Project Management
The Project
Management Institute has a guide for designing and
delivering projects on time in the business world; we have
remodeled this approach for a heritage project and presented
it here for people who need and like checklists for their
work. These are the steps: Initiating;
Determining goals; Planning;
Executing; Controlling;
and Closing the project.
Initiating: Recognizing that a project or phase
should begin and committing to do so.
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The Idea: I have an initial idea
from something that I have seen or read that students have
expressed an interest in attempting during their school
year
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I want to encourage a love of history and
learning in my students and show them that history starts
at home
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There is a current event of immediate
interest to the students that has parallels to a past
event in the city. This event and the associated projects
will show students the immediacy of local history. For
example, comparing the meningitis inoculations to the
massive polio vaccination programs of the past, or with
disease control in Edmonton during the Influenza epidemic
of 1917.
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I have a mandate from my principal or the
school board to integrate collaborative learning into the
classroom
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I have a mandate from my principal or the
school board to integrate the Internet into my classroom.
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Determine the goals of the project:
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Historical research;
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web design;
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meeting curriculum outcomes;
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introducing experiential learning;
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student interest and excitement in the
project.
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Planning: Devising and maintaining a workable scheme
to accomplish the business need that the project was
undertaken to address:
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Set a commencement and closing date as the
first step in the project.
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Select participants: Which students will
be involved in the project?
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Will I need permissions for students to
take part in the project and who has the forms?
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What is the subject matter of the project?
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The goals of the project will determine
the subject material for the students: a curriculum
project will require that curriculum guidelines and lesson
plans are followed; a student generated project will have
students, at times, deviating from the curriculum as their
interests take them into new project areas.
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Hardware, Software and People:
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What materials--software, hardware,
people--are available for the project and who knows how to
use or contact them?
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Do I need additional training to use the
software or hardware?
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Will I have to book time to use the
software or hardware?
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Will I need to contact external experts?
In what fields? How active will their role be in the
project? How will I contact them? How will students
contact them? Do I have a backup if something goes wrong
with an expert on the program?
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Executing: Coordinating people and other resources to
carry out the plan.
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What model will I use to organize the
students: individual; partners; teams? The students may
have to be retrained to accept a new form of organization
if they are not used to collaborative or experiential
learning.
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Students may also feel uncomfortable
learning from and dealing with foreign situations so
resistance to the project goals and learning outcomes may
be great (affect).
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Keeping commitments to train
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Keeping appointments with experts
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Who will keep track of the external
experts contacted for the program: is this an appropriate
project for students.
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Storing the project material: allow the
final form of the product to dictate the storage of the
material (creating a web page? Code the information as the
course progresses).
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One of the milestones of the project is
the advertising of the project: who are your partners?
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Controlling: Ensuring that project objectives are met
by monitoring and measuring progress and taking corrective
action when necessary:
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Assigning Milestones and Deadlines
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Avoid "scope creep": this occurs
when new tasks, not mentioned in the original planning
stage, are added to the students' original assigned work.
It makes it difficult for students to reach their
deadlines when an new task, such as creating a Flash
animation page or creating .pdf files for web publishing,
are added to an the original task of learning and writing
in HTML. Moreso than teachers, students are apt to
"scope creep" because they are ambitious or
excited about the possibilities of a technology project.
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Performing "triage": as the
whole of the project comes together, it may be necessary
to perform "triage" or allowing the
unsalvageable tasks to die while other tasks closer to
completion are saved. Tasks that should not be triaged:
the initial planning session; assignments that must be
completed in tandem with other projects; the closure
meeting.
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Where should the students be during the
course of the year and how will they report their status
to the teacher? Will they have to hand in assignments-such
as the bibliography, an essay, a web page-to show that
they have completed certain phases in the project.
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When will I know that we are done?
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Consequences of Missing a Deadline and
what this means for the whole of the project.
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Closing the project: Formalizing acceptance of the
project or phase and bringing it to an orderly end:
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Select date for project announcement or
launch
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Submitting your website address to the
major search engines and directories; to education mailing
lists and bulletin boards; using the web page as the
browser homepage of the school for a few days or weeks so
people in the school can explore the site; a newsletter or
a community newspaper.
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A closure meeting for students where they
can present their final work to other students and discuss
what they feel are the successes and/or failures of the
project.
*Source: A Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide).
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