This weeks post will be about communication. Most of us have probably played the game as a kid where someone whispers a message in your ear and everyone passes that message on one by one. Once the message gets to the last person it usually is different. This is a problem with communication between two people, whether it's because they misheard or misinterpreted doesn't matter.
I will also be discussing how a message can seem to have a different meaning depending on the medium it is on. (Ex. voice mail, in person, and email)
My first interpretation is of an email. In this email Jane is informing Mark that she needs to know when he will be able to finish his report because she needs to get information from his report to finish hers. She said that he could also just send the information she needs to her via email. Part of the reason she is in a rush to do it is because she has her own deadline of when she has to get her report turned in. She also mentions that she heard he would be in an all day meeting.
My second interpretation is of a voice mail. It is the exact same message just left in a voice mail. I interpreted the message in the same way as before. I do feel it would be better as an email since Jane was requesting information to be sent back to her.
The final form of communication is a face to face conversation. I got the same interpretation of the message. The difference with the face to face communication is that I felt the need to take care of it right then and there instead of putting of until later.
One thing that I learned from this assignment is that the mode you use depends what information you are trying to get. As I mentioned earlier I feel if you are looking for an email back with information I feel an email is the best form of communication. Also I feel a face to face communication will get more immediate results.
Even though I interpreted the messages the same each time I understand how someone could easily get a different interpretation of the message based on the form of it. Facial expressions and gestures that you receive during a face to face communication give off another message while you're talking. I feel tone and urgency is the biggest difference you find with different modes of communication.
I learned that there are many different forms of communication that can be used in all sorts of situations. As a PM I would decide in advance and inform the rest of the team what forms of communication should be used either for all communications or at least in what situations.
Reference:
Laureate Education. (Producer). (2010). [Online]. The Art of Effective Communication. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Post Mortem
This weeks post is about a project that I was a part of in the past as a technology teacher at a public high school. I will discuss why the project was not as successful as everyone involved hoped it would be.
I was a new teacher at a school in Maryland and was coming in to the start of a new program that the school wanted to kick off. It was an engineering program that was successful all over the country. The school wanted me to take the reigns of the entire program. That includes the planning on how to teach it, the budget and list of materials needed. I even had to figure out a way to recruit and keep the students in my classes since all technology courses are electives I didn't have graduation requirements on my side for enrollment.
The principal and Board of Education for the district had a vested interested in the success of the program because of the money that was going into it and it being a new program they wanted it to be successful. I would call them the stakeholders for this project. I was both the ID and PM due to my long list of responsibilities. The students also played a roll in the project because they had to be successful and want to enroll and stick with the program. I also had the support of my department chair but since he didn't know the content as well as I did I only had his help with equipment restraints, space in the classrooms, and basic supplies.
The students were very successful that did enroll in the course and followed through, but even with that success there were flaws and failures in the project. I must admit that one of the problems with the project was myself, the PM. Not only was I new to the school, I was also a first year teacher out of college and had never run my own classroom before. Not only did I have to create I successful program from scratch but I also had to learn the basics, first hand, of being a teacher.
Another problem I had was that the project began in late may of the year I took it over but I didn't arrive on the scene until late July. During that time someone else was in control that didn't really know what they were doing and spent a good portion of the allocated funds on something they thought was needed but wasn't. They also began the initial student enrollment process and set up my first few classes for me. As we all know taking over a project in the middle that was run by someone else always causes problems for the new person on board.
Some of the successes were in student performance and that was due to my expertise in the content and how I taught the material. Since I was fresh out of college I knew a lot about new technologies and math used in engineering.
One of the steps outlined by Greer as steps needed to manage a project were already taken care of for me by the previous PM. Like defining the project concept, getting support and approval. Step 2, getting my team together and starting the project, was started by the first PM, hence my being there, and then was taken over by me to find whoever I needed to help me be successful. Step 3 was already decided for me because we knew that we wanted good enrollment and retention in our courses and of course student success, money was of minor concern at this point.
In the end I feel the big problems with the project were the, what I feel, bad planning of the first PM and project team. Followed by a bad division of job responsibilities and inexperienced PM. Also since no one had done anything like this before there were a lot of people that didn't know what to do or expect. I feel to many people tried to take on to many different jobs at once to try and make this project successful.
References
Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.
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.
I was a new teacher at a school in Maryland and was coming in to the start of a new program that the school wanted to kick off. It was an engineering program that was successful all over the country. The school wanted me to take the reigns of the entire program. That includes the planning on how to teach it, the budget and list of materials needed. I even had to figure out a way to recruit and keep the students in my classes since all technology courses are electives I didn't have graduation requirements on my side for enrollment.
The principal and Board of Education for the district had a vested interested in the success of the program because of the money that was going into it and it being a new program they wanted it to be successful. I would call them the stakeholders for this project. I was both the ID and PM due to my long list of responsibilities. The students also played a roll in the project because they had to be successful and want to enroll and stick with the program. I also had the support of my department chair but since he didn't know the content as well as I did I only had his help with equipment restraints, space in the classrooms, and basic supplies.
The students were very successful that did enroll in the course and followed through, but even with that success there were flaws and failures in the project. I must admit that one of the problems with the project was myself, the PM. Not only was I new to the school, I was also a first year teacher out of college and had never run my own classroom before. Not only did I have to create I successful program from scratch but I also had to learn the basics, first hand, of being a teacher.
Another problem I had was that the project began in late may of the year I took it over but I didn't arrive on the scene until late July. During that time someone else was in control that didn't really know what they were doing and spent a good portion of the allocated funds on something they thought was needed but wasn't. They also began the initial student enrollment process and set up my first few classes for me. As we all know taking over a project in the middle that was run by someone else always causes problems for the new person on board.
Some of the successes were in student performance and that was due to my expertise in the content and how I taught the material. Since I was fresh out of college I knew a lot about new technologies and math used in engineering.
One of the steps outlined by Greer as steps needed to manage a project were already taken care of for me by the previous PM. Like defining the project concept, getting support and approval. Step 2, getting my team together and starting the project, was started by the first PM, hence my being there, and then was taken over by me to find whoever I needed to help me be successful. Step 3 was already decided for me because we knew that we wanted good enrollment and retention in our courses and of course student success, money was of minor concern at this point.
In the end I feel the big problems with the project were the, what I feel, bad planning of the first PM and project team. Followed by a bad division of job responsibilities and inexperienced PM. Also since no one had done anything like this before there were a lot of people that didn't know what to do or expect. I feel to many people tried to take on to many different jobs at once to try and make this project successful.
References
Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.
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.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Welcome
Welcome to those of you that are viewing my blog. My name is Stephan and I am currently enrolled in an online course called Project Management in Education and Training.
I would like to say that I appreciate your interest and look forward to teaching you and learning from you as the weeks go by and as I post to this blog
I would like to say that I appreciate your interest and look forward to teaching you and learning from you as the weeks go by and as I post to this blog
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)