successful project management - Commonwealth of Learning

?? Activity
Suggest five ways in which this form is a helpful instrument in project evaluation.
Rescuing ailing projects
There are two types of projects in any situation – those that are getting better, and
those that are dying. A project that stands still is dying because it is ailing. The ailing
state of a project is dependent on how it is managed.
Do you agree?
Yes
No
Why do you agree or disagree? Answer that before reading on.
When we examine what makes distance education projects fail or succeed, we are
actually looking at a variety of success measures that can keep our projects healthy,
or offer remedy when they start to ail. As a form of prevention, using these measures
from the very beginning will make our projects considerably more successful. Such
proactive measures will avert many potential snags stemming from mixed
communication signals, ignored problems, and unrealistic expectations that can lead
to the collapse of the project. Sharon Anderson has outlined some of the
characteristics of projects that are candidates for failure.
• The project scope may not be well defined, e.g. members may not be clear
what contribution the learner support department should make in the
development of a particular programme.
• The project might be lacking change management approaches, e.g. how to
prepare stakeholders who are not convinced that a new study programme
should be developed.
• The project fails to get buy-in from the right stakeholders, e.g. developing
study materials that are too difficult for the target group.
• The project may not have the right resources available, e.g. when a DE
institution intends to offer a degree course when there are no part-time
professionals to serve as tutors.
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