Project Management Plan: Web-based Training Project

Project Plan

Gannt Chart

Annotation

Context and Conditions

This project plan was completed in Fall 2007 under the guidance of Dr. Arnold Murdock as a product of MIT 520: Managing Instructional Development. This was a hypothetical re-design of an existing project that is currently in implementation by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction EC Delivery Team. For this project, I had direct access to one member of the team who assisted in data collection, as well as extant data to support my planning strategy. An analysis of the current development and implementation strategy assisted with some of the decisions that were made for this project.

Scope

This proposal outlined the a redesign of the development process a WBT (Web-based Training) initiative for the CECAS program that includes three instructional modules, as well as an upgrade to awareness materials and training program assessment strategies. Through careful front-end analysis, I identified that the current WBT’s do not reflect the training program, but are instead aligned to the software user manual. For this reason and other reasons, the WBT’s are not used by districts as a training method, but as an electronic performance support system that only mirrors manual information. No training strategies or assessment items are included in the WBT package. This project focused on not only the re-design of the WBT’s, but also the inclusion of assessment and training materials that would assist school districts in utilizing them more frequently and effectively. As a hypothetical proposal, the strategies included in this project were never implemented or presented to the team, many of the proposed ideas have been suggested by team members and are now being implemented. A re-design and upgrade to the WBT training initiative has been initiated and some of the suggested procedures will be included in the current project. The WBT’s are used by 115 school districts across the state of North Carolina.

Role

I worked as the project manager for this initiative. I collected and analyzed data to inform decisions, identified deliverables to be developed, allocated resources and developed a project timeline. I also proposed a budget, conducted a risk assessment, an analysis of alternative routes, control plans for communication and schedule and outlined methods for formative and summative evaluation.

Reflection

Although this project was hypothetical and would not be implemented in full, I feel that I benefited from the process of project analysis and planning. Being able to analyze and plan a project for state implementation provided me with a large, complex system initiative to plan. The processes of defining scope, developing a budget, describing stakeholder roles and identifying a realistic timeline will be skills that are critical to my success in the world of instructional technology project management.