Analyzing Scope Creep in a school project

Figure 1: Project Manager with learners performing a traditional Xhosa dance

In my professional experience I’ve had opportunities to be a project manager for several projects, including the one cultural activity at Walter Sisulu Primary school where I worked as a Head of the Department (HoD). This was not a strange task for me as it was something I had done in my previous schools before. The difference with this project was sudden change in the project scope - from an expectation to promote the various cultures and activities within our school to combining this celebration of culture with raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic within the school and the community at large. According to Wikipedia (2013) the uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project’s scope that experienced in this project are referred to as scope creep. What issues led to scope creep in this selected project experience?

The initial schedule for the project was for the project to be launched on national Heritage Day (which is celebrated on September 24 each year in South Africa) with most of the funds raised from parents, business people and the community. In the first month of the school year (January), the steering committee had done project planning and began its fund raising activities. The amount of money in the account unexpectedly reached the target amount within the first two months instead of 6 months as initially planned. The school management team and the steering committee suddenly had splendid ideas on how to improve the project’s output. Lynch & Roecker (2007) mention that “sometimes changes must occur due to a change in vision, a change in the needs of the customer, or even a change in the budget” (p. 96). As the project manager I agreed with the team that this project was a great opportunity for us to market and showcase our new school.  My response to the suggested changes was:  “Sure, no problem”.

Figure 2: Steering Committee members

Lynch & Roecker, (2007) posit that “since scope creep is a major cause of cost and time overrun, the project manager must control changes to the project charter and project scope by following the change management plan created during the planning phase of the project” (p.96). At the time of this project, I had no clue of many of the project management concepts that I have since learnt in the past few weeks in the course entitled “EDUC6145: Project Management in education and training” at Walden University.

As a result of more money being available, the output of the project was changed from a Heritage Day (September 24) celebration to an AIDS awareness campaign concert with cultural activities embedded. The date was also changed to 1^st December, the World Aids Day. The guest list suddenly increased with all community members invited, officials from the department of education and other well-known artists and musical groups such “Mafikizolo” (a local music sensation in the country). Portny et al., (2008) propose the use of change control systems to do things such as evaluating the benefits and disadvantages of the requested changes. The project manager and the steering committee for this project were more interested in the benefits than any other impact on the project.

Figure 3: December, 01 2004 at the end of the project event

Most important is the fact that the project successfully brought smiles to many children’s faces who participated in the various activities and became part of the event. The negative impact on the project was mostly in the lack of balance in delivering the cultural message and educating people on the value of preserving culture within this HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. In the evaluation meeting of the project, the steering committee and the school management team made a decision to subsequently separate these two events into two separate projects, Heritage Day and HIV\AIDS awareness day for future events in order to balance the goals of project management for these two important projects within the school.

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdohMnFHKwY

References

Pretorius, J. (n.d.) Easter Drive Walter Sisulu Primary School. Retrieved 05 December 2013 fromhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdohMnFHKwY
Lynch, M.M., & Roecker, J. (2007). Project Management E-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery and management. New York, NY: Routledge.

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.

Wikipedia (2011). Scope Creep (Project Management). Retrieved 05 December 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_creep

Blog Assignment: Communicating Effectively

Figure 1: Different people receiving message from text, audio, and video.

The multimedia program "The Art of Effective Communication." displays one message in three different modalities: email as written text, voicemail as audio and face-to-face as video between two people, where Jane delivers a message to Mark (Multimedia program in Laureate Education, n. d.). Portny, et al., (2008) argue that “through communication people exchange and share information with one another, and influence one another’s attitudes, behaviors, and understanding” (p357). Jane intends to inform Mark that he needs for him to submit the missing report. How appropriate and influential is each of the three types of communication in the multimedia program depends on the interpretation of the message that is given by the different (receiving) individuals.

My interpretation of the messages was mostly based on the communication skills used to deliver the message and was also influenced by such factors as the personalities of the person giving the message and the recipient, timing, attitude, tone and body language (Laureate Education, n. d.). The email communication was a bit professional with the purpose clearly stated at the beginning of the email as the need for a missing report. The email further mentions the expected consequences should the request not be acted on, that is, the requester is likely to miss her own deadline.  There was a lapse however, towards the end where ambiguity crept in with respect to what specifically or how the required information was to be submitted. The tone in the voicemail was rather different and seems to be impatient and a little bit forceful. The face-to-face communication on the other hand was friendlier and showed a lot of respect with the tone, body language and positive attitude.

The major factor that influenced how I perceived the message was mainly the approach I frequently use in my own work environment. The sense of urgency for the missing information tends to influence me to choose the use of a combination of text messages (through email) that are followed by a phone call or a face-to-face request. A written message in an email helps to keep a trail of conversation that serve as evidence of the message delivery, though the disadvantage is that it may be misunderstood, ignored or not read due to busy schedules such as attending meetings. It is for these reasons that I frequently combine emails with phone calls or voicemail and use a face-to-face walk-in to confirm with the recipient that the message was delivered and to redeliver the content of the email, if necessary.  This works better when the distance between the people communicating is relatively small. 

