Analyzing Scope Creep

Describe a project, either personal or professional, that experienced issues related to scope creep.

Background Information

Working in a non-profit agency sometimes can be challenging, demanding of your time, talents (abilities to multi-task) and being a productive, dependable and knowledgeable team player. 

I was assigned to work with our adult education program and workforce development program. These were two different service model programs that offered an employability skills training curriculum that enhanced job readiness skills and job seeking skills. My role in both programs focused on providing case management services and f2f instruction by following our curriculum, for the employability soft skills training

Adult Education Literacy Program

The adult education program provided adult learners an opportunity to complete their high school education by participating in GED preparation-literacy activities, upgrade academic skills (math, reading, writing and science) via f2f and computer-based academic instruction.  The program also offered an official GED practice testing- offered to determine readiness to take an Official GED Test and employability.  The employability part of the program was my role to develop individual plans for the adult learners, which had to include credentials of employability skill development in oral communication, resume development, college application development, and other activities that makes the college/career transition smoother.

Workforce Development Employability Skills Training Program

The Workforce development program provided services to individuals with employability challenges that were chronically unemployed, had learned dependence on entitlements (welfare/government recipients), people with servere underdevelopment socialization skills and assisting ex-offenders to migrate back into their communities as working class citizens.

What specific scope creep issues occurred?

While working in both programs at the same time I had a set working schedule that included specific days and times that I should report to each program.  They were located in separate locations and I had two program managers to report too.  The program manager for the workforce program was my direct manager for five years prior to my assignment in the adult education program.  We had a great working relationship and she depended on my work ethics because I had a lot of program and procedures knowledge and experience working with our trainees, program funders, contractors and management.   Prior to reporting to the adult education program, I had built a rapport with that manager and she was working at my location approximately one year before taking over the adult education program.  She learned about through conversation with management and had the opportunity to observe my work ethics, personality and passion I had with working with our trainees and requested to work with me.  I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to do something different and challenging.

In the adult education program, I had to develop and design all program processes, soft skills training instruction and learn about my role as an academic advisor.  I accomplished this with ease and transition in to my role and got good at it.

Issues

Program manager for the workforce program was threated about sharing my talents, and time and began to demand that I increase my time with the program.  This was not necessary because I had gotten a routine and was able to complete this program tasks ahead of schedule.  The adult education program was demanding more of my time and need the attention especially by being the primary person to design and develop training materials and procedures.  It got so hectic that I had to do adult education tasks on my other program-scheduled time and this caused management feud.  

How did you or other stakeholders deal with those issues at the time?

The program manager for the adult education program was supportive and was willing to adjust my time even though she knew I needed more time with her program.  She would request meetings with the other program manager so my schedule could be adjusted etc.    There was no cooperation from the workforce program manager and things got out of control and to the point that I had to go to the Program Director.  Let me just say that the workforce program manager got her way and I was relieved of my duties from the adult education program immediately.

Looking back on the experience now, had you been in the position of managing the project, what could you have done to better manage these issues and control the scope of the project?

If I had been in the position of managing the project, I would have used the Project Life Cycle-Start phase and network diagram.

Life Cycle Phase (Start phase): Identify the people who will be working on the project and start to develop formal agreements for the use of equipment, facilities, vendors and other resources (Portny, et.al, 2008, p. 127).  At minimum, I would have done the following:

·                  Launching a meeting with management and the employee schedule to work both programs

·                  Discuss the employee’s assume roles in both programs

·                  Collectively brainstorm with management and employee the potential tasks to be completed in both programs

·                  Create a tentative project schedule that would allow flexibility for the employee to work in both programs.  Allow for schedule changes if needed as long as both managers and employee agree and can see the benefit

Network Diagram: A flow chart that illustrates the order in which activities need to be performed in a project (Portny, et.al, 2008, p. 150).  Using this network diagram could reduce management and team member’s frustration. Three elements are included in the network diagram event, activity and span time.  I would have used span time because it seems appropriate and the format-Activity-on-the-arrow (a traditional approach) for this issue.

Span Time: The actual calendar time requested to complete an activity (durations/elapsed time).  This involves the amount of work effort required, and peoples availability (Portny, et.al, 2008, p. 150).  

Activity-on-the-arrow:  A type of network diagram; referred to as activity-on-the node, the classical approach or the traditional approach (Portny, et.al, 2008, p. 193).  

The network diagrams would show the descriptions of activities such as work to be performed by whom that would include mental and physical activities.  So that team members, internal stakeholders (Adult Education and Workforce Development program managers) can have a visual aid tool to recognize the amount of work it can take to complete tasks, and activities in each program. This would also show that when the project team person needs flexibility to complete an activity that may be out of the specific span of time schedule that it would be ok to do so.

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.

