Fail to Plan – Plan to Fail

By Ed Mayberry

Over the past several years, I have noticed the need for most instructional designers to serve dual roles: instructional designer and project manager. Here’s an overview of project management for instructional designers responsible for the development of online learning materials.

Consider the following situation:

Four weeks ago, the VP of sales asked you to develop an online training course for 500 sales support representatives. It’s a five-week project; your team includes you as the instructional designer (and unofficial project manager), a qualified subject matter expert, and a Web developer. Currently, you consider yourself at 95 percent completion of the course. However, the customer has reviewed the course and thinks you've developed only 65 percent of the final course. The customer also requests significant modifications. In two weeks, your SME and Web developer are starting other projects, the customer is questioning your abilities, your boss wants the course published on the LMS, and you’re wondering how this happened.

In Hollywood, there’s a saying: “You’re only as good as your last movie.” Well, it’s not so different in the corporate world—where you’re only as good as your last project. And, if the customer isn’t satisfied with you or your ability to manage a project, people will hear about it.

Let’s examine the project facts related to the opening example.

• The customer is the vice president of sales within your organization.
• You’re the instructional designer—and the project manager.
• The deliverable is an online learning course.
• The product must be available on your LMS in five weeks.
• A qualified SME will be available to assist with content review and development of the posttest questions.

As you review the project facts, you'll find that critical information regarding the completed product (deliverable) is missing. 

• What specific topics need to be covered?
• How many modules do you need to develop?
• What’s the estimated seat time?
• Which development tool will you use?
• Where will the final course reside?
• How many opportunities are there for client review?
• What are the specific due dates for milestone deliverables?

You get the picture. And about now, you’re probably reflecting on the differences between an instructional designer and a project manager.

Even though instructional designers have solid organizational and time management skills, it's not enough to prepare them for the added responsibilities associated with project management. Project management requires an instructional designer to also manage online learning throughout each phase of the project development, such as

• proposal: negotiating scope of work, deliverables, and due dates
• start-up: on-boarding team members
• execution: meeting deadlines for deliverables
• wrap-up: completing work to specifications and getting customer sign-off
• roll-out: delivering final product and migrating team members to other projects.

Our example identifies several pitfalls stemming from no clear scope statement in the proposal phase, which damaged the project manager's credibility in the wrap-up phase. Therefore, it’s necessary to examine what you need to do to avoid project pitfalls and keep all systems on track.

Project management basics

First, let’s define project: A project is a temporary, organized effort that provides a unique product or deliverable within constraints of scope, time, and resources. Projects are organized and structured to accomplish a very specific purpose, which is often one-of-a-kind or unique.

Now, let’s define what is meant by the term project manager. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), “Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project.” The primary goals of a project manager is to make certain that a project is delivered on time, within budget, to specifications, and meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Effective project management also yields a number of benefits.

Clear feedback and direction. Tasks status and issues are reviewed individually and frequently with each team member

A plan that provides direction. The project plan reflects the current status of all project activities and is used to actively control the project. It also gives the team a sense of purpose and direction.

Performance feedback. Performance and capacity of each team member is monitored through metric analysis.

Status reports review points and issues that are key to stakeholders and customers. They focus on objective metrics and identify project issues and changes.

Project constraints

In order to achieve any benefits, it’s necessary to understand the three primary constraints relevant to every project: scope, time, and resources.

Scope identifies the project deliverables. It details what the deliverable includes, as well as a specific explanation of what is not included, to further clarify the terms of work. It sounds simple, but sometimes indicating what isn’t delivered becomes a critical point when it's time to wrap up the project—especially when the customer thinks you should perform additional work. It’s critical to carefully monitor changes in scope and to communicate how changes affect your schedule and budget. At the same time, deliverables within scope need to be clearly defined. In conclusion, a project without scope constraints isn’t a project; it's a disaster.

The second constraint, time, indicates how long you have to complete the project. Time relates directly to the project schedule, or all relevant points leading up to the final completion date. Ideally, the project schedule begins after the terms are negotiated, but that isn’t always the case. For this reason, the project manager must remain flexible and manage against customer’s established deadlines.

Resources includes both people and materials (hardware, software, and any other items that you use to accomplish project goals). Oftentimes, resources are charged against the project budget. Typically, fewer resources will result in a longer development schedule. Availability of resources, therefore, becomes a critical factor in terms of project success.

Realities of project management

There are a few basic realities related to project management for online learning development.

Customer expectations are critical to the success of your project. Typical problems include scope creep, endless revisions, a never-ending list of new ideas, and so forth. When you hear “wouldn’t it be great if…,” remember that effective project management requires tactful ways to address and avoid scope creep. It’s important to build a solid relationship with your customer and demo a prototype as soon as possible to improve communication and verify whether you’re on the right track. You should always document customer communications after every meeting, indicating time, date, and outcomes of each discussion. Finally, take a “no surprises” approach: Your customer should not be surprised by anything they see.

Team members may not always work well as a team. Typical problems include personality conflicts, lack of skilled team members, shared team members across project teams, and late or poor quality work. Lack of a cohesive project team will grow exponentially and derail projects—especially if there are aggressive deadlines. The most important thing to remember is to recognize and address these problems early.

Online learning materials are developed within an unstable environment. With this issue, there are numerous points of failure. Typical problems include network failure, software problems (incompatibility, failure, licensing), hardware problems, and technical limitations. Each of these issues can result in schedule delays. To avoid these problems, test technical capabilities as soon as possible and build solid relationships with IT troubleshooters.

Being a project manager forces an instructional designer to step above the work that needs to be completed in order to

• manage project deliverables
• anticipate problems and solutions
• communicate with key stakeholders
• motivate a project team to complete tasks
• negotiate and renegotiate project terms with customers.

To ensure success as a project manager, you will need to develop some form of project charter that describes what your project will accomplish. My suggestion is combining the concept of a charter with a design document. Begin with the end in mind and write a brief, specific document that indicates the problem, scope of work, specific deliverables, and due dates.

Take a moment to review the following sample charter for a small online learning project.

Bottom line

If you are new to project management, this may seem overwhelming. Keep in mind that, as an instructional designer, you are at a tremendous advantage. You understand the big picture. Indeed, I have worked on several projects in which the project manager knew nothing about online learning, instructional design, or learning theory. You can just imagine the affect that had on the final product.

You're on the road to project management success if you remember the basics: deliver on time, to scope, and within budget—and if your team will work with you in the future.