"A committee is
a life form with
six or more legs
and no brain."
~ Lazarus Long
a life form with
six or more legs
and no brain."
~ Lazarus Long
Prepared for EDTEC 684, Management of Educational Technology Projects, Fall 2006. 
This artifact is a Powerpoint presentation.
Interact effectively with others as peers, subordinates and leaders to accomplish goals.
To attack the problem presented by the United Nations University (UNU) PROJECT W.I.S.E. initiative, I joined Elaine White and Colleen Cunningham (along with Antonia “The Shadow” Chan) to form Shadow Technologies™. We set out to build a project proposal which would address the unique learner population served by UNU. Ultimately, our proposal received the most favorable comments and was adopted by UNU for their worldwide hypothetical program.
This project was an exceptional example of my ability to interact effectively with others as a peer, subordinate, and leader in the pursuit of goals. The final presentation showcased the best of all our efforts. There was no way any one of us could have accomplished the detailed proposal demanded by UNU, so we had to divide our workload based on individual competencies. While Elaine concentrated on the budget and resource allocation, and Colleen put an expert polish on our printed material (aided by The Shadow’s graphics), I built our corporate website, managed the electronic files, and built conceptual prototypes of our deliverables. The notes section of the powerpoint breaks down the verbal arguments of each team member, and prominently features my prototypes in the solution section. The proposal itself incorporates the best of our individual talents in a unified whole.
Our team also interacted with the internationally renowned project management leader Dr. Marshall. His expert advice helped mold our efforts into a much more polished and comprehensive final proposal.
We initially built our incremental documents with an online tool called Writely. Sadly, Writely was purchased by Google halfway through the project, and renamed Google Docs. Several weeks went by where the online document settings were in a state of flux. This tool, which so adequately enabled us to change, track, and finalize deliverables, was suddenly not so reliable. We limped along with Google Docs for a few more weeks, but ultimately decided to continue with more traditional document management methods. The small size of our team and the close rapport we shared made this a smooth transition.
This project demonstrated many of my capabilities. In my previous work experience with the military, I’ve been part of many cross-disciplinary teams. I’ve also been part of teams without a designated leader, such as this one. It was easy for me to assume the technical lead role on one aspect of the project, and lead others when that aspect was in play. It was also easy to assist in areas where I was less competent, and to be tasked by other functional leaders. As a group, we set deadlines, goals, and expectations early, and stuck by them. When members became distracted by other priorities, we communicated with each other to fill in the gaps in performance. This certainly was one of the more fulfilling teams on which I’ve had the pleasure to be called a member.
Also, my artistic abilities were put to work developing storyboards and prototypes for our final web portal. I used the web design principles of Contrast, Alignment, Repetition, and Proximity while building the graphical representation of the portal. I also used my analytical ability to decide what needed to be functional, and what could be simulated. During the project proposal, we were not required to build a working prototype, so I focused on the content and usability.
My previous project management experience was with small to medium sized Civil Engineering projects. This exercise gave me an excellent understanding of how to manage a large project within an educational technology framework. Also, the UNU mandate reinforced all the elements necessary to a successful proposal, including budgeting, overhead, and resource allocation. It is very easy to get heavily involved with the analysis, design, and development of instruction, and forget that there must be a plan in place to manage the details and pay the bills.
