systems

Understand that we live and work within systems of cause and effect in which actions may have multiple origins and consequences.

5-minute Captivate narration of our project, with a focus on my role with budget and scheduling

Proposal Report: 684 Project Report

Appendices I developed: Timeline, budget, and personnel systems

Reflection

For my EDTEC 684 Project Management (PM) course taught by Dr. Marshall, I worked as part of a three member team in designing a web site and training proposal. Our assignment was to create a government sponsored web site to motivate citizens to become watchful, informed, secure, and empowered. In addition, the project required planning for an Instructor Led Training (ILT) rollout for introducing the web site to each of the 50 states emergency response agencies.

Classmates Sharon Filadelfia, Cindy Murray and I comprised our team called: "Performance Solutions Incorporated" (PSI). Our semester long project taught me the valuable role of overlapping systems in the real project management world. Understanding the inter-dependencies of the Time, Budget, Quality triangle systematic model is important for my future Coast Guard assignments. In this model, cause and effect are intertwined within costs, staffing, deadlines, and final product quality. You can generally have two of the three, such as speed and costs, but the third element quality will often then suffer. As a Project Manager, you are ultimately involved in managing and juggling a number of intricate systems, many of which you have little control over especially for large scale projects.

I focused on helping with the schedule and budget. We all worked on each of the systems, but I took the lead in putting it all together for final presentation. I discovered that factoring in all the variables required creativity and attention to detail. I crafted our $950,000 budget in excel, as well as the project schedule and ILT. Color coding was effective in displaying the figures balancing detail and communication minimum standards. I focused on making the graphics readable for the audience, easy to understand, and authentic to real world strategies. Consequently, I took into account holidays, risks, sick, or employee changes.

Besides worrying about the cause and effect relationships within the systems requirements for staffing and scheduling, the biggest problem I encountered in the project was in our communication system. Although the three of us were all in the military, I felt in the beginning we struggled in decision making and delegating work. We often overlapped assignments and had trouble on which direction to go. From our readings and guest speakers, I realized for myself that I did not express my thoughts clearly. As the project moved forward, I felt we improved in delegation of responsibilities and communication. I also recognized I improved on my ability to listen and provide constructive criticism. Overall, I felt we had a strong sense of outcomes and synergy, especially as we improved in our ability to communicate. Our project really had great ideas, such as incentives like the ACE hardware coupons, regionalized ILT, and use of a pedagogical agent in helping people guide through the web site.

The opportunity to work on a simulated large scale project was extremely helpful to my Coast Guard job. At first, I was frustrated with the class due to the vagueness of the project and the deliverables. Dr. Marshall reassured us that this was part of the class challenge and similar to that found in the real world. He mentioned in class that nobody awards a contract they don’t want to do themselves.

The lessons I learned in understanding the systems of Project Management has already helped me with my EDTEC 700 Business and Learning class taught by Dr. Rossett. I used my experience with time, budget, and quality in proposing a fictitious company HazScan that merged the "sweet spot" of business and instruction designed with fellow Coast Guard classmate, Ed Beale. Our attention to PM detail and providing detailed visions of our proposal assisted us with winning the most venture capitalist funding from the guest judges and fellow classmates.

When I reflect on what I learned with project management, I realize I am much better prepared for future large scale system based Coast Guard projects. I am confident in my ability to convey complex systems, like million dollar budgets and 15-person staffing is a concise and confident manner as well as understand terminology like Gantt charts, Scope, and Padding.

Secondary Artifact

HazScan briefing deck (EDTEC 700 Business and Learning). A team presentation "pitch" using a variety of business and learning systems to develop a "sweet spot" company.

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