This activity was challenging for me because like many of you, I\u2019ve had multiple experiences where a new technology or program was implemented in my work environment. For some experiences, I was a part of implementing the new technology or programs. For others, I was part of the employees that needed to absorb the change into my work without having any role in the implementation.<\/p>\n
When I went to write this post multiple times for many different projects, I didn\u2019t end up completing them as I didn\u2019t seem to have enough information to answer all the questions. This made me aware of how many projects that I was involved in without goals being communicated, a clear problem\/issue to be solved and where I did not have details of project plans (nor seen the project plan although I may have been aware one was in place).<\/p>\n
Given that reflection, I felt that I needed an example of a project where I could readily answer the questions asked in the activity so that I could delve into connections with the readings. And here it is\u2026 I have intentionally not included multiple details as this is an open blog post.<\/p>\n
Problem\/issue to be solved<\/strong><\/p>\n The issue to be solved was that the company had no formal learning management system (LMS). As a band-aid solution, they\u2019d been hosting some online learning on a website that Information Technology (I.T.) team had set up for them. But this solution had multiple limitations including a lack of tracking course completions and a requirement to involve I.T. in any changes needed. This made it inflexible to adjust to real-time changes that may be needed on the day of training. Additionally, course completion tracking was identified as a requirement for the organization to build career pathing and develop a greater understanding of the current organization\u2019s skillsets.<\/p>\n Overall Goals Communicated<\/strong><\/p>\n The goals communicated were that the LMS needed to:<\/p>\n Who Benefited?<\/strong><\/p>\n The learning team benefited from the LMS as they had limited resources for trainers that could provide face-to-face training that was being demanded by in-house teams. The LMS provided a place for them to provide online courses for training that was determined to not require face-to-face learning or for online assessments that could be used throughout face-to-face training.<\/p>\n Also, the tracking of completions reduced the manual work it took for the Learning team to maintain records in a spreadsheet. This brought an unintended benefit of a higher confidence in that information overall. This was because the LMS logged completions in real-time as the learners completed courses, rather than manual logging where there was room for human error. This also led to decreases in time required for blended training where online tests were administered, as the instructor did not need to go to every learner\u2019s desk once learners passed assessment to observe and record completion. This also allowed the freeing up of more time for instructors to use for face-to-face training, so that they could focus on that time benefitting the learner rather than tracking assessment.<\/p>\n The organization and the employees benefited from having a LMS that could provide better career pathing. This was because the LMS allowed the Learning team to make better decisions about how to prioritize learning requests to best fit needs of organization and the learners. It also allowed for better future design of online courses, as data on course fails and time taken to complete course could be used to improve the course.<\/p>\n Who were the stakeholders?<\/strong><\/p>\n The stakeholders were:<\/p>\n Was there a project plan put in place?<\/strong> What did this look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, there was a detailed project plan. It had all the elements that create a project plan – timelines, roles, tasks and dependencies (Watt, 2014).<\/p>\n What changes in planning do you think would have helped with any of the barriers or challenges that were encountered? <\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest challenges encountered were the underestimation of time required for tasks and the limitation of human resources for the LMS project.<\/p>\n The ways these could have been resolved was:<\/p>\n Resource Management: Competing Projects & Too Many Priorities<\/em><\/p>\n The resource management was handled very well by planning as there were two dedicated Learning team resources for the project as well as a team lead from the Learning team to lead the project. A Project Manager from the internal Project Management Office worked to keep to the project plan and did most of the communication with the LMS vendor. However, all these resources were part-time on the project and had other competing projects for their time that they were working on simultaneously. For example – throughout the LMS testing and implementation, high levels of requests were made for training where both dedicated Learning team resources were needed. This led to increased time for project task completion due to competing priorities.<\/p>\n This led to an understanding that the time planned for needing the resources for the project was underestimated. Had this been known, this may have resulted in an initial planning of all resources committing to less competing projects. It may have also shifted competing project timelines, so that more time could have been devoted to this project in specific phases where it was needed. I think having more of a \u2018hacker mentality\u2019 in planning would have helped to identify these possibilities, so we could have maximized the possibility for the LMS innovation to \u201cnavigate through barriers of change\u201d (Conway, 2017). But when I evaluate why more time was needed in the project, I feel like hindsight was 20\/20 and this was difficult to plan for.