Working as an instructional designer for a government contracting company can sometimes be challenging. There are frequent changes in the requirements themselves not to mention the fact that the government employee who is assigned as the project manager often requests additional tasks be performed than was originally agreed to in the project scope.
The most recent instance of scope creep occurred about four months ago on a project that my team was working on. We had been developing and revising training materials for the American warfighter for several weeks when the PM informed us that we would also be required to provide training materials as well as classroom instruction to the government trainers as well. We were now being tasked to train the trainers. This news was not initially well received as we were struggling to meet the timeline for the requirements for which we were currently tasked.
The section manager for our company as well as our team leader explained the situation to the government PM and the ramifications that such a seemingly simple request would have. New requirements would have to be drawn, funding terms would have to be agreed to, and a new timeline would need to be created. These issues were apparently not deterrents as we were given the go ahead to proceed with the latest assigned tasks.
Of course it is easy to be an armchair quarterback and critique what perhaps should have been done to prevent scope creep. With that being said, had I been the PM for this task, I would have ensured that all phases of ADDIE were more fully explored and developed before commissioning the task be undertaken. Also scheduling routine meetings between team members invites open and honest communication and allows an opportunity to report on the project status and discuss potential problems before they metamorphosize into catastrophic failures (Greer, 2010).
Reference
Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.
Keith,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. It appears as if your work is similar to some of the work I have done in the past for the Naval Shipyards and Warfare Centers. As you mention, working with the government posses some unique challenges in terms of timelines, budgets, and the skills of personnel. Here, as you mention, it seems the ADDIE process was not rigorously applied, as an initial performance gap analysis should have revealed a need for trained trainers (Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2011). I sympathize with you on the addition of a train-the-trainer aspect being especially difficult. Often times, train the trainers are not effective because the client does not send the "right" people to the T3 course, and you can only develop but so many skills in those types of trainings.
References
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2011). Designing effective instruction (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Keith,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned having routine meetings as being a way to mitigate this instance of scope creep. I would have to agree that regular meetings and effective communication would have minimized the opportunity of scope creep in this situation. All of those involved should participate in the meetings so that everyone is on the same page and notes should be taken as well. Hosting the meetings and providing team members with weekly status reports would have allowed you to catch errors or glitches in your plan and they would give you time to compose a plan of action. I think the section manager did what he was supposed to do as far as informing the client of the repercussions of the changes they requested. Did the section manager and team leader get everything they spoke with the client about in writing? It seems like the client just wanted the work done and did not care about the ramifications, but I wonder if project boundaries had been set prior to the start date (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008). The needs and limitations present in the project need to be noted during the beginning stages so that the client can understand that the PM just can’t snap their fingers and make sudden changes with out causing delays or budget increases.
Reference
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 and Sons.
Keith,
ReplyDeleteYour description of this situation of scope creep is very interesting, but even more interesting is that you are already working as an ID. In this situation or any others where scope creep occurs, does the "change of scope document" actually get used, as discussed in our resources?
Hi Tonya,
DeleteWhat our resources calls a “change of scope document” is known in the army contracting arena as a TAM (task assignment memorandum), and yes they are used when scope creep occurs that is significant enough to affect the timeline of deliverables or cause an increase in manpower and/or expenditures. The new TAM will outline exactly what changes are being requested from the client as well as the increased cost of implementing those changes. The TAM must then be signed by both parties before modifications are initiated. This procedure eliminates any confusion over what is being requested versus what is supposed to be delivered.
I hope this answers your question.