REFLECTION

By Andrea Marshall

Of the four courses that comprise this Certificate in Instructional Design

program, I was most apprehensive about this the final course EDUC 768
Project Management for Instructional Development. My anxiety stemmed
not only from the fact that I was venturing into the unfamiliar territory of
project management; but I was also concerned about how I would make it
through this fully online course in which the majority of the assessments are
group assignments, and that I reside in Barbados. Determined to successfully
complete the program, I made a conscious effort to suppress my anxiety and
move full steam ahead. This was facilitated by the wonderful team members
with whom I worked for the past ten weeks. I soon came to appreciate the
fact that the world is truly a global village, and that with the technological
advances that surround us, we are not bound by location and physical
space.

Our team – Team #1 comprising Elizabeth Davey, Cassandra Kopp, Kenneth

Fields and myself was a truly distributed team, dispersed across different
continents – the Americas and Europe; and time zones – Central Time,
Mountain Time, American Standard Time and Central European Summer
Time. Therefore, it came as no surprise when during our first team meeting
held on March 17, 2019, Kenneth who prefers to be called Blue suggested
that we be called Team International, and everyone embraced the idea. To
build the team spirit through effective communication, individual members
proposed various methods by which we could communicate in addition to
using the UW –Stout email. Cassandra created a WhatsApp group which was
used for our initial team meeting conference calls, and continued to be used
throughout the course as an easy way for us to connect with each other
each week. However, WhatsApp conference calls are limited to four
participants, so in order to invite Professor Coverstone to our team meetings
which were held on Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon ET, Blue created a

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dedicated conference call line. In addition Elizabeth created a space on
Microsoft Teams where we could share and edit our documents. At times
there were some challenges with the technology so invariably we resorted to
the tried and tested UW – Stout email. After investigating several project
management tools, the team decided that we would use Trello for this
project but for whatever reason, we never implemented that decision. For
the most part team members worked independently and shared ideas during
the week. Consensus on the weekly team assignments was reached following
discussions at the weekly team meetings.

Project management processes and procedures were studied and applied

utilizing the PJ Enterprises case study. This practical approach to PM was
invaluable to me since I had never been involved in a project before. The
needs assessment focused primarily on whether or not there was a
performance gap within the company, and if such a gap exists, whether it
could be addressed through training. It included the collection of information
about the organization – its vision and mission, hierarchical structure,
employee categories and job descriptions, key performance indicators for
employee categories, major players in the company and company
documents. Information collection methods included interviews, surveys,
document analysis and observations. To my mind this detailed analysis
presented the holistic picture of the PJ Enterprises experience, and provided
the basis for the establishment of a training need and the design of training to
address that need.

The Project Charter is a critical element of the initiation phase in the project
cycle. It documents the business need, justifies the project, articulates the
limits of scope, and describes the final deliverable(s) of the project in the form
of goods, services or both. It is the baseline for understanding what we need
to know about the project. More importantly it finalizes how success will be
measured in the project, for instance completing the project on time and
within budget. Charter development helped us to drill down on what the
team will address in the project and what we will not deal with. This was

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extremely important since it clarified the roles, responsibilities and
expectations of the project team and PJs Enterprises personnel, leaving little
room for misunderstanding that could prove problematic later on in the
project cycle. Moreover, the charter is a reminder of what the project is
supposed to accomplish and thus can be used to keep everyone focused
and on track.

The Project Management Plan also called the Scope Management Plan
follows on from the project charter but it documents in greater detail the
overall approach that will be used to plan and manage a project. It
addresses the required activities and product that must be developed.
Formulation of this plan was significant to me because it concentrated to on
every conceivable aspect of the project, including the deliverables and how
work will be broken down into packages to realize them; the roles and
responsibilities of each stakeholder; the project schedule; communication;
scope verification and scope control. This no stone left unturned approach to
this planning phase of the project cycle points towards a successful project.
Also of paramount importance was the involvement of and input from the
stakeholders in this planning phase. This augers well for stakeholder buy-in to
the project as well as the successful implementation or execution of the
project.

