What's My Role?: Project versus Operation

For this blog, we were asked to reflect on a recent project that we were involved in. Initially, I struggled with this as where I work, the educators are not entirely involved in the project management process but rather in the operation (Watt et al., 2014). When a change is being implemented, the ideas are brought by the daycare's director to the educators and the board of directors. After an idea is approved, the change/project can begin. The person in charge of the project is usually the daycare’s director, and throughout the process, they inform the board of directors and educators on how the project is progressing. Thus, as I mentioned above, I am not part of managing a project but rather an operation. 

An example of a project the director headed was creating a website for the daycare. Initially, the daycare needed an online presence; it took much work for potential parents or employees to find information about the daycare. The director decided we needed a website for a better online presence. The creation of the website was the project, and the maintenance of the site and the backend was the operation, as it is ongoing and repetitive (Knolscape, 2013). The website aimed for parents to access important documents, like schedules, lunch menus and photos of special events. The goal for potential employees is to look at the website to gain information on our philosophy and mission. 

Once the website was created, it was up to the director to maintain it by continuously inputting the documents or photos. Because it is time-consuming to input these documents or images, I was appointed to be the person to do so. There were some barriers to the website as some parents were apprehensive about putting the children’s images online, making this barrier a cultural norm issue (Conway et al., 2017), as this website was new and parents were unsure of how it worked. Parents were given an account with a password to access these images to ensure this issue was resolved. Moreover, the parents are asked to sign a permission slip; if they still do not want their child on the site, we make sure not to use their photos. Implementing these accounts and permission slips made the parents feel more comfortable with the website. Another barrier is that I was initially the only one who could input these images or documents (causing a delay in updating if I was unable to input the new photos or documents), which would be a tame problem (Conway et al., 2017), as it had a simple linear solution: to train someone else to use the website. This specific barrier could have been avoided if more than one person had been trained at the outset. 

To conclude, while I was not part of the project management, I am involved in the operation and maintenance of this website. Some methods I would use in my practices would be to continue to have ideas for implementing more digital resources for both teachers and students. Before initiating these ideas, I would communicate them with the director, staff, and board of directors to understand organizational readiness and apprehensions before beginning the project.

References 

Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J. (2017). From design thinking to systems change. How to invest in innovation for social impact. RSA Action and Research Centre. https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_from-design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf

Knolskape. (2013, June 18). Introduction to project management. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOU1YP5NZVA 

Watt, A. (2014). Project management. BCcampus Open Education Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/front-matter/introduction-2/