Learning from a Project “Post-Mortem”
“The last 11 days have been a whirlwind...” was
where it all began to crumble. This statement was uttered from my building
principal less than 48 hours ago. Within that time, I’ve seen a project go from
full swing to a massive blow to its progress. What he referred to when making
that statement, was that he in fact was taking a job at a new school district
for the next school year. While this may seem insignificant to most people,
anyone in a teaching position knows that with new administration, changes come.
Approximately 3 months ago, the current building
principal began to implement a new curriculum change. This was to affect all
teachers K-5 in many ways. Teacher would be required to revamp their individual
curriculum, add more centers, and differentiate their instruction in a way that
had never been asked of them before. Some teachers were asked to teach
different subjects, some were asked to teach multiage classrooms with another
teacher, and all were willing to do this, with help from the “big guy”. So
teachers began to meet and plan, to digest the changes and ask questions to
gain understanding of what was to happen. Many teachers were promised guidance
throughout the school year, and their fears were calmed. Until 3:45pm Tuesday
afternoon. When our principal announced he would be resigning his position it
only took seconds for the first person to start asking questions about what
that meant for our new curriculum that HE was supposed to guide us through next
year. With that said, it got even worse the next day. Feeling of abandonment
crept in and many of the senior teachers threw in the towel. With the excuse “I’m
not doing anything else until we find out what the NEW principal wants us to do”
or “I never thought this was a good idea to begin with, especially now that he’s
leaving us high and dry”.
It’s obvious to anyone what happened with this
project, and I’m calling this a failure at this point, with hopes that I am
wrong. With a lack of leadership projects sink quickly and that’s what is
happening here. I feel like I’m on the Titanic and the cabins are full of
water. The sad part is, the project could be quite successful and be a great
change for our school, but currently we are lacking the leadership needed to
move forward. This project has no chance unless we get a new principal with the
same drive and leadership skills needed to pull this project back into motion.
Until then, the bow is in the air and I’m holding on.
Wow! I am sorry for this time of turmoil. I too, have been in situations with a change of administration and it can be unnerving. Is this project school based or district wide? Perhaps there is a possibility for the project to go forward if it is explained to the new administration. Greer stated, "If you don't involve all stakeholders in an active and engaged fashion from the beginning, you're likely to suffer the consequences of rework when they finally figure out what you and your project team are up to… and they then take action to leave their mark on it!" (Greer, 2010, p. 10). I realize Greer (2010) is referring to original stakeholders but can see the possibility of "re-engaging" with the new stakeholder – the new administration. Perhaps some form of meeting similar to a kickoff meeting where the project is thoroughly explained to all the stakeholders, including the new administration, would help.
ReplyDeleteI do hope this works out well for you and your students.
– jeff
Reference:
Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc.
Jeff,
DeleteWe have one elementary building in our district (very small- 307 students, K-5) so it is both building and district wide. Our current principal hopes to mentor the incoming principal and explain the plan to him/her. Hopefully that works! :/
Jessica
Wow Jessica, what a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteWhat stands out to me in this scenario you have posted is that your principal (project manager) decided to begin this project process with no team in place. He decided to be the project manager and the entire team. Even though our text states that projects can involve one person, or many people (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, with Kramer, 2008), it seems really shortsighted to start a project in which the stakeholders (the teachers) are the critical change agents, and yet they are not informed as to the big picture of the project. So now that your project manager is gone, this project is dead in the water. I have to ask myself why your principal didn't build a team that had a complete understanding of his vision and could carry out the implementation even without him there. I am just shaking my head. I can see why so many of your co-workers have indeed thrown in the towel.
Hang in there!
References
Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project management: planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
That was a really critical path killer. Portny et al. (2008) define the critical path as the sequence of activities in a project that take the longest to complete (Portny et al. 2008). I would add that it is the tasks that make or break a project.
ReplyDeleteYou lost both the taskmaster and the Subject Matter Expert (SME) all at the same time. This is a perfect example of needing a Project Charter, a Project Scope and a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with full contingencies in place. If the project had those things, the departure of your key player would have been upsetting but not a game changer. Someone would have been names as a backup to take the departer’s place with the same expert knowledge.
Bummer, I hope this works out for you!
References
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 & Sons, Inc.