Project Timelines and Blogging
Project Timelines
Your work should begin as soon as your project proposal begins.
Your work will be due on December 12.
Good project management principles dictate that you start with the due date and work backwards to set milestones for the work that you need to accomplish. I suggest you set December 1 as your finish date. If you fail miserably, you have a few weeks to make up for problems. Keep in mind that your deadline is a hard one, with no extensions given except in extreme circumstances (severe illness, death in the family, etc).
Project Management Resources
Feeling overwhelmed about this project? No idea where to start, how to know you're on track, or how it will all get done? That's a fairly typical reaction to a capstone or a thesis.
Your first step should be learning a bit about project management and how to plan a successful project. Begin with the end in mind (as Stephen Covey Links to an external site. says), and you will save yourself precious days and weeks of time reworking your project.
As a Harvard Extension student, you qualify for access to lynda.com, a video library of thousands of courses. If you are not signed up for this resource, go to lynda.harvard.edu to register. If you encounter any problems, you can use http://www.lynda.com/freepass/jkramer Links to an external site. for a free 7-day pass.
Take an hour and watch the Project Management Simplified Links to an external site. course, which will walk you through strategy for planning your course, as well as give you an overview of some common tools for managing projects.
If you have two hours and/or you want more detail, the Project Management Fundamentals Links to an external site. course is also excellent.
Finally, most students are guilty of procrastination somewhere along the way. Get this habit under control with Overcoming Procrastination Links to an external site..
There's tons of project management software available for managing your project. Trello Links to an external site., for example, is highly recommended, but there are many other options out there as well. Before you dive into software choices, though, do learn about project management strategy. This will help you choose the right software for your project, and you'll be able to set it up more quickly to help you. Remember that software is a tool to solve your problem -- it's not the solution to your problem!
Plan on Bad Things
Think back on your life. At what point have you ever had 6 months without some kind of crisis or unforeseen derailment of your time?
Some of those situations were happy: a new boyfriend/girlfriend, the birth of a child, a new job, an unexpected opportunity.
Some of those situations were unhappy: Breakups, divorce, death, illness, injury.
Unforeseen things will happen to you while you're in the capstone process. Plan on being derailed. Don't plan for a perfect execution, with every minute of your time accounted for. Leave room for something big to happen in your life, but still be able to get through the capstone process.
Blogging
Each student will be asked to create a project management blog. At least once a week, but preferably more often, write down exactly what you worked on during the week. That includes vacations or "time off" that you may have scheduled, a family crisis or illness derailing work for a week, or thinking about a particular problem.
- Summarize what you did for that time period.
- Track resources you're using, like URLs, books, training videos, etc.
- Document conversations you have with your client, web host, actors/narrators, instructor, fellow classmates, and anyone else who may impact the direction of your project. What did you discuss? What were the outcomes? What are the follow-up items for you and for the person you spoke with? (Now you've written down what those items were and when they were agreed to! You can follow up to find out if your requests are answered. If so, document it. If not, document it.)
- Document decisions you make along the way. Even the best-planned capstone will encounter issues, will change direction, and will look slightly (or radically) different than the proposal. Why did you make the decisions you did? As you come to the end of the project, and you compare your proposal with what you produced, you will need to have this information fresh in mind for your presentation/defense. (Questions about changes in project scope are typical questions faculty ask at presentations.)
- Don't spend a huge amount of time on perfect language. Fifteen minutes of thinking should suffice. The point is to record your progress (or lack thereof).
Technically speaking:
- Blog software is an easy way to do this -- wordpress.com, Tumblr, Blogger, and any other blogging service is fine. Free is lovely. You do not need to make custom themes, graphics, or modify anything -- what the standard 5 minute setup wizard produces is just fine for this.
- The blog does not have to be public. You may make it private and share it with selected students. It is recommended, but not required, to give your instructors access (see below for how the blog may be used).
- The "blog" doesn't need to be a blog! You could track this information in Microsoft Word or in Google Drive if that works better for you. If you choose this option, make sure your entries are labeled clearly with dates.
How could the blog be used?
Each month, you have an assignment "check-in" to formally state where you are in your project and what you have left to complete. Mine the blog for that information, and this assignment is very quick to complete.
You may think the blog sounds like "busy work". In reality, the blog is a critical document because it's recording your process in the capstone.
Consider an unfortunate, but all-too-common scenario.
- It's a lovely summer. You're having a great time, enjoying vacation and time with friends and family.
- You don't have much to present on the first day of class, but you're confident you'll catch up.
- You spend September organizing your thoughts. Not much is produced.
- Work intervenes in October, and you lose another 2 weeks to a sudden deadline you didn't anticipate.
- Your child gets the chicken pox in November. You're home for a week taking care of the child, but that doesn't leave much time for your project.
- Panic sets in at Thanksgiving, as the due date is around the corner. You spend Thanksgiving working on your project and neglecting your family.
- The server crashes, and you lose work as a result -- you were so busy you forgot to make backups along the way.
- Now you're asking for an extension.
Your reason for the extension will be your child was sick, your server crashed, and you need more time. I will be sympathetic, but I'll be looking for documentation for what you did over the 6 months. The real story is played out as above -- you started late, waited for the last minute, and then couldn't pull it off in time.
If you don't have a blog, I can't confirm your story, and I can't grant you an extension. No blog = poor time management.
If you do have a blog, I need to review your story and what you were doing, to grant you an extension. If you demonstrate good time management, you're far more likely to get an extension (particularly if you get tripped up at the end) than if you manage your time poorly.