Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”
As I reflect on the most recent project at my place of employment; I can say that there were things that were not done well and some that were done extremely well. I work for an online university. The project our school is working on is changing the current course management system (CMS) to another. Changing from one course management system is big project and there are so many people and teams involved that things can easily get overseen or forgotten. This project is so big it is divided in stages but I want to reflect on stage one of the migration project.
The first time we knew this project was in trouble was when we did not meet the first deadline for the first roll out of courses in the new CMS. The deadline got pushed because we were not ready for the migration. I feel that management made a good decision in changing the date because if they would have launched the new CMS on the initial date things would have gone really bad. Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer and Sutton explain that project scheduling is one of the importance responsibilities for project managers. Even though I was not aware of the exact reasons of why the project was delayed, I can assume it had to do with one or more teams not getting their tasks in on time by the due date. There could have many reasons for the delay, maybe there were not enough experienced people working on the project or the project managers did not conduct an effective forward pass.
The team I work for is responsible for fixing technical issues in the classroom or escalating content issues back to the course developers and then implementing the changes. In addition, our team was in charge of updating spreadsheets with changes that have been completed in the old course management system, in order for another team to implement the changes in the CMS. The part of the project that was successful was that all the classes were migrated successfully and our team did a good job at tracking all the changes in the spreadsheet. The part that was a failure was that our team did not know enough about the new CMS in order to respond the technical difficulties that arose after the migration took place. In addition, the faculty also did not seem to be very familiar with the new CMS, a lot of issues were also due to lack of knowledge. There were things in the new CMS that worked correctly before and after the migration they were not working.
As I read the description of phase IV create deliverables and V test and implement deliverables from the assigned course reading. I can clearly say that our team did not have any input in the project. No one ever asked us what we thought even though our team plays a big part in the technical aspect of the classroom itself. Our group did not test the product in the manner that we were going to use it for our customers, which are faculty and students. If we would have created a training sandbox where we could have practiced making changes in the new CMS, we would have been ready to address our customers’ needs. The transition was not smooth for faculty, employees or students. There could have been more effective training sessions for employees and students. Even though there were online trainings, in this situation I think it would have been better to provide information sessions with a facilitator available to answer questions as the students, faculty and employees learned how to use the new CMS.
Things that could be done better in the future are probably planning the schedule in a more effective manner, keeping the project moving and also paying attention to the scope creep (Greer, 2010). When a project so big involves so many teams and each team has a different function and manager sometimes it is very hard to have control of all the possible things that can happen. The important thing is to learn from the mistakes and ensure that we plan for all possible things that can go wrong (Greer, 2010)
Resources:
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
Your analysis was indeed my first impression about the project management failure. Your team’s expertise was omitted from the project and that does did auger well for planning of projects that affected the faculty and students and consequently returns on investment. The way you described the first stage and the impact which was created because you team’s input was not incorporated make me believe that senior management did not understand that a project team approach can create successful projects.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you did not state the duration of the project, senior management should take advise from Murphy (2010) who said that senior management must understand the time required to design and develop quality training programs and must support this resource investment (p. 9). My assumption is that this project was a long-term one, so you are right about created a training sandbox where you could have practiced making changes in the new CMS, an then be ready to address your customers’ needs.
The size and nature of the project required project management strategies that relates to the design of instructional materials, and to put proper organization and focus as top priority. You seem to have felt that it was taken for granted that team members can manage such a huge project alongside their regular roles. There was so much you learned which seems to be concentrated around the significance of creating a Work Breakdown Structure to get the team together to start the project and I get the impression that you can lead a project to success using a better approach.
Reference
Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9–11.
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