Scope Creep

Over the last few weeks, I have learned a great deal about project management and its perils.  One such peril is scope creep.  I wasn’t aware of that term until just recently, but I believe that it is one of the most important terms I have learned in a long while!  My experience with scope creep resulted from my own enthusiasm for a project and for wanting to do the best, most amazing and spectacular job that I could.  The “client” was a joint state and federal grant program for the creation of open source curriculum.  The requirements were rather simple and three years seemed like such a long time.  

I was not the project manager, but rather a team member responsible for developing and creating curriculum in my subject area.  To be truthful, there was no project manager and I believe that this is what contributed to the problem most of all.  Without that single point of control, that single point of grounding in reality, I was able to go beyond what was expected without regard to cost or time. 

The response to my spectacular offerings (and they really were spectacular!) was very good!  Rather than having a project manager to put on the brakes, I went full steam ahead with the encouragement of the stakeholders.  They had no idea of the amount of time and effort that these modules consumed, however.  I continued to work on this project until I realized that I had spent several months working on only a small part of a huge project!  The reality was that each module should have had days allotted, not weeks and months.  I panicked when I realized that I had lost a huge amount of time going beyond the requirements.  I spoke to my manager, scaled back my efforts to meet the grant requirements, and tried to catch up to the next milestone.

While I may not have met the unrealistic expectations that I created for the stakeholders, I did manage to fulfill the requirements of the grant on schedule.  I also learned some valuable lessons.

Portney, et al. (2008) discuss the need to manage scope creep by requiring a process be followed before any change is made to the scope.  All changes must be approved and the schedule must be adjusted as necessary to allow for the changes.  By managing scope, schedule, budget, expectations, and risk, the project manager can control scope creep (Lynch & Roecker, 2007). 

The most important lesson that came from that project is that somebody has to be the project manager.  There must be somebody who is keeping track and making sure that the project stays on course and doesn’t explode into a bigger project.  Or implode and fail.  I think that my near misses and failures of the past will come in handy if I am ever in a position to manage a project.  While project management has some aspects that can be learned in books and in seminars, I think the most important lessons are learned on the job in each success and misstep made along the way. 

References

Lynch, M. R. (2007). Project managing e-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery, and management. London: 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.

Effective Communication

As an exercise in effective communication, I was tasked with receiving a message communicated in three different modalities: email, voicemail, and in person.  The message was the same each time with the only difference being the delivery method. 

First Impressions

Email – I was definitely put off by this email.  I had to read it several times to get a clear idea of what was being asked.  Dr. Stolovich, in Communicating with Stakeholders, discussed the need for written communication to have a very clear purpose statement (Laureate Education, n.d.). 

Voicemail – The voicemail did not elicit as negative a response as the email, however, it was still lacking.  The lack of clear statement made me have to listen to it several times to determine what was being requested.

In-person – Truthfully, I found this to delivery to be the worst.  Dr. Stolovich also discussed the influence of tonality and body language in effective communication (Laureate Education, n.d.).  In this exchange, her body language conveyed several messages that were very off-putting and her tone was rather bored as if it was a chore to have this conversation.

Interpretation and Perception

My interpretation of the message was affected by my perception of the message.  In the email, I saw nothing but “I” in the message.  It was all about Jane and what she wanted with no regard to Mark’s busy day.  I interpreted that email negatively and I would have been less likely to comply with the request.  The voicemail was difficult to follow and required more than one listen, but I was more inclined to interpret the message positively.  In-person, however, was different.  Even though the tone was the same, the body language was the problem. 

Putting it all Together

When communicating with team members, it is important to be mindful of how the message may be interpreted.  Dr. Stolovich indicated that only 7% of a message is conveyed by words (Laureate Education, n.d.).  I was surprised that I reacted as strongly to the written message as I assumed that it would be less likely to be problematic.  However, it seems that how something is written is just as important as how something is said.  The voicemail was the least problematic for me, but when coupled with the body language of the in-person communication, the same message became loaded with accusation and disdain.  Just flicking her fingers when stating it was Mark’s data holding her up was enough to make me stop listening. 

After this exercise, I see that an effective project manager is going to be a referee who averts potential conflict based on communication misunderstandings.  In addition, as a program manager, it will be important to control one’s own tone and non-verbal communication.  The trick will be finding balance without becoming wooden and stiff.

References

Laureate Education (Producer).  (n.d.).  Communicating with stakeholders [Video file].  Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu.

Project Post Mortem

The Project

In a previous career, I was tasked with the reorganization of an information and assistance office.  The problem was information that was disorganized and out of date.  It was important to remedy this situation because case managers needed to be able to access accurate and up-to-date information for clients. 

In preparation, I met with the stakeholders (case managers) to identify the types and categories of information they needed and asked them to prioritize their needs.  For example, I asked if there was some information that needed to be bundled for quick access.  I also determined the placement of the new information storage and received consensus from the case managers.  However, while not a complete failure, the project did go the way I had expected. 

What went wrong?

While I had met with the stakeholders I had identified as being the primary focus of the reorganization, the case managers, I had failed to take into account other stakeholders.  Greer (2010) cautions that failure to include all the stakeholders will create problems, such as rework, or in my case, a complete work stoppage.  The stakeholder I had omitted was the chief financial officer who became very agitated to discover I was recycling materials.  Even though the materials were outdated and worthless to the case managers, because county funds had been used to purchase them there was a procedure that had to be followed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

How could this have been avoided?

The cliché, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” was shared by Troy Achong in the video Practitioner Voices: Overcoming ‘Scope Creep’ (Laureate Education, n.d.).  Understanding the influence of internal stakeholders (case managers, clients) and external stakeholders (financial officer, county fiscal department) and ensuring that the project actions function within established policy and procedure would have gone a long way in avoiding the problem. 

How it all ended?

In the end, the materials were reorganized and the stakeholders were satisfied.  The chief financial officer and I were able to overcome the obstacle of county code by taking an accurate count of the materials destroyed and creating a written record.  From this problem also rose a solution.  By examining what went wrong and determining what could be learned from the mistake (Greer, 2010), we created a policy that limited the amount of material that could be purchased at one time.  The root cause of the original problem was the over purchasing of 

material.

References

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

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Practitioner voices: Overcoming ‘scope creep’ [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Welcome to Project Management

Welcome to new visitors.  For the next eight weeks, this blog will be primarily concerned with project management.  Having been an active participant in the completion of many projects, I am very interested to learn more about their management.  A natural professional progression seems to include increased levels of responsibility and the need to manage projects as they arise.

The main focus of this blog will continue to be instructional design.  That is the destination, and this is just one more of the many paths to learning.

Project Management (phases)CC BY-SA 3.0  Alphamu57 - Own work