Project Planning

­Project Planning

When planning a project, you would use the ‘project form’ this is where you can write down all your ideas, targets, timescales and objectives out. You should use this so you can have a clear vision for the project you are about to do, you can also use this to reference if you become stuck or unable to find the right path you are wanting to go with your project.

In the planner you should have the purpose, scope, timescale, requirements, aim and objectives;

Purpose: this is the purpose of your project, why you are doing it?

Scope: Finding relevant information about the subject that you are going to be creating the learning content for.

Timescale: The time in which it takes to complete your project and set areas, so you know which part should take how long

Requirements: what you need to do for the project

Aim and Objectives: What your aim is for the project and the objective is what you want to be achieved by it. We can help this by arranging meetings to discuss how progress is coming along.

To see potential risks with projects and issues that you may face, you need to look through all the planning that you have made and highlight where the risks could occur, for instance, you could have a requirement that could be difficult to get a hold off or able to complete.

The project life cycle consists of four phases; initiation, planning, execution and evaluating. 

Initiation

This is the first phase of the cycle, here the project is generated by an idea, problem or an opportunity has arisen. Once the idea has been approved you move on to the next stage.

Planning

The next step is to plan, this is where the above comes in to action, the purpose, scope, timescale, requirements, aim and objectives. After you have done all this you are ready to implement your ideas.

Execution

This is the stage where you start to put together the project that you have planned. During this stage the whole team working on the project should be updated at points.

Evaluation

Now your project has been finished, you have chance to evaluate on how you felt the project went, every aspect of it. This will help you with future projects.

Meetings and planned milestones are great so you can keep on top of everything that is going on in your project. Without these you or your team would not be working in a coherent fashion so there could be parts of the projects that have been doubly done, not done at all or done wrong.

In the meetings and planning we can make sure that all procedures and guidelines are met for the organisation, this means by making the project accessible, follow the set standard of work and making sure that an extra requirements such as company logo are integrated.

Taking notes, listening to colleagues and saving documents is integral when working in a team, doing this helps you when you are working on your own in a group project. The communication is key so focusing on what they are saying is essential.

Learning terminology is used a lot when creating digital learning material, such as eLearning (Electronic Learning) and Virtual Classroom, we use these to describe and simplify between designers what we are talking about. 

For a project we could create for example an eLearning package for learners of food safety, we would use informative text and pictures to communicate with the audience. The outcome for this would be that when the learner has completed it they will have a good knowledge about the safety of food. This would require resources to understand the sector we are creating the package for, a design that would be informative, engaging and not boring at the same time. We would need to make sure that we can get all the resources needed and find as this could be a constrain on the project, as well as making sure it is completed in time.