Green Paint For Sale!

Each time I hear mention of scope creep, "the natural tendencies of a client, as well as project team members, to try to improve the project's output as the project progresses" (Portney et al., 2008, p.436), I always think of a particular summer painting project my husband and I tackled together.  Looking back the story is comical, but at the time it was anything but funny!  We spent several hours going through swatches of paint, comparing colors in different lighting, during different times of the day, and at last made a decision to paint the majority of the open-concept kitchen/dining/living area a lovely greenish color on the focal walls.  We bought gallons of paint, about 5 or 6 gallons I believe.  We were set.  The painting would begin when summer break began.  I painted several of the walls a tan shade, that were not focal walls, as we had decided.  This looked great!  Our project was going perfectly and we felt confident about our decisions. 


It literally took one stroke of green against the tan, which had to touch in order to work through our plans, to see we were making a huge mistake.  The green and tan looked awful together.  Oh great.  Now we had the option to continue to project or pick new paint colors.  Well, the tan was now on almost every hallway and wall in the house that was not a focal wall.  We had not considered blue in the past, but at this moment we both almost simultaneously said we should try blue.  It took several shades to get it right, but once we saw the right shade of bluish-gray against the tan, we knew we had it right (again).


As a project manager I know that scope creep is always a possibility...  But thinking through things like, the possibility of the colors clashing when they meet in a painting project will be my job as a project manager in order to keep my client's from spending all their money on paint they can't use.  Technically I guess I was the project manager of my personal paint project gone wrong, but it opened my eyes to what could happen in future projects.  Having kick of meeting with all stakeholders involved to try to communicate all issues from the start is a great idea for the project manager.  Continuing that communication throughout the project is key as well.  Be sure to get "sign off" from all stakeholders to assure they will hold to their part of the project (Laureate Education, n.d.).  Trying to think of every possible thing that could go wrong is tough, but a project manager must do so.  It is important to walk through every step of the project and pay close attention to detail.  Keep the client in on every piece of information, so nothing gets left out.


I am trying to make the best of the situation, though.  Many of my stand alone cabinets are now green and so is my laundry room.  If anyone needs any green paint, you know who to see.

Resources

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Creating a resource allocation plan [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

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.



ID Budget Resources

Recently I was asked to conduct an online search to locate resources to aid those in the instructional design field with planning a budget for a project.  The first resource http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html I came across, entitled “Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design,” is a great resource for this.  The blog explains how estimate training and development hours, breaks down estimated times spent with multimedia presentations, estimates instructor preparation time, and includes tools to help estimate costs in Excel. 

Further into my search I located http://www.remote-learner.net/blog/bid/89580/Budgeting-for-eLearning-Course-Development. This resource caught my eye over many others because it shows the ADDIE model and how much time will need to be allocated to each portion of this model.  Budgeting for each step of the ADDIE model would be helpful to the designer.  This website is geared toward eLearning course development, but some designers may take their career paths this direction.

 

Resources

A Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge Jump Production. (2010). Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design.  Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html

 

Remote-Learner:  Innovation in Learning Services. (2014).  Budgeting for eLearning Course Development.  Retrieved from http://www.remote-learner.net/blog/bid/89580/Budgeting-for-eLearning-Course-Development