attributes, Project lifecycle, Why planning is important, Formal methods of project planning and software tools, planning tools and techniques, Risk management, Costing and budgeting, Monitoring and controlling, Documentation and reports, People and roles, Steering groups, stakeholders, politics, Consortia and partnerships, Financial Checks, and Bibliography. The most helpful thing I found in this site is how the information is broken down that makes it simple and easy to understand using visuals such diagrams, charts, and graphs. Project Management E-handbook

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2. This URL is a blog entitles Project Management Knowledge: The ultimate resource for project managers. It comprises with excellent ID related information that are sequenced from in alphabetical order from A – W. The most helpful thing about this site is that it contains most information necessary for this course such as statement of work, project scope, how to create work breakdown structure, stakeholders, cost and budgeting, and so forth. Project Management Knowledge Blog

3. The following URL will take you to one of the Google ebooks entitled “Instructional Design: Principles and Applications, 2^nd Edition by Leslie J. Briggs; Kent L. Gustafson; Murray H. Tillman. This e-book contains 17 chapters that includes Introduction, Needs Assessment, Organizing the Course, Writing and Using Instructional Objectives, Analysis of Objectives, Assessing Learner Performance, Designing the General Strategies of Instruction, Procedures of Lesson Design, Planning and Authoring Computer-Assisted Instruction Lessons, Formative and Summative Evaluation, Organizing and Managing the ID Process, Major Issues in large ISD Projects, and the Future of Instructional Design. It includes tables, charts, and diagrams that visually explain the information provided. The most useful thing I found in this site is that it shed light on information necessary for instructional designers prior, during, or after project. Google E-book

The Art of Effective Communication

The ability to communicate well, both orally and in writing is a critical skill for project managers. Planning project communication upfront enables project managers to choose the appropriate type of communication for sharing different messages (Portny et al., 2008). In this week’s blog assignment, I have been given three different communication modalities that include email, telephone, and face-to-face to interpret each one, address factors that influence my perception of the message, discuss the form of communication that best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message, and write what I have learned in this exercise that will facilitate my effective communication with members of a project team.

Dr. Stolovitch (2009) discusses some key points in communication that include diplomacy, avoiding ambiguity, and documenting everything. When using diplomacy, you are communicating your opinion, needs, wants, feelings, and beliefs to others in a direct and honest manner, without intentionally hurting anyone’s feelings (Bezroukov, 2011). Avoiding ambiguity means your communication should be precise for the intended message to be relayed. In my opinion, the email contains clear purpose of the message that includes possible solution as well as specified that a response was required as soon as possible and has friendly and respectful tone. The face-to-face message was also concise and straight to the point however, the facial expressions and gestures made the message more personal.

Basically, the three communication modalities have common message that Jan was trying to put across. Thus she would like Mark, who was a bit busy to send her the ETA on the missing report. Receiving the above document will enable Jan to meet her own deadline. Further, the following are the factors that influenced the way I perceived the message relayed through each of the three communication modality; email, voicemail, and face-to-face. These factors include tone, body language cues such as facial expression, gestures, background noise, eye contact; it gives me insight of how important of the message.

The form of communication that best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message depends on each individual. Personally, I preferred the email as I could read each word by myself and interpret it in my own words. Since each project team member has his/her personality, agenda, and experiences of a project, any of the three communication modalities could affect them in one way or the other.

The implications of what I learned from this exercise is that the three modalities of communicating such as email, voicemail, and face-to-face could be used effectively with members of a project team, however either of them could affect the team members both positively and negatively as the information could be interpreted differently due to the different learning styles as well as the individual differences.

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.

Stolovitch, H. (2011), Video Podcast: Communicating with stakeholders. Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4744647&Survey=1&47=6523831&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Bezroukov, N. (2011). Diplomatic communication. Open source software educational society. Softpanorama . www.softpanorama.org

Learning from a Project "Post-mortem"

My post-mortem project was a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that we created as a group. PLE is a system that helps learners take control of and manage their own leaning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own goals and manage their learning both content and process. Learners also communicate with others in the process of learning and thereby achieve their learning goals. When designing instruction for PLE, the designer needs to create a scenario in which learners will set up their own personal learning environment. The scenario we created was that our company Elite Universal Designer’s Inc. was contracted by the administration at Jackson Public School District to train teachers how to set up a personal learning environment so as to be able to incorporate up to date technology into their lessons in order make it more meaningful to students. Additionally, in the project we were not only teaching learners how to create their personal learning environment, but also how it can be applied to their learning. These made the learning context concrete and realistic to the learner. The group used the ADDIE model to design the above project.

The following were some contributive factors of the project’s failure. Group members had limited knowledge of how to apply the ADDIE model in the scenario provided. In addition, some group members were late turning in their part of the project, while some did not contribute at all to the development of the project. Since this was a group project, it was necessary for group members to collaborate in playing their part in order for the project to be successful. Hence, other members became responsible in doing extra assignment with limited time. This made working on the project a bit stressful. Another thing that contributed to the failure of the project was the different time zone of the group members. Group members had rough time conference on scheduled to discuss the importance of the project. Some members joined the scheduled meetings in the last minute and missed the necessary points on the agenda.

Portny et al (2008) asserted that project management process should include planning, organizing, and controlling of the project. Therefore, I believe the project management process that if included in my PLE project would have made the project more successful were planning and organizing. Excellent planning would have promoted the success of the project by determining the strategies, artifacts, and necessary information to be used in the given project. A better organization would have promoted the success of the project through collaboration as well as determining the structure of the project. Also, good organization would have made the project homogeneous, which would help each group member designed the project with information related to the topic.

In conclusion, it is necessary to learn best practices and avoid mistakes on a future project by reviewing the results and activities from a previously completed project. As I reviewed the PLE project, I realized that it is important for group members to plan, organize and control the project. Additionally, it is crucial that members constantly collaborate for the success of the project. Also, it is important that each member takes charge and complete the given role. As a result, when group members perform accordingly they will probably create efficient and effective project that will meet the projects needs and objectives.

Reference

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.