In our last class Distance Learning we completed a 3 Module course opener; this is what I will be analyzing as my Post Mortem review. What contributed to the success of the project was the fact that the Overview was very colorful and appealing to the eye, but this is one time I wish I had used more text to describe the icon snippets I used in my Overview.
General Post Mortem Questions
- I was not so proud of my deliverable project work product I published in Distance Learning. I wish I had prepared better and included more engaging content in the last two modules.
- The single most frustrating part of the project was deciphering the Fair Use rules in order to embrace the inclusion of videos, instead of linking them to my project.
- The way I would do things next time to avoid this frustration is to take time to find engaging content earlier in the process so that I could either gather permission or find videos that are easy to use with Fair Use.
- The most gratifying part of the project was actually learning how to use and publish to a Course Management System.
- The CMS worked particularly well.
- Finding videos that catered to the Fair Use policies for videos we could use freely.
- If I could wave a magic wand and change anything about the project I would add in more engaging content for the learner and plan better.
I think I could have created a scope of the work involved and come up with a timeline for the project to be completed. Defining the scope would have made me, “define my deliverables, or what work would be performed.” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer, 2008). I am not very good at filling in the blanks so when the project is clearly defined is wonderful for me. I can then frame all project activities to be sure the true desired results can be accomplished.” (Portny et. al., 2008).
References:
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.
smacjackson 
Hi SMAC!
Nice post! I like your choice of projects and I think your analysis is candid and thoughtful. I was also hung up on the whole Fair-Use issue so I simply did not include any videos at all. It is much easier just to use text anyway!
In that particular project our primary stakeholder was Walden University and the staff who developed the course. They decided what they wanted to see in our CMS projects and it was up to us as instructional designers and project managers to interpret their desire. However, getting the information from them for how to make the CMS was very difficult. They were actually a great example of a difficult stakeholder and our textbook spends quite a bit of time describing how to deal with those.
I think you are correct in suggesting that you could have defined the scope more clearly in the beginning of project. However, that was not your fault because I believe all of us in that class struggled with the scope. I think that is why Dr. Paige spent so much time communicating the course requirements to us. With that particular project we were really held hostage by the system at WaldenU and since we could not have a face-to-face meeting with them we were probably hindered from the beginning. Our textbook recommends face-to-face meetings with all the stakeholders as a way to get clear communication (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008), and since we were not able to have a face-to-face meeting with the staff of WaldenU we were going to face problems no matter how we planned the project.
Dizz
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.
Sonya, I think it might be a good idea for the school to consider teaching us Project Management before Distance Learning — I agree that the project was difficult because I had to figure out exactly what was being called for. Our professor did provide us with detailed matrices to compare our work to the requirements, but it would have been great to have a clearer understanding of the project. We’re learning in this class how to plan, how to use communication among the stakeholders and project team members, and how to organize tasks. Understanding that these are key components to our work going forward, whatever our career paths, will only serve to enhance our projects in the future.