My Analysis of a Post-Mortem Project

 

The excitement of starting a project from start to finish can be thrilling, frustrating, and overwhelming simultaneously. While part of a project can go off miraculously, the behind-the-scenes can tell a different story. Once the final project has concluded and the dust has settled, a full review can determine its success through a formal post-mortem examination of a project. There are many benefits of completing a post-mortem project review, depending on which perspective you are trying to focus your project review on. For example, from a management perspective, the post-mortem review can determine ways that the organizations can better function, the program manager’s perspective can improve their methods in meeting project goals, and from a team’s perspective, members can adjust their roles and responsibilities to enhance the team’s effectiveness (Terzieva & Morabito, 2016).

For this blog, I will be conducting a post-mortem project review of a recent project I participated in. Through this review, I will use a retrospective approach to reflect on the lessons learned to improve strategies and methodologies for future projects.

Project Initiative for the Child Development Center

The government had recruited Purdue University to create an early childhood curriculum that all government-operated child development centers would adopt. Thus, when the curriculum was complete, our center was geared toward changing and adapting to the new curriculum. My role in the project was to train the teachers on the new curriculum and assess their effectiveness in implementing the new curriculum.

The Triumphs

There were many items that the training team celebrated, appreciated, and valued during the implementation of the project’s triumphs. For starters, the training team found new innovative ways to train the curriculum by creating self-paced demonstration videos that the teachers could review at any time convenient to them. Additionally, the teachers participated in planning time sessions to become familiar with the new procedure before applying the methods to the lesson plan. The extra time to practice using the forms reduced the teacher’s anxiety about unfamiliarity with the new system and format.

Secondly, the teachers could access virtual and printed materials of the user guides, participation guides, assessment packets, and formal documentation forms for the curriculum. Having access to these documents became beneficial as the teachers were self-reliant on retrieving the documents when needed. They could also gain access to updated lesson plan activities at the convenience of one centralized location.

Lastly, since the curriculum was a whole undertaking, the training team trained the materials in more manageable chunks and had the teachers roll out the curriculum in different phases. Breaking the trainings down into manageable parts helped the teachers from becoming overwhelmed. Additionally, implementing the curriculum in different stages allowed the teachers to master a curriculum section before adding any additional components.

The Shortcomings

Yet, the project’s success comes with its shortcomings that made the implementation more difficult and frustrating than it needed to be. First, many of the supplies and materials to effectively implement the curriculum were not ordered in time nor set as a priority. Part of identifying the scope of a project is the budget (Walden University, n.d.). Initially, the senior level management assumed that the centers had all the necessary items to conduct the activities listed for the curriculum. However, to their surprise, the centers did not. Thus, they had to locate additional funds to cover the cost of the materials they did not initially plan for, causing scope creep.

Additionally, since the materials were not ordered until later in the process, when the teachers were scheduled to implement the curriculum, they did not have all the materials needed to conduct the activities as planned to be executed. It is essential to identify all necessary items as you do not want to get to the project’s end to realize you missed something very vital (Walden University, n.d.). Thus, teachers had to adjust the curriculum according to their supplies or did not conduct the activity. As a result, it was difficult for the trainers to fully assess whether the teachers effectively implemented the curriculum.

Another issue was poor communication between the director, training team, and upper management. As there were many questions that the training team had, there were no available individuals to provide answers to the questions. Often, questions were left unanswered, or feedback would be offered many weeks later, prolonging many deliverables. A lack of internal communication can result in project failure (Gioia, 1996). There were also no meetings to review the training plan process or collaborate on identifying solutions to problems that came up with the project.

Furthermore, an issue arose due to key stakeholders not agreeing on timeframes and due dates. The higher headquarters set a date that the Trainers agreed to; however, the director had different ideas in mind; therefore, there was a struggle among the key members. Having unrealistic expectations can demolish a project (kissflow, n.d.). With many other projects taking place all at once, the director’s expected dates were not realistic to the amount of time needed to develop and train the curriculum, causing many missed due dates set by the director.

The Lack of a Program Manager

Surprisingly, this extensive project did not have a designated program manager to orchestrate this project but rather depended on the training teams from each center to devise a plan to train the teachers. Senior-level managers believe that the project operations can be delegated to lower-level individuals within their organization (Leader to Leader, 2013). Yet, none of the trainers had experience implementing a significant initiative of this magnitude. In addition, at the time, I was not aware of the necessity of having a Program Manager who would establish the project’s scope, establish deliverables and assumptions, and assess the project’s overall goal. For example, as a training team, we developed a timeline of how we would break down the training course, roll out each section of the curriculum, and request additional supplies needed. However, we had no idea of the supply budget, when the materials would be ordered or delivered, and who was responsible for each of those different tasks out of our control. Thus, having a Program Manager would have alleviated many of the project’s issues.

Conclusion

As I conclude this project review, there were many lessons learned. Although we were able to implement the new curriculum eventually, it was not as effective as it could have been due to the many mishaps. Additionally, it made me fully appreciate the reasoning as to why one should have an experienced and knowledgeable Program Manager to delegate, facilitate, and orchestrate the whole gambit of tasks and responsibilities to ensure each job was done. Given what I know thus far about the Program Manager’s duties and the review of this curriculum project, I am better prepared for future projects and the task necessary for a successful project.

Reference

Gioia, J. (1996). Twelve reasons why programs fail. PM Network, 10(11), 16-19.

Kissflow. (n.d.). Reasons for Project Failure. Retrieved at Project Failure | 6 Reasons Why Project Fails and How to Avoid It (kissflow.com)

Terzieva, M., & Morabito, V. (2016). Learning from experience: the Project team is key. Business Systems Research, 7(1), 115. DOI:10.15.15/BSRJ-2016-0001.

The Role of Project Management in the Execution of Corporate Strategy. (2013). Leader to leader, 2013 (69).61. doi:10.1002/Itl.20091

Walden University, LLC. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Defining the scope of an ID project [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu.

Walden University, LLC. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Partitioner voices: Overcoming’ scope creep’ [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu.