Week 2: Post Mortem

Last year, I was in charge of my school wide annual Science Fair.  There were four members including myself that worked on this project. We began to meet to discuss our expectations, roles, and responsibilities of all members. Afterwards, we agreed to meet again to follow up with all members and the progress of the project. We met again to design a project rubric to use for scoring students’ projects, confirming judges, and final details.

What processes, project artifacts, or activities did you include in the project that contributed to its success?

 The Science Fair Project was a success because we were able to communicate and work well together. We used our school email as way to communicate with administration and faculty. When there was someone not taking care of their responsibilities, it was always someone picking up the slack. All of the students was very engaged and excited to be part of the Science fair. Students were are able to compete on regional level which some of them won awards.

However, there were too many grade levels waiting to present their projects to the judges which was a waste of valuable time. There were students not being properly monitor that caused a couple of the projects to be damaged.

What processes, project artifacts, or activities did you not include in the project that might have made the project more successful?

After the Science Fair, I thought of ways it could have been more of successful. There are a few things I would like to implement this year for the Science fair such as…

·         To be more organize and planning

·         More teamwork

·         A complete time schedule of when each grade level should present their project to save instructional time.

·         Commitment to personal promises made in the plans.

Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?

The PM process that could have made a difference in the project is planning and organizing. According to Portny et al. (2008), "Project managers can increase a project's chance for success by planning and guiding based on understanding specific project life cycle phases" (p. 108). If this project was organized better, there could have been a chance to save some instructional times.  Each grade level would have a specific time to arrive in the Science Fair to present their project and then go back to class. Also, the project manager could ensure all members are held accountable for their performance. So that all members will be able to share important information with all members.

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M. (2008). Project Management. John Wiley & Sons.