The written text in an email seemed to communicate more firmly and professionally what was required.  The email can be filed, printed, shared with others, read over and over to get a better understanding of the content. In my case, written email allows me to present factual data more efficiently and help me to choose the words carefully in order to minimize misunderstandings (Portny, et al. 2008). I can also read and edit the message a number of times before sending it while it is not easy to edit the words once verbally uttered in the voicemail and in a face-to-face delivery. With the email, the urgency needed for immediate action on the part of the recipient can be set. The settings can also indicate when the email is opened, read and it can also be marked with red ink to draw the attention of the reader in terms of its urgency. The urgency in the voicemail and face-to-face can also be set through the tone of the voice and body language but there is a risk of being interpreted as being unprofessional, unfriendly and rude. Under these conditions,  the best form of communication in a situation similar to the one in the multimedia where one-on-one communication is used to remind one person about the missing information, I would prefer the email followed by a voicemail or face-to-face delivery.

Troy Achong in Laureate Education (2010) posits that communication is an art and is bigger than the project itself. I support this statement as I learned that communicating effectively with members of a project team depends on what is the situation, which approach is selected, who and how the message is delivered to the team. One does not have to adopt a single approach; the approach will vary depending on the purpose of the message. For instance, face-to-face communication is the best to choose for project meetings such as kick-off and steering committee meetings. Dr Stolovich in Laureate Education (2010) states that “important communication is best delivered with all team members present”. The face-to face delivery, for example, is best to convey message to many people that need to be given essential information about the project. For communication with a few individuals who might have missed the deadlines such as that of Mark in the multimedia, email or voicemail can be used effectively. There is no single best method that work all the time for communicating effectively in a project, the project manager needs to be diplomatic reflective when selecting an effective communication approach to suit the situation.

Figure 2: Project meetings with face-to-face communication

References

Laureate Education (Producer) (2010). Communicating with Stakeholders [Video]. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/downloads/WAL_EDUC6145_03_A_EN-CC.zip

Laureate Education (Producer) (2010). Practitioner Voices:Strategiesfor working with stakeholders [Video]. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/downloads/WAL_EDUC6145_03_A_EN-CC.zip

Laureate Education (Producer) (n. d). The Art of Effective Communication [Multimedia program]. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html

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.

Blog Assignment: Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”

Figure 1: The stakeholders

I recently coordinated a project of preparing for two matric farewells (proms) that my eldest daughter attended this year. This was the first matric dance in the family and it is befitting that I look back at what went right and areas that can be improved in preparation for the younger children whose prom is in a few years’ time.. One of my responsibilities as a mother and a project manager was to give directions, guidance, and to delegate tasks to the various stakeholders in order to ensure that all aspects of the project were done satisfactorily as requested by the project owner (Partny et al, 2008). The project owner in this case was my daughter.

            After receiving the sign-off from the project sponsor, my husband, I had to discuss the work breakdown with my daughter and the rest of the stakeholders (her siblings) in order to ensure that the project would be “completed on time, on budget and with excellent results” (Greer, 2010). The timeline was really a challenge as the project had to be completed within five months, though she thought we should have budgeted for it on the day she was born. The work breakdown structure formed the needs for the project and we had to identify the responsible person for each task (Laureate Education, 2010). The needs were as follows: two dresses to be tailored, hairstyles, facial make-up, shoes, photographer and a car-hire to escort the lady of the day and most importantly finding a partner for the dance. The project manager had to consider prerequisites and make decisions on what was possible and impossible within a time-line, budget and available resources for each task in order for the project to succeed. I had to say “no” to the car-hire and requested for some volunteers among the stakeholders for other items so as to control the “scope creep” such as facial make-up (Laureate Education, 2010).

Figure 2: A dress in making

 I consider the project to have been successful as the project owner was extremely excited with the outcome at the end. If I had to do the project again I would firstly change the venue for the steering committee meetings to be held away from the dinner table. The meetings were not at all planned and they should never have been part of the meals to avoid the screaming and throwing of plates around the room. I would also adhere more strictly to the budget, as I was way over the limit in this first attempt. For the second event, we only managed to get a “date”/ partner two weeks before the event. My daughter had turned down all our suggestions until the last hour when she informed us that she had finally found a partner. Due to lack of time, as stakeholders we had no say, no interviews conducted.  We just appreciated the fact that we did manage to find a consultant (i.e. a partner) in the end. All consultants in the project have to go through the same screening processes and be part of the planning.

My recommendation to all the parents who have to conduct an event like this one is to plan the project way ahead of time, at least a year in advance. An important lesson learned from this project is that even in family projects, there is a need for money to be put aside to deal with things that come on short notice (the unexpected or incidentals). Laureate Education (2010) advises that “’Scope creep’ is inevitable; build in time and money to deal with it ahead of time”. For instance, we had our budget for shoes planned well but we could not find the size of the shoes for the type we had budgeted for and ended up having to buy the expensive type.

Figure 3: The end result

References

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

Laureate Education. (Producer). (2010). Project management concerns: Scope creep. [Video]. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.aureate-media.com

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.

Introductory message

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my blog! This blog is designed as part of the requirements for a Masters level course on Project Management in Education and Training (EDUC 6145).  I will be using the blog to explore and reflect on Project management concepts and issues in relation to instructional design processes. You are all invited to be part of this learning community.