This course has allowed me to further explore my interest in project management and gain a better understanding of where my leadership is and needs to be to succeed as a leader in digital learning. To this point in the MALAT program, the ambiguity that comes with learning and design thinking has left me feeling somewhat confused as to how to truly materialize and create something valuable for my organization. Up until this point, I have felt that my knowledge has expanded however not necessarily my skillset to truly apply my knowledge. With that said, once we transitioned towards the midpoint of this course, specifically with the project management readings and group assignment, I felt that I was ready to get my hands dirty and create a tangible takeaway to best serve my role within my current organization. The distance collaboration required through programs like Google Docs and Samepage opened my eyes to how projects and innovation can actually produce results without physically being in the same room to complete the work. The planning and execution of how we would tackle the assignment felt like a real-world example of applying our project management plans right away, and I’m sure that was intentional. I quickly took the tools I used in the group assignment, as well as aspects from our created toolkit to my project team at my office which gave me a sense of purpose after all of these months “at school”. I now feel a sense of confidence to be an agent of change within an organization that is mature and transitioning. The ability to openly learn from our fellow cohort and see the creative and high-quality toolkits produced was even more beneficial for future real-world use. This helps solidify the importance more than ever that open learning can be beneficial for so many reasons.
Lastly, the timing couldn’t be better to dig my heels into the data analytics behind digital learning. We are actively evaluating ROI on all of our training programs and are adding data analysts to our team. The requirement for the managers and leaders to work with the analysts to make decisions and sense of the information will be a huge factor in my current role and career as I move forward in my organization.