I was most comfortable with the Instructional Design Document given my

experiences in the previous courses of the program and the nature of my role
in faculty development. However, our team experienced a bit of a challenge
with writing the terminal objectives using Mager’s technique. Once Professor
Coverstone clarified this for us, I saw the value of this approach particularly in
terms of competency based training. For the purposes of this project it made
sense to address the skills that the customer service representatives would
need to develop and/or hone to be more effective and efficient in their jobs,
resulting in raising the bar on customer satisfaction scores.

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For me the creation of the Facilitator Guide presented my most valuable
experience in this course. After nineteen years of teaching secondary school,
as well as delivering workshops on areas relating primarily to teaching and
learning I have developed requisite skills in writing goals and objectives,
alignment and so on as the teacher/facilitator/presenter. However, to write a
module for another person to take up and use was a totally different
experience. At every stage I was forced to think like the end user, and this
helped me to fill in many gaps to include the missing pertinent information. I
have grown tremendously because of that experience. I am encouraged to
think like the end user/recipient as I prepare to teach, facilitate or present
information in whatever form. This will definitely result in more effective
communication and consequent assimilation of material.

Module 7 the execution phase was about the easiest module to complete
regarding the assignment, on account of the fact that each team member
selected a document and worked to complete it. This phase represents
carrying out the work that would have been planned for the project, so one
has to be mindful of the need to minimize the distractions, and focus on the
tasks at hand with the view to successfully completing the project on time
and within budget. In this module it was useful see the approaches that my
team members took in developing their execution phase documents, and to
experience the workings of an actual project in its day to day operations.

I strongly believe that Team International was cohesive and we worked well
together. Although the meeting time that we selected could have presented
a major challenge relative to the completion of the assignments, given that
we met on Sunday, the day that the assignment is due, this potential
challenge was mitigated because each team member pulled his/her weight,
and focused on the task that was selected or assigned. Additionally, Professor
Coverstone was gracious in extending our submission time by 24 hours,
accommodating for our meeting time. The actual meeting time was used for
discussion and to pull together the pieces into a consistent document. For
instance in order to construct the Facilitator’s Guide, Elizabeth divided the

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tasks into manageable packages and each of us selected an area for which
we would be responsible. After putting the pieces together we then critiqued
and wove the document into a quality cohesive product.

All of the members were dependable and demonstrated shared

responsibility. Each of us applied our research skills to the tasks and shared
information as necessary via email or utilizing Microsoft Teams. There was
never an instance in which anyone of us had to pick up the slack because
another abdicated his/her responsibility. When difficulties arose however, the
team was extremely supportive. I speak of my own experience with the team
when I faced a family crisis during the week of the Easter holiday. Once the
team became aware of my consecutive visits to the emergency medical
facility, (about four visits) they were willing to cover my assigned tasks if
needed. I am eternally grateful for their support at that trying time. Thankfully,
I was able to complete my portion of the assignment.

I really looked forward to our weekly team meetings. Our discussions were
rich, fruitful and I learned a great deal from the experiences that team
members shared. In listening, questioning and discussing there were times
when we did not necessarily agree with the proposed course(s) of action but
we voted and went with the opinion(s) of the majority. Blue was especially
inspirational given his military background and the fact that he has lived and
worked around the world. Elizabeth was the person I think that really kept the
team together. She would be the first to make a suggestion about how the
assignments may be approached. We would then add to her ideas and
decide on the final course of action. Cassandra was the problem solver in
the group. When Blue could not make the team meeting because he was
caught for hours in a traffic jam, she suggested putting together a screen
capture recording of our questions and concerns, share it and follow up with
email. This worked very well for us.

Given my temperament, I was very conscious about my dominating the

team in terms of assignment “completion”. I would be the one to produce

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the assignment in advance of the team meeting. So as the weeks went by I
tried to relax in this area as I did not want to deny the other team members
the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. At every stage
though, and for every assignment the team worked extremely well to make
valuable contributions to the assignments resulting in much improved
products.

At completion of this course I can report that I have grown tremendously,

and that all my anxieties have been erased. I have developed new
knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs, and I firmly believe that I am better off
for this experience and that I am better positioned to fulfil my role in my
current and future spheres of employment. Special thanks to my team mates
– Elizabeth Davey, Cassandra Kopp and Kenneth Fields; and instructor
Professor Paul Coverstone, for their contributions to this realization.