Feel free to press "Play" on this video as you read. Fitting, no?
The Overview:
As an educator, one of the buzzwords used recently is "data." Everything is about data: data-driven instruction, data walls, data systems, etc. One way that our administrators attempted to use data was in having departments form data teams. The point of the project accomplished by the data teams was to analyze literacy activities in our content areas and provide reports to be submitted to the school board. In a whole-faculty meeting, our principal explained what a data was, the process for completing a data cycle, the basic idea of what she needed from each department and the deadline.
The Process:
The first step was for department teams to get together, determine group norms and roles, and decide on data team meeting dates. From there we decided on the activity for which we were going to focus, what from the activity we were going to collect to analyze as data, and when to have that step completed by. After the data collection, then we were to meet together to compare results, look for strengths/weakness/commonalities, and analyze what could be done to improve. These notes would be recorded and submitted to our principal to be sent on to the school board.
The Creep:
For an English department busy with all our own job responsibilities, this already was going to be a daunting task. When our team was at the point of compiling analyzed data into a report document in order to submit it, our principal gave each data team a form which she wanted us to use to provide all teams a consistent format for their reports. This caused some problems because we were already approaching the requested deadline and this new format would require additional meeting time outside of the school day to reword things and provide additional information which was not indicated to us that we needed in the first place.
The Solution:
After having each of us review our notes to ensure that based on what our principal explained that we needed to provide her we did complete, our data team leader who was the senior teacher in the English department explained to our principal that in order to meet the deadline which she set we were going to submit our original report the way we created it and that a version using the form she gave us would be submitted later. The leveraging points used were that based on the original content for the deliverable (data report), we had met all requirements on time and that we'd be happy to use her form but that her changing the requirements did not allow us with the time to be able to complete it and still meet the deadline.
The Meta-Analysis:
If I had been the project manager, knowing now what I do I might have asked my principal if there was a specific form template she strongly was considering asking each department to use. The next thing I would have done would have been to communicate more frequently with our principal than our department did to ensure that what we were creating was meeting requirements in her opinion. Doing this would have meant that if she had been giving approval all along, if she introduced the form, we could have gone back and said that she had giving approval to our process. But in the moment, I would have made the same move as our data team leader in submitting the form we created so as to meet the deadline and explain to our principal that we would submit the data with her form but that it would come later.
The Conclusion:
Projects come in many forms with different requirements and deliverables. Even if a project as simple as an analysis of student work can fall victim to scope creep. No matter the scope creep though, solutions to these creepy moments can be found.
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