<\/p>\n What Caused Increased Time for Project and How We Could Have Planned Better<\/em><\/p>\n The time required for this project increased due to several issues presented during user acceptance testing and the time it took to work that out with the LMS vendor. This was complicated by the LMS vendor and company being separated by a 3-hour difference in time zones. It resulted in questions that couldn\u2019t always be answered in real-time that delayed tasks and longer time needed to schedule meetings as times were limited to certain parts of the day. This is where the competing projects didn\u2019t help as the resources often also had competing meetings during times they were trying to schedule with the LMS vendor.<\/p>\n Also, another issue that increased time of the project was that the LMS had multiple issues with functionality in Internet Explorer. This could not have been planned for, as it was built into the project plan as a requirement that the LMS vendor build the LMS for this browser. But I learned that this was a more difficult ask than what we planned for two reasons. First, like every browser, Internet Explorer is a dynamic technology that changes day-to-day based on constant input to Microsoft from its customers. Second, we were asking for a customized LMS that needed to be built for our requirements and it was not continuously being maintained to meet new Internet Explorer changes between the build and testing. As a result of these two factors, some elements that worked in the initial build for Internet Explorer did not always work in our user testing.<\/p>\n This overlook was indicative of what Cormier (2017) describes as pulling on one string of a sweater and tearing the sweater somewhere else. Through requiring a customized solution, we were pulling a string that \u2018tore out\u2019 issues that would not have been present with an out-of-the-box LMS. As we did not plan with the LMS vendor for the customized solution to be continuously maintained throughout the process, this hindered our testing process.<\/p>\n Although I felt this was a bit indicative of the lack of agility of the LMS vendor \u2013 we likely would have needed to pay much more for an LMS that had bigger teams to ensure that their customized product was keeping up with the daily, if not hourly updates, for Internet Explorer. This is a good example of what Watt (2014) defines as a triple constraint, as a change in cost of the project may have reduced time and scope of the project. But even with a higher budget, we were limited in options for LMSs due to the Canadian server and this may never have been an option any way.<\/p>\n The biggest thing that may have helped would have been to build an excessive time buffer in for resolving issues from user acceptance testing. But overall, I would say the planning and project plan made this project successful even though it took longer than anticipated to achieve success.<\/p>\n Summary: Lessons Learned about LMS Implementation<\/em><\/p>\n An implied risk of LMS customization is that it is not an out-of-the-box solution that has gone through years of customer use and improvements. This needs to be accounted for in terms of allowing a long period of time for user testing and fixing issues. Also, consistent resourcing should be committed to the project for 80 \u2013 90% of their time so that the issues can be properly followed up and resolved in a timely manner with the LMS vendor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do you think any specific method for planning was used?<\/strong><\/p>\n A Gantt Chart was used to plan the project and updated throughout the project as it evolved. The project\u2019s use fit Watt\u2019s (2014) definition of a Gantt Chart as it showed \u201call the key stages of a project and their duration as a bar chart, with the time scale at the top\u201d (Watt, 2014, p. 86). It also included milestones as important checkpoints that need to be tracked (Watt, 2014). These milestones helped to identify when change requests were needed for the Project Manager to re-evaluate the project plan.<\/p>\n What methods do you see yourself using in your practice?<\/strong><\/p>\n I like using Gantt Charts to identify specific issues from the outset and to compare to other project timelines. I do find they work well for planning but are hard to keep up as the project changes. I\u2019m currently struggling to find a good project management tool that doesn\u2019t break the bank and is suited for a sole proprietor like me, rather than large companies that need a tool to organize employees within the project. The biggest issue I\u2019ve found with many tools that I\u2019ve tried is that you can\u2019t easily shift around the Gantt Chart so that task dependencies can move to align to new timelines for tasks.<\/p>\n If you have any project management tools that you can recommend, please let me know!<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J., (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact. Royal Society of Arts, Action and Research Centre. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.thersa.org\/globalassets\/pdfs\/reports\/rsa_from- design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf<\/p>\n Cormier, D. (2017, December 8). Our schools aren\u2019t broken, they\u2019re hard. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http:\/\/davecormier.com\/edblog\/2017\/12\/08\/our-schools-aren\u2019t-broken-they\u2019re-hard\/<\/a><\/p>\n Watt, A. (2014).\u00a0Project Management<\/em>. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/projectmanagement<\/p>\n Image Header Attribution –\u00a0Photo by\u00a0rawpixel.com<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pexels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This activity was challenging for me because like many of you, I\u2019ve had multiple experiences where a new technology or program was implemented in my work environment. 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