Project Management - Crash Course

Managing a Project

A project is any piece of work designed to deliver a change - such as a business product according to a specific Business Case.
Types of projects vary from developing something new, improving something existing and problem solving to 'fix' a scenario- get back to what it was like before.

Important project variables that need to be considered are: Cost - Qaulity and Time

It is important to distinguish between a project and business as usual (BAU)and we define Key characteristics of a project as:

• Unique


• Brings about change


• Defined goal or outcome


• Has a clear start, middle and end


• Requires planning and coordination

The agents of a project may vary but usually centre around:

1. The Sponsor = power. The sponsor is usually in control of the project, funding, approval, overseeing and delegating work
.

2. The project Manager


3. The team members


4. The key players (i.e. the stakeholders)


5. Specialists (i.e. specialist knowledge)

When putting together a business case it will be helpful if you address the following questions:

1. Why is the project needed?


2. What other options were considered?


3. What are its objectives?


4. What are the benefits? Do they outweigh the costs?


5. How will success be measured?


6. What are the cnstraints (time, quality, cost)?


7. How much will it cost and how long will it take?


8. What are the risks and can they be managed?


9. Who needs to be involved?


10. Conclusion?

The Process:

1. Conception: The idea has been conceived, justified and initiated.


2. Definition: team meeting to discuss and clarify


3. Implementation


4. Handover and Close


5. Review

Putting together your business case:
Develop your own key headers to suit your project, however you might like to use the following as a starting point:

• Sponsor (name) /Contact


• Objectives


• Team members


• Stakeholders


• Timelines


• Scope


• Risks


• Resources


• Deliverables/Milestones


• Constraints


• Benefits

Effective Project Meetings have an agenda, a purpose and have a clear start and end point. The person chairing the meeting should deliver actions and not activities and should ensure everyones contribution is heard and should check against progress.

Setting SMART Objectives:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time bound

Finally, lets look into some reasons as to how and Why Projects fail?

• poor scheduling


• over ambitous purpose


• lack of clarity


• failure to allow enought ime to plan properly


• not aligned with business needs


• poor leadership


• unclear lines of authority


• insufficient resources


• unclear objectives


• failure to monitor progress


• failure to evaluate results


• failure to close?

Talis Aspire

Talis Aspire is a UK-wide resource management tool that improves access to eresources.
Talis Aspire (compared to the Talis List) focuses more on the student experience - provides a much better student interface, with browse and search functions. The student view supports the inclusion of information, such as a brief introductions to book, publisher details, notes added by the academic, links to the library catalogue and provides students with info on the items availability while it also offers information on where to buy the book.
Students logging in via Schib can make their own notes on the resources and can also offer feedback re: the book to the academic. Also, the reading list can be exported to excel(csv).

In contrast to TL < Aspire aims to encourage academics to create their online lists giving them complete control, by offering them a simple, navigable (collect -edit -add) resources interface with drag and drop functions of building and managing a reading list.
The resources can be categorised and managed easily and the table of contents are navigable by students to any portion of the reading lists. Currently, you cannot import or export from any other application i.e Endnote, delicious, etc however this is smth that will be developed in the near future.

Finally, it works with any library catalogues and DOY such as Science Direct and IngentaConnect!

Further information can be found on the Talis website at http://www.talis.com/aspire/
There is also a useful video tour at http://blogs.talis.com/aspire/

Generating Learning Objects

Generating Learning Objects and GLO Maker

Last week, I attended a seminar provided from CEEBL (Centre for Excellence in Enquiry Based Learning) at the UoM on Generating Learning Objects (GLOs).
The seminar demonstrated and investigated the flexibility and pedagogical richness of GLOs and some of the ways in which they may be used to support personalised learning.
Learning Objects are defined as reusable digital educational resources with a clear learning objective, aim or goal.
They are basically small chunks of digital material specifically designed to engage and motivate student learning. The key is to describe in what context a user might learn something from the particular learning object. LOs are grounded in the object-oriented paradigm and they can be used for quick instruction and can be incorporated into online education curricula.
A learning object usually includes content presentation, activities, assessment practices, a glossary and multimedia – all centred around a particular learning aim.

Characteristics of Learning Objects are:

1. Digital and web based


2. Flexible and content is highly adaptable


3. Reusable pedagogical designs


4. Self contained, granular


5. easily searchable – metadata tags


6. Multimedia content - for example graphics, text, audio, animation, interactive tools


7. Smaller, portable material


8. support and increase student learning


9. Productivity ( easy to create)


10. self contained smaller reusable learning items

The biggest benefit in GlOs that I witnessed from an elearning technologist perspective is that I saw pasionate academics engaging in elearning activity, excited for their creations and enthused to share good practice amongst their colleagues.

The examples of GLos presented at the seminar ranged in disciplines and were primarily used as student preparation for weekly lectures, establishing prior knowledge and self testing. The examples focused on high order questions and included more visuals, interactivity and sensory experiences.
Examples follow:

• Eleanor Okell demonstrated how eMI design (engaging with multiple interpretations) was employed in Humanities disciplines to support students understanding of recognising and negotiating the range of possible answers to questions.


• Janet Tatlock used GLOs to introduce students to some of the ways in which they will be required to contribute to scholarly debate at the uni. Students explore the ways in which objects may be invested with value and who or what may determine value.


• Kate Cooper and Jamie Wood developed a digital learning framework that would help students to engage with and carry out enquiry activities into the numerous papyri fragments that are preserved in John Ryland university library.


• Phd students have produced GLOs on the eMI pattern which explores the different ways in which theses related disciplines may investigate an object or concept.

The seminar focused on GLO Maker, a free, easy to use authoring tool for creating learning resources developed from London Met . Pedagogical designs have been built into GLO Maker , making it extremely easy for academics to add their content to produce learning objects. All designs are executables (.exe) and run on the web and in VLEs, such as Moodle and Blackboard.

As any other tool , it has its advantages and disadvantages but learning object repositories continue to grow and interest is still high.


Further links
GLO Maker: http://www.glomaker.org/index.html
RLO- CETL http://www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk/joomla/index.php
GLO example: RLO determining the clinical importance of trial results available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/rlos/ebp/trial_results/2.html
RLOs free for use http://www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=246&Itemid=297
Download GLO maker http://www.glomaker.org/downloads.html
GLO Maker Support guides: http://www.glomaker.org/guides.html