Communicating Effectively

Post your interpretation of the message as it was delivered in each of the different modalities, pointing out what, if anything, changed about your interpretation from one modality to the next.

Email

Jane’s email was in a friendly, clear and concise tone.  She was very specific on what (ETA data), why (to complete her report) and when (immediately to meet her deadline) information was needed.  Jane’s written tone was not aggressive or demanding with bold lettering or punctuation marks; it was soft, simple and informal to read like having a conversation with a friend but expressed the urgency.

Voicemail

Jane’s voice mail expressed voice tone, tempo and volume.  Her voice tone was pleasant, she fluctuated her voice up and down on the words that needed to be expressed to Mark of her understanding  that he was busy and explained very briefly what information she needed, why she needed and in a non-specific timeframe. Although Jane did not disclose the importance of her meeting her deadline to submit her report, she did express indirectly that he had that information and it was needed immediately without being specific.  The tempo of her voice was calm and slow and gave all detailed information.  The volume was at an even tone not too loud that she was being aggressive and not soft and could not be heard.  It was communicated clear, happy and friendly.

Face-to-Face (F2F)

Jane’s face-to-face conversation showed body language, facial expressions and eye contact.  Her body language showed her friendliness and engaging, facial expressions expresses calmness, understanding and happy. She was standing behind the wall partition; her hands were on the wall as if the conversation was informal and relaxing.  Jane had eye contact the indicated that her environment could have been informal, and sociable but as we know, it was in an office environment and was not a social visit.  Her eyes changed from opening wide to express her calmness and passive behavior as she spoke and her words reflected in tone of a happy, patient person.

A synthesis of your thoughts regarding what this activity implies about communicating with members of a project team.

This activity implied that communicating with project team members is critical and not just words but communication between team members must be intentional because the tonality, words, and body language all can determine how well or not the dialog amongst the team is being perceived.  In the video “Communication with Stakeholders”, Dr. Stolovich, talked about how important it is when communicating it should be clear, concise and focused.  In addition to how effective communication can be swayed by a person’s spirit, attitude, tonality and body language.  I was able to see how important it is to ensure that when communicating with people to be careful on choosing my words because it could be perceived as being negative, aggressive when that is not the intent.

What did you learn that will help you communicate more effectively with others in the future?

To ensure that I deliver the intended message using the appropriate communication style (informal, written, and/or formal).  In addition, that the tone of the message be respectful, brief, clearly communicated what, why and urgency of the message.

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.

Stolovitch (n.d.). Communicating with Stakeholders [video]. Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6290461&Survey=1&47=8115912&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”

Project Role:  As an organizational partner, I was on the Employer Outreach Team.  Our responsibilities were to recruit local community employer partners for The Neighborhood Jobs Pipeline leveraging existing and new relationships.

Project Purpose: The Neighborhood Jobs Pipeline a new model of workforce development service delivery that influences local neighborhood support services and community based organizations to create a place‐based approach designed to encourage a targeted set of local employers in a local city to work with the pipeline to strengthen their hiring strategies.  In addition, to develop networks with local workforce agencies that provides employment resources and/or opportunities for local residents within the designated community.

Project Problem: A disconnect between residents of the city target area and employment opportunities both within and around the area. Residents with the training and skills necessary to be good candidates for available job openings are frequently not aware of and/or considered for those job openings.

What contributed to the project’s success?

·       The local city was able to sustain their community by assisting employable residents to sustain their families through short-term employment within their community.  This allowed local businesses to increase their revenue, tax incentives and hire local residents to support their families.

·       The place‐based Pipeline method provided better job search outcomes for residents in their community.

·       The job pipeline increased the stability and sustainability of both businesses and some families in the target area.

·         It helped employers to decrease their human resources costs by allowing the workforce agencies to find, pre-screen and assessed potential job candidates that proved to be ready to work.

·        Residential support increased by frequenting local businesses in the community, created, and improved partnerships and collaboration with local organizations.

What contributed to the project’s failure?

·        Program prerequisites (high school diploma/GED, drug-free, no criminal history) cause low participation from local residents in the job pipeline. 

·        Residents that met program prerequisites could not afford the upfront cost of the drug screening of $35.  If afforded, they would have been reimbursed after participating in the program after 6 weeks

·        Majority of the residents that met the prerequisites skills for the job pipeline did not match the business partners needs

·        Most employers provided short-term employment with no intentions of long-term hiring because of limited tax incentives available that actually covered the majority of the employees pay rate.

Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?

The project could have been more successful with increasing residents’ participation if there was allocated funding/grants available to assist with drug screening, and identification costs.  The project was design to reimburse the program participate and not provide upfront cost.  The pipeline was designed to assist persons with barriers to employment (non-violent/sexual criminal history, and lack of skills training) and available educational resources for those residents who do not have a high school diploma or GED.

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.

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