The "Instructional Designer" role... EDUC-6145-1 Project Management in Education and Training

With consideration of the project management process and the tasks associated with the instructional design process: according to Dr. Harold Stolovitch, one critical difference between the instructional designer and the instructional design project manager is that, as an instructional designer you have to have good analytic skills and you have to be able to analyze the context, analyze your learners, analyze the tasks that need to be done, you got to be able to design and develop excellent instruction, verify that learning occurs, then the evaluation portion.

As a project manager all of those skills come into play as well but in a very different way, because the main thing here is managing resources, managing people, managing money and managing time and being an excellent communicator, verifying understanding so that everyone are singing on the same key. Those are the key differences, you focused allot on an orchestral leader role rather than an individual musician role (Project Management and Instructional Design).

In contrast, the comparison of the phases in project management and instructional design activities yields many similarities and a few differences: the comparison of project management and instructional design phases indicates the both adopt a systematic approach. Both engage in careful planning and focus on consistency as a means to deliver quality. Both try to establish problem-solving procedures to guide decision makings. Both decisions are made on the basis of a systematic and analytic framework. Arguably, instructional design must be expanded to include the value of project management as a tool (Lin, 2006).

In regards to, who should define the priorities of the project: both the people who requested the project and the project team, through the process of negotiation and discussion, should agree to all terms in the SOW before actual project work is started (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer (2008).

The key priorities will have to be in place before the initial project begins, of course there must be room for uncertainty, regardless of the scope and or goal of the project. My role as an instructional designer influences my thinking and priorities, at the beginning of an ID project by ensuring that the project falls within the timeline of completion and identifying the specific goals while addressing problems of the project during its design and development. I believe that my role falls under the functional employee or project team members’ category, because I would be the person responsible for successfully performing individual project activities (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer (2008).


References
Lin, H. (2006). Instructional project management: An emerging professional practice for design and training programs. Workforce Education Forum, 33(2). Reprinted by permission of the author.

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.

“Project Management and Instructional Design”
In this program, Dr. Harold Stolovitch discusses what project management is, why instructional designers must learn it, the difference between the roles, and how project managers can effectively manage their workload.