Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

       This week we were tasked with finding resources online that can be used to help with the planning and scheduling of projects that are related to the Instructional Design (ID).

Before I present that, I want to answer the following question:

What do you find the most challenging about estimating activity durations and resource costs?

       The most challenging part is when you don’t know from your own personal experience what it takes to perform a task and you have to rely 100% on the expertise of your Subject Matter Experts (SME) or Project Team members. Additionally, when a Project Manger (PM) is new to a company or team, it may be difficult for them to trust what their SMEs are telling them. I have been in that situation a few times and have learned to be very careful and very diligent yet polite and research my SMEs and project team member thoroughly. I don't like being left in a situation where my SME or other team member is incompetent or procrastinates. However, the time it takes to research, create schedules and coordinate meetings in the planning phase of a project is a time killer. Achong (n.d) state that one must budget time and cost for administrative task because they are very time consuming and often overlooked (Achong & Budrovich, n.d). Budrovich (n.d.) states that often one must sacrifice in project management and some tradeoffs are required (Achong & Budrovich, n.d). This could be due to an incompetent SME, someone leaving the company or team, an unexpected illness or death. When searching for that trade off, Budrovich (n.d.) states that one should never sacrifice the time line or quality. He suggests always to request a budget increase and possibly cut back on the scope of the project (Achong & Budrovich, n.d). Stolovich (n.d) recommends finding resources in alternative locations such as interns, local professional associations or even coworkers in related departments. (Stolovich, n.d.).

Onto the subject for this week

       To assist in estimating costs, effort and activity durations associated with projects, and particularly ID projects, it is always helpful to have additional tools at your disposal. Below are two sites I found helpful:

Amy's Blog - EstimatingCosts and Allocating Resources

SonJan - EstimatingCosts and Allocating Resource

Amy's Blog - Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

       This is a Blog that is updated fairly often. The Blog is hosted by wordpress and has an attractive theme. It is not loud or noisy and the writing is professional. The project management information was great. I like the way the author incorporated hyperlinks into her comments and suggestions. The hyperlinks were in fact the most helpful thing I found on the Blog as there were several great ones such as Brighthub and a link to a Project Management Budget.

SonJan - Estimating Costs and Allocating Resource

       This is another Blog that is very well written and professional looking. The information contained in it is concise but chocked full of content. The Blogger uses proper source citation and embedded several graphics to help get her ideas and suggestions across. The most helpful part of this Blog were the graphics associated with the ADDIE process and how those apply to the Project Management estimations, schedule and budget setting.

Resources

Achong, T. & Budrovich, V. (n.d.) Practitioner Voices: Resource Challenges (Video Program). Laureate Education, Inc.

Amy's Blog - Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources. (2011). Retrieved from http://amysnews.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/estimating-costs-and-allocating-resources/

SonJan - Estimating Costs and Allocating Resource. (2009). Retrieved from http://sonjanmcp.blogspot.com/2011/10/estimating-costs-and-allocating.html

Stolovich, H. (n.d.) Project Management Concerns: Locating Resources (Video Program). Laureate Education, Inc.

Communicating Effectively

In the Multimedia Program “The Art of Effective Communication” (n.d.), a message from one coworker to another is delivered via e-mail, voice mail and in person. The message content expressed the need for the co-worker being contacted to confirm a delivery date on a report so that the other coworker does not miss a deadline for their own report. The message is cordial but direct.  

The communication was first presented as an e-mail.  As I read the e-mail the message came across as urgent yet polite I understood the message and I was not offended by it nor did I feel rushed. The second method was via a voice mail message. Again the tone of the person leaving the message was polite but direct, and was recited verbatim to the e-mail. To me, the message seemed to be little more effective since it associated a real person with the need and out a voice to that person. The last presentation was in the form of a face to face conversation. The coworker in need of the report again recited the e-mail verbatim, but did it face to face with the second coworker. This method seemed to be the most effected as it not only got the message across, but it put a face and a voice with the request

All three of these messages were informal. Portny et al. (2008) state that there are two main types of communication; formal and informal. In formal communication, the content is preplanned and conducted in a standard format in accordance with an established schedule. They go on to state that informal communication occurs as people think of the information they want to share. While the three messages were definitely in a format based on proper use of the English language and politeness, they were in fact informal as they occurred as the coworker realized they needed to communicate their requirements,

The implications of what this means to me as far as how I can use it to communicate effectively with members of a project team are varied. Effective communication is and essential skill of any Project Manager (PM). I learned that to be the most effective I need to communicate in person as much as possible.

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.

