At the Brainstorming Breakfast this morning, a group of us were talking about the typical summer work pattern. Things start off fairly slow in June. At that point, spring courses are finished, summer courses have started, and the dust has usually settled from the upgrade to the latest version of ANGEL. At that point, we typically turn our attention a few months ahead to the beginning of the fall semester and say "we should get this done by the time students come back" and then we work with that deadline in mind.
For a single project, sure that makes sense. I think it breaks down when many projects (not just within our group, but across the university) have the exact same deadline. It creates a lot of pressure on a few critical resource people and creates a bottleneck and raises stress levels.
I'm not singling out any one particular person or project. I think most of us are guilty of doing it. This summer, I had several things that were all finishing up right before the start of the fall semester: the Learning Design Summer Camp, the Copyright videos and Web site, and the arrangements for the Intermediate Studiocode training. There was also the new TLT Web site, but I can't claim credit for that one -- Audrey did the work and launched the site. All things considered, I think I handled it fairly well.
We started discussing the Copyright Videos and Web site in April and we knew that everyrhing definitely had to be finished by the time students returned so the Provost could send out the site to incoming students. We pulled together the team and the Digital Commons staff filmed a proof of concept video. After working through some decisions that would affect all of the videos (tone, style, titles, etc...), we created the first script in about a day and took another week or so for filming and editing. The second script was also fairly quick. Those two videos gave us enough content to design and build the Web site, create the marketing plan, and work on the third script (shot and edited this week). So by the time this week rolled around, it was mostly a matter of just putting the pieces together.
We started planning the Summer Camp at the end of May, so we couldn't have had it much earlier, but we also held it on August 12-13 so it wouldn't bump into the fall semester directly. Fortunately, the learning design community pitched in to shape and run the event. My work was to fill in the remaining gaps and organize things so they wouldn't be too chaotic. We also kept things fun, but minimalistic. For example, there was no printed agenda and no one asked for one. Also, the meal cards eliminated the need to make arrangements with a caterer. The stickers and special name badges took some attention, but I never mind doing that kind of work. Next year, we'll move it to June so people will have time to follow-up with ideas from the Summer Camp before feeling overwhelmed.
Finally, the Studiocode training was pretty easy to put together. Our Training Services group has a process in place for requesting a teaching lab space and a registration system. I arranged the times between the trainer, faculty, and Training Services; get the word out to Studiocode users; and then help the trainer learn about our lab/podium setup.
I'm pretty "upstream" on these project timelines. I can balance my work to avoid a crunch because most of my work happens well before the deadline. However, I did have to call upon some of the TLT staff toward the end to finish these projects on time and most of those "downstream" people are busy with many other projects at this time of year.
So two things. First, my thanks to Audrey, Derick, the WebLion group, our Digital Commons staff, the learning design staff who pitched in above and beyond the call of duty, and people like Jason who are the go-to people for certain critical pieces. Second, I plan to continually work toward balancing the workload as much as I can, so we can give each project the attention it deserves without a deadline breathing down our backs.
For a single project, sure that makes sense. I think it breaks down when many projects (not just within our group, but across the university) have the exact same deadline. It creates a lot of pressure on a few critical resource people and creates a bottleneck and raises stress levels.
I'm not singling out any one particular person or project. I think most of us are guilty of doing it. This summer, I had several things that were all finishing up right before the start of the fall semester: the Learning Design Summer Camp, the Copyright videos and Web site, and the arrangements for the Intermediate Studiocode training. There was also the new TLT Web site, but I can't claim credit for that one -- Audrey did the work and launched the site. All things considered, I think I handled it fairly well.
We started discussing the Copyright Videos and Web site in April and we knew that everyrhing definitely had to be finished by the time students returned so the Provost could send out the site to incoming students. We pulled together the team and the Digital Commons staff filmed a proof of concept video. After working through some decisions that would affect all of the videos (tone, style, titles, etc...), we created the first script in about a day and took another week or so for filming and editing. The second script was also fairly quick. Those two videos gave us enough content to design and build the Web site, create the marketing plan, and work on the third script (shot and edited this week). So by the time this week rolled around, it was mostly a matter of just putting the pieces together.
We started planning the Summer Camp at the end of May, so we couldn't have had it much earlier, but we also held it on August 12-13 so it wouldn't bump into the fall semester directly. Fortunately, the learning design community pitched in to shape and run the event. My work was to fill in the remaining gaps and organize things so they wouldn't be too chaotic. We also kept things fun, but minimalistic. For example, there was no printed agenda and no one asked for one. Also, the meal cards eliminated the need to make arrangements with a caterer. The stickers and special name badges took some attention, but I never mind doing that kind of work. Next year, we'll move it to June so people will have time to follow-up with ideas from the Summer Camp before feeling overwhelmed.
Finally, the Studiocode training was pretty easy to put together. Our Training Services group has a process in place for requesting a teaching lab space and a registration system. I arranged the times between the trainer, faculty, and Training Services; get the word out to Studiocode users; and then help the trainer learn about our lab/podium setup.
I'm pretty "upstream" on these project timelines. I can balance my work to avoid a crunch because most of my work happens well before the deadline. However, I did have to call upon some of the TLT staff toward the end to finish these projects on time and most of those "downstream" people are busy with many other projects at this time of year.
So two things. First, my thanks to Audrey, Derick, the WebLion group, our Digital Commons staff, the learning design staff who pitched in above and beyond the call of duty, and people like Jason who are the go-to people for certain critical pieces. Second, I plan to continually work toward balancing the workload as much as I can, so we can give each project the attention it deserves without a deadline breathing down our backs.
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