Project 2
Project 2
LDT640
LDT640
Embedded Files
Project 2 Project Management Plan
Project 2 Project Management Plan
In Project 2, we worked with our learning design team to construct a project management plan. Project management plays a crucial role in designing a learning environment. Learning designers create effective learning experiences, and project management organizes vital components and tasks to deliver quality learning experiences within the planned timeframe, scope, and budget (UMGC, n.d.d; Google Career Certificates, n.d.; Wiley, 2018). The following elements are essential functions of project management that all learning designers should know.
Project Management by Element
Project Management by Element
Project Charter (Scope)
One of the critical elements is defining scopes and goals. Establishing an overview of the project in a project charter with clear goals and scopes as a reference guide will keep stakeholders involved on the same page. Defining parameters, including the specific learning outcomes, target audiences, resources required, timeline for completion, and legal and ethical considerations, ensures that the project is aligned with the organization’s goals and meets the learner’s needs. Since the project charter is a condensed high-level overview that everyone involved would review, consideration should be given to see if all stakeholders can access the document.
Schedule/Gantt Chart
The second element is planning and organization. Creating a learning environment requires detailed planning, breaking down the tasks into smaller pieces, determining dependencies, and mapping them over a project term. It can coordinate the LDT with components such as analysis, setting goals and objectives, content and assessment development, technology integration, implementation, and evaluations.
When the project has layered components, creating a timeline, also called the Gantt Chart, is helpful to establish a shareable system among team members either by a shared calendar or online platforms such as Asana, Trello, or other project management tools. The project scheduling tool would only benefit when the team members are familiar with it. Using the same project scheduling tool the organization uses might be efficient, reducing the learning curb on the tool.
Resources
The third element is allocating resources. Identifying the required expertise, budget, technology, software, and infrastructure will help manage resources, deliver the learning experience within the allocated constraints, and meet the quality standard.
Communication
The fourth element is managing stakeholders. Since creating a learning environment involves various stakeholders, including subject matter experts, instructors, learners, and other organizational or community members, it is suggested to organize their roles and different engagement levels in a RACI chart and write a communication plan. A communication plan provides a guideline to foster a shared understanding and dispense appropriate information levels for stakeholder groups. These plans facilitate effective collaboration and coordination among stakeholders throughout the scheduled phases.
Risk Management
The fifth element is managing risks. Risk management identifies and evaluates potential risks and issues that could impact a project. The benefit of risk management is preparing for uncertain events by thinking through how the project could pivot and still meet goals, even if issues arise. In designing a learning experience, risks can be technical issues, resource constraints, scope creep, or delays. Proactively managing risks helps minimize disruptions and ensures the project's timely completion.
Quality Assurance and Evaluation
The final element is quality assurance and continuous monitoring and evaluation. Project management includes establishing quality standards and processes for reviewing and evaluating the learning environment design. It involves conducting usability testing and regular feedback cycles to ensure the learning materials, activities, and assessments are engaging and aligned with the desired learning outcomes.
Monitoring and evaluation encompasses tracking milestones, analyzing data, and gathering feedback from learners and stakeholders. Continuous monitoring and evaluation help identify areas for improvement, make necessary adjustments, and ensure the enhancement of the learning experience.
Project Management Plan (PMP)
Project Management Plan (PMP)
We named our team Team T.R.E. and distributed the tasks. We produced a PMP, which resulted in 30 pages long. I contributed to creating a schedule/Gantt Chart, risk management plan, and stakeholder communications plan.
Team T.R.E. Project Management Plan.pdfSustainable Leadership
Sustainable Leadership
I wrote a short leadership philosophy and shared it with my peers. I focused on Sustainable Leadership, and the items mentioned here were later self-evaluated in a critical analysis paper in Project 5.
Sustainable Leadership
"Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal" (Northouse, 2022). It involves envisioning, determining the principles and values, and collaborating with people that lead to common goals. The core of the burgeoning leadership styles emphasizes influence over authority. In retrospect, I borrowed some of the tacit knowledge as the needs emerged. The following three aspects of sustainable leadership are derived from observing role models in philosophy and managerial practice.
Intrapersonal: Self-awareness and Emotional Intelligence
Sustainable leadership requires a certain degree of self-awareness. Honesty and integrity within themselves are the foundation of influencing others. Their inner self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) is palpable when they are:
Navigating uncertainty, as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic years, the attitude within themselves reflected on how they facilitated the chaotic phase.
Being challenged with stress but not throwing themselves into panic mode. Instead, leaders can calmly gather information and sort out what is manageable.
From CliftonStrengths® to interviewing people, there are common threads that underpin my personal strengths. One of the threads is sensing the emotional status of others and myself, also called emotional intelligence (Gransberry, 2022, p. 937; Goleman, 1995). Instead of projecting reactions to others, I regulate the spectrum of emotions as information and put them in the direction of finding appropriate responses.
Interpersonal: Communicating a Vision
Influential leaders have tremendous interpersonal communication capability across a diverse range of people. Their characteristics include the following:
Inspiring others with the vision by materializing a small model case is more persuasive than an extended strategic plan.
Demonstrating openness and forward-looking credibility (Goolamally & Ahmad, 2014, p. 122) to stakeholders and holding themselves accountable for their actions and decisions.
Establishing mutual trust, warmth, and rapport through horizontal positioning (TU Delft Open Course Ware, 2020).
Community values and vision drove my one-decade project of creating an educational program around the school garden. I could see the invisible network of resources and people at the right time to build relationships through interconnection and influence through maximizing potential in others.
Executive: Systems Thinking
While aiming for the near future, leaders are still responsible for delivering short-term outcomes, which is part of the entire system. Leaders keep a big picture by ensuring:
Prioritizing the well-being of the environment and society while maximizing people's involvement in positive contributions.
Developing long-term ethical solutions under short-term quick fixes.
Embracing innovation and being willing to adapt to meet evolving challenges and opportunities.
I am at my best when I first see an overall blueprint, then add mapping frames and prioritize strategies with deliberate inputs into the interdependent subsystems. When I can harness people’s creativity and persistence into the mix of inputs, the whole system will become more self-sustaining.
References
Google Career Certificates. (n.d.). Google Project Management: Professional Certificate [MOOC]. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/google-project-management
IDEO Design Thinking. (n.d.). IDEO | Design Thinking. https://designthinking.ideo.com/
University of Maryland Global Campus. (n.d.d). Project Management Framework in LDT 640. Document posted in UMGC LDT 640 9040 online classroom, archived at https://learn.umgc.edu
Wiley, D. (2018). Project Management for Instructional Designers (1st ed.). EdTech Books. https://doi.org/10.59668/pm4id
Sustainable Leadership
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional intelligence (10th-anniversary trade pbk. ed). Bantam Books.
Goolamally, N., & Ahmad, J. (2014). Attributes of School Leaders Towards Achieving Sustainable Leadership: A Factor Analysis. Journal of Education and Learning, 3(1), 122. https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v3n1p122
Gransberry, C. K. (2022). How Emotional Intelligence Promotes Leadership and Management Practices. Public Organization Review, 22(4), 935–948. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-021-00550-4
Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (Ninth Edition). SAGE Publishing.
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