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

Week 2 - Project Post-Mortem

Greer (2010) states that it important for Project Managers (PM) and project team members to examine a completed project at its end and develop a list of lessons learned so that they don't repeat any mistakes in the next project. Greer (2010) refers to this as a post-project review or "post mortem." (Greer, 2010).

This week we were tasked with recalling a project in our past where we were not happy with its results. For me, this was an easy call. I recently took a new job that includes, among other thing, project management. I started on Halloween of2011 and my first big project was the rebuild of a machine that was to be shipped to our Canadian manufacturing plant. I studied the machine design, supervised the machine shop that made the modifications and worked with the engineer that designed all of the changes. Based on feedback from these project team members, my immediate supervisor, upper management, the plant managers at both my location and the Canadian location, and the maintenance staff on site I developed a Project Charter, scope, and a timeline. The project began on December 7th, 2011 and was scheduled to complete on December, 29th, 2011. Boy! Was I in for a surprise.

Before getting into the details, Geer (2010) states that you should do a post mortem in two phases. In Phase I you create a specific set of questions to send to the project team members and have them answer. In Phase II you hold a meeting to discuss the answers to these questions. Those questions may look like what Greer (2010) came up with below:

1. Are you proud of our finished deliverables (project work products)? If yes, what's so good about them? If no, what's wrong with them?

2. What was the single most frustrating part of our project?

3. How would you do things differently next time to avoid this frustration?

4. What was the most gratifying or professionally satisfying part of the project?

5. Which of our methods or processes worked particularly well?

6. Which of our methods or processes were difficult or frustrating to use?

7. If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about the project, what would you change?

8. Did our stakeholders, senior managers, customers, and sponsor(s) participate effectively? If not, how could we improve their participation?

 

Now, onto my miserable project

First off, I made a rookie mistake. It was December, "Hello! The holidays..." I scheduled the project and got approval from management and the project team members. The project was scheduled to run sequentially for three weeks. Much to my surprise, a week into the schedule all of the project team members went on vacation. What! It was almost as if they wanted me to fail.

I had neglected to anticipate the vacations that everyone would be taking. It was the end of the year, people had to take their earned vacation for the year or lose it when the new year rolled around. Let me tell you, that fact was not lost on them. They left in a mass exodus. Not only that, the company had Christmas Eve and Christmas day off, as well as New Year’s eve and New Year’s day (so much for trying to catch up).

Onto the questions

I am proud of the deliverables. The machine turned out nice and the modifications work like a charm. However, the project ran three times as long (from 3 to 9 weeks). Along the way there was trouble after trouble after trouble. Parts were not ordered, parts did not fit, some parts had to be customer made. Other parts were not even planned for but came up as the project progressed. Much of the work had to be farmed out to other machine shops and costs skyrocketed.

The single most frustrating part of the project was the lack of team play. Everyone left me after a week and took vacation. Then management expected me to still deliver on time.
Next time I am definitely not forgetting vacations, the time of the year, sick days, and any other freak or labor shortage. I will have backups for everyone.

Stepping away from Greer (20102) now, the course assignment requested information on the processes, project artifacts, or activities I included in the project that contributed to its success. Portny et al. (2008) state that a Work Breakdown Structure WBS) is a organized, detailed and hierarchical representation of all work to be performed in a project (Portny et al. 2008). That is exactly what I created in the failed project based on input for the project team. I laid out the who, where, when, why and how of every aspect of the project that I knew about. I also used Microsoft Project to track the project and create a Gantt Chart. However, even with all of that planning it was the things that I did not know about that were the ones that got me and killed the project's deadline.

Additionally, the Blog assignment this week wanted a report on the processes, project artifacts, or activities that I did not include in the project that might have made the project more successful. That is a no-brainer; I should have looked at the calendar. The holidays are never good for projects. Beyond that, I needed to work on bringing the team together better, driving home the importance of keeping to a schedule, and more communication to all stakeholders as the project progressed.

In closing...

There are a lot of things I could have done better on that project. However, failure is not just failure, it is the discovery of yet another way that a project can go bad. That discovery in itself is experience. I learn from my mistakes and the more I fail, the better I get. As a result of the aformentioned failure I have learned how to communicate better, pull together a responsive team and communicate updates to all stakeholders. The current project I am working on closes out next week, and I am ahead of schedule, under budget and delivering more than required. This project is yet another machine rebuild/modification. This time I know all the of the required specifications and I have had full control of all of the resources. That was something I sorely needed in the failed project but did not have.


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.

Welcome classmates...

...from Walden University and the EDUC-6145-4 Project Management in Education & Training course!

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I look forward to working with you for this course.

Clarence