I was working on an IMI on digital literacy
and it was to have 3 learning object history of the internet, breakdown of a URL,
and level of the internet. This was supposed to be just an introduction into
what the Army calls Publicly available information. It was to be followed by other IMIs that
would go more in depth with internet searches and internet threats and how to disguise
your IP Address. So, I write my scripts
and sent it to the SME (who is also my boss) he come back with edits and adds
more content adding in things like echo chambering, digital footprint, introducing
digital treating and digital counter measures. I ask for a meeting to discuss
the changes and was politely told that it was clear in the email what needed to
be changed. So, I made the changes in when on to the storyboarding process. So,
once I had the IMI storyboarded, I sent the story bord out for review to my
team and again it came back from the SME with more content added this time it
was add these 5 videos from YouTube. I Wrote back an email stating that we couldn’t
add videos from YouTube due to copywrite issues and it would put out the
impression that the US army was endorsing those channels. I was told again the
email was clear and to just add a disclaimer that the views in the videos were
not supported by the Army. (But were in Army Training) with this I referred it
to my contractor project manager and was told well he’s the government do what
he says so I did. So, I complete the IMI I turn out the Alpha product for
testing and you guessed it more content added at this point in testing to
should just be glitching and bugs being found maybe a miss spelled word not adding
content. So this time because the previous times I had pushed back and had no
help I just added the content. This IMI that was supposed to take 3 months
start to finish ended up taking 7 months start to finish with multiple revision
and edits art needing to be redone.
To help with this particular type
of scope creep I would have the SME also the director of the section because
nobody wanted to tell him no. I brought this up multiple time that if it was
any other SME that as a team would have shut it down. But from my first line
supervisor to my PM I kept getting he’s the boss just does what he says. If the
Boss has to bee the SME that have to be open to the idea that their idea isnt
always going to be the right one and they have to set their pride aside.
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteDealing with SMEs that are stubborn and not open to feedback can be difficult, especially when it is your boss. For the next coming projects, I would suggest following:
-Have a signoff once you both come to agreement on the contents of the project. This will hold accountability of the SME and avoid scope creep (Walden University, LLC., n.d. a).
-Provide your knowledge of learning theories. Adding ‘nice to know’ information could risk the learner to cognitive overload (Morrison, et. al., 2019).
-Create a Gantt chart to present the timeline of the project for each task. Then inform the SME of the risk of each revision will push back the timeline and suggest creating a new project for the additional content (Walden University, LLC., n.d. b).
References
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Morrison, J. R., & Kalman, H. R. (2019). Designing effective instruction (8th ed). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Walden University, LLC. (Executive Producer). (n.d. a). Communicating with stakeholders [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Walden University, LLC. (Executive Producer). (n.d. b). Creating a project schedule [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu