Project Management for Instructional Design
From ElateWiki
“Project management” is a business term that addresses the oversight of the work. This term applies to the supervision necessary to actualize instructional design projects.
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The Nature of Instructional Design Projects
Instructional design projects vary widely. Some may be short-term works on particular digital learning objects. Others may involve long-term work for full degree programs and courses. What makes instructional design projects unique is the mix of complexity required.
The project stakeholders involve a range of administrators and faculty. Learners themselves are secondary stakeholders because they are directly affected by the quality of the teaching and learning experiences.
Typical ID Sequences
The typical sequence of more complex instructional design work involves an environmental scan early on. This scan helps the project team determine who the learners are and what their needs are. This describes the academic content that will need to be shared. This also includes the technological affordances and constraints. This scan also may highlight what open-source learning contents there are.
The next step involves the design of a curriculum. This design will be created from teaching theories, strategies, learning objectives, instructor teaching preferences, and others. This planning phase must consider project scope, to prevent the project from evolving into a different objective altogether. The learning objectives express the learning outcomes; they inform the building of the learning materials, assignments, activities, and even the assessments.
The following phase involves the raw capture of information and digital resources. These involve audio, photographic, and videographic captures.
The raw contents are then vetted, and the useful elements are integrated into multimedia developed for learners. These objects are integrated into solid learning experiences and sequences. The technologies are tested using alpha testing methods—to ensure functionalities.
Developed curricular sequences and experiences are then tested with live learners. Once a curriculum is finalized, the contents are then deployed through various technological systems. Systems are put into place to collect learner feedback to continually evolve and strengthen the curriculum.
Tools for Instructional Design Project Management
The tools for project management involve the typical ones: calendars for scheduling, meeting schedulers for time coordination, timelines for time management, Excel charts for costs and budgeting, diagrams, and visuals. Communications technologies are critical elements, and virtual work spaces are also critical. Stylebooks are collated to define project standards, technologies used, team member names and roles, decision-making processes and junctures, and approval processes.
For planning, a rich variety of tools capture ideas in spatial and textual ways. Others may use audio and video to capture brainstorming meetings, too, for later review and further analytical and innovation work. Flowcharts may be used to describe workplace processes.
The documentation of the work may be captured in online workspaces. These may include legal documentation that allows particular work to move forward. These may also enhance the institutional memory of the project for proper work handoffs.
The Handover of Deliverables
Once the defined deliverables have been created satisfactorily and handed over in a transferable way for the various deployments, teams will often work with the “clients” to assure the smooth usage of these contents. Ways to link this work in a sequence of learning or to integrate the learning into a certificate program or other learning sequence are also considered to be in the purview of the development team.
Project Debriefing
Once all extant concerns have been addressed, the instructional design team may debrief for lessons learned. They will consider ways to advance the project into the future. They will make sure that their clients have been empowered to fully use the resources created, and then they will move on to another project.
See Also
“Project management,” Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management