Thursday, April 9, 2015

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.


4 comments:

  1. Oh, Jennifer, you are a fantastic story-teller: you taught me a good lesson through making me smile. In fact, I have often found myself in a very similar situation. My husband is a great dreamer, and when he plans a family trip, he is never really down-to-earth enough to identify and estimate risks. Mentally, he always creates an ideal picture: never any rain, never any sore throats, all the cafes filled with smiling and polite people, never any jams, never any whims from the child or the wife, everything accessible, never a ‘NO’ sign… and I do not think that any of the trips we have taken as a family or he has taken with his friends were anywhere closer to his dream than hell is from heaven. What I keep hearing his say day in and day out when we are away to a place is “I thought we would…”,”I wanted us to…” and many other synonyms to these. If I were to advise my husband on a career, I would have one ready on a “no” – “not” – “never” list for him – project management. And even if he can cope with contingencies – find a doctor if necessary, change a tire, just go to sleep and let others straighten things out if he can be of no help – I am sure, he takes it all too much to heart, his frustration dashed his spirits down and, then, it is the whims and grim face that I have to manage as a contingency 
    Redecorating the house is quite an undertaking. To tell you the truth, in August, 2013, we bought a new flat. Ask me why we have not moved in yet. I cannot decide how to redecorate it! (And it is in bad need of redecoration, and even some things more fundamental than that – reglazing, installation of sound suppressing panels, floor leveling, etc.)
    Jennifer, you should have created a design prototype, lots of different design prototypes before you stocked your basement full with the green paint. The trial and error method in its best application. They say (and I keep disseminating the idea), that 60-40 proportion (where 60% belongs to planning and only 40% to actually executing) is the shortest way to success (Smith, 2002). The idea is well corroborated by the multiple resources that our classmates found and shared last week: e.g. as applied to the Instructional Design field, Bryan Poss (March 13, 2014) says that the Analysis stage of the ADDIE model should have no less than 25% of the project’s budget, with the Design stage claiming another 30% - cumulatively, these two (55%) outweigh the Development stage (35%) by two thirds! If you cut on the first two stages, you incur a lot of rework upon yourself.
    Thank you, Jeniffer, for being so sincere and cheerful,
    Marina
    PS: I will remember that tan and green do not go together – the advice will save me a prototype ))
    References
    Poss, B. (March 13, 2014). Budgeting for eLearning course development. Retrieved from http://www.remote-learner.net/blog/bid/89580/Budgeting-for-eLearning-Course-Development
    Smith, B. (2002). Project planning, visioning and being clear at the outset. In C,Baume, P.Martin, and M.Yorke (Eds.), Managing educational development projects: Effective management for maximum impact. Taylor & Francis e-Library.

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  2. Hi Jenny - As I'm typing, I'm imagining the green rooms/furniture in your house. It sounds so much like something I would do! You made a point in your post about a PM identifying all of the things that can do wrong. It really is an important part of the PM role to be able to look at a project and be able to see into the future and predict the problems that might occur. If the PM can identify where in the project scope creep can possibly occur, he/she can be prepared for how to deal with it. "Avoiding scope creep is not possible. However, monitoring it, controlling it, and thereby reducing some of the pain is possible" (Portny et al., 2008, p. 347) A lesson learned, I suppose!
    Thanks for the amusing story!
    Renee
    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.

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  3. Hi Jenny,

    Lovely post!

    Is funny, both of us had somewhat similar experiences (running house projects).
    In my case I had never gotten involved in something like this. But I like the feeling of satisfaction, realizing I was a good manager to our home project. It was fun and reassuring, nonetheless, like you, I experienced the scope creep effect, but the job got done, and left a smile of satisfaction on the faces of all involved. I know that dealings with big budget projects is more complex than the small project I did at
    home, but I believe that every experience in life can contribute to something greater.

    Thanks for offering your green paint, I know who to call in the event I ever get involved in a green project.

    Ruth : )

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  4. Jenny,
    Aww the joys of home projects. 

    You had me interested in your story from the beginning. I am glad you are able to look back and laugh at your project. I have had many of these types of ‘home projects’ go awry myself, and you have my complete empathy.

    I am a bit confused on why the tan and green did not look good together. I have done some of the same type of investigating in contemplation of repainting my main living spaces and have considered this combination. Was it the shade of green? You stated it took a couple of different tries to get the correct blue, could this have been accomplished with the green perhaps in a different shade?

    I am glad you were able to make the necessary adjustment to get the work completed. One of the things I have definitely learned from this course is to build in time for the unexpected and give a buffer of time based on the experience of those completing the work (Russell, 2000). When doing home projects I have found that much time is taken up making additional trips to the hardware store, even when you think you have all of the tools and supplies you will need, equipment will break down, or supplies may not last through the entire project. The nice thing I have found is that if you over buy most supplies you can return what you have not used for a complete refund. It is a bit more expensive at the beginning of a project, but can save you a bunch of time in making repeated trips.

    Jordyn

    References

    Russell, L. (2000). Project management for trainers. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
    Copyright by the American Society for Training and Development. Used by permission via the Copyright Clearance Center.

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