The initiation

This week our team worked on improving the website that has yet to be finalized, we met with our client and we developed the project charter. On Friday January 22, I worked with one of my teammates on the website for 1.5 hours. The following day, (Saturday January 23), the whole team met to talk about the website, discuss the charter and the upcoming meeting with our client. This meeting took two hours. On Monday January 25 we met with the client for two hours.

The website: After having agreed on color schemes, I offered to clean it up with the help of one of my teammates. We collaborated on picking the right colors, working on menu rollovers, and some other details. I followed up on it at home for few more hours. Since none of us on the team has advanced Dreamweaver skills and since there is more than one way to do the same task in Dreamweaver, it seems to me that we are unable to agree on how to approach the design, stagnating a little too long on that issue and not being able to move forward. At that point, we assigned the finalization of the website to one of the teammates. Two days later, when no progress has been made on the website for technical difficulties, I had to work on it from home some more. In my opinion, we now have an appealing and functioning website that is not yet posted, awaiting more “final touches’. The problems in the website that we are unable to solve are keeping the menu tabs highlighted when active and coordinating the link colors. The selection of the link colors applies to words and buttons at the same time and the colors that look good on the linked words do not look good on the linked buttons (that is outside the menu) and vice versa. This task is 50% completed.

Project charter: We have decided to break the charter into three sections with each one of us developing one section and then all of us giving feedback to each other. For that purpose, and under the project manager’s suggestion, I created a wiki where our collaboration throughout the project is to take place. It was easier to develop the charter after our meeting with the client and this is how we approached it. My section of the charter is 100% completed and took around two hours. I believe the project charter will be well done and completed by the due date, under the good editing of the project manager.

Meeting with the client: The meeting was very productive and we were introduced to two more Autozone representatives responsible for training and instructional design in the company. In that meeting, we discussed the Autozone team’s perceptions of the need for the instructional unit. We probed for details on the characteristics of the learners to whom the instructional unit will be addressed. We also discussed the technicalities for development and implementation of the unit. The Autozone team provided a wealth of details, and showed a great deal of enthusiasm and support for us. They also provided us with the DVDs of the workshop on which the instructional unit will be based. I offered to develop learners’ analysis questions for review and distribution by the Autozone team. Needing to watch the DVDs before developing the questions, my completion of this task is 0% at the time of writing this blog. I am hoping to finalize this task by Saturday. I am not sure if this will give us enough time to have the analysis report ready by its due date. Moreover, there seems to be a disagreement on the importance of carrying out the learners’ analysis. I view it as essential and this is not necessarily the opinion of my teammates.

Wrap up: After the meeting with the client, each of us on the team worked individually on the tasks assigned, communicating on a daily basis through email.

Reflections

Compromise, compromise, compromise, this is the magic word. However, when should one compromise and when should one not compromise? People differ in their views on a perfected product and that is a challenge when working on a team. People differ on priorities and that is another challenge. One more challenge is compromising ideals with realities. Wanting an ideal product that follows all the rules in the book gets put to the test when faced with deadlines and real-life scenarios. This is something I really need to work hard on. It is very difficult for me to accept it but I know deep inside that, ultimately, it has to happen. However, I cannot but try to take the final product as close as possible to the ideals.
Practice: Although working on the website design took more hours from me than I have wished, I enjoyed every minute of it. This is because, the more I dig in it the more I learn about it. It is thrilling for me to perceive the comfort level I have now with technology unlike my feelings about my technology skills coming into the IDT program. About Dreamweaver, I still need to work on how to move an internal CSS to an external CSS. I resort to designing the CSS rules of the first file and saving it as a template. Although it is very functional, I need to learn how to save an external style sheet, once and for all.

A lot has been accomplished this week, a lot has been learned. I hope the dynamics of work between team members and team/client, as well as meeting the deadlines will allow for a smooth progression of the work needed.

The beginning

Last Thursday, we started class. We listened to different potential clients who presented their proposals of instructional design projects. After selecting our team members, we decided on our projects. I was on the team that was assigned to develop an instructional unit on leadership for Autozone. My teammates and I met the very next day to initiate our work. We named our team “Launching Learning Solutions”, based on the initials of our first names. We assigned our different roles. My role is “Instructional Team Lead”. In spite of the lead role assigned to each one of us, we agreed that we will all be involved in all the stages of the instructional design process. We then turned to the color themes of our team’s website. We brainstormed a little bit on that and then decided that we will work on it some more individually and then communicate about it through email. We ended the meeting having chosen the team manager, the team's name, the weekly meeting time, and the assigned roles. Over the weekend, I spent a considerable time experimenting with different color schemes for the website and shared it with my teammates through email. In addition, I developed my individual website which also took a considerable amount of time deciding on the layout and color schemes. For this week, decisions on the team’s name and meeting time were 100% accomplished, whereas, and up to the time of writing this blog, the team’s website is 50% accomplished. My individual website is 100% accomplished.
This first week seemed to be a bit unorganized. I realized that, in a team, members have different working schedules through which the tempo of work may vary. Therefore, communication of ideas will take time. In order to meet the weekly deadlines, I will suggest to my teammates to communicate on a daily basis when work is pending. In addition, I realized that the initiation of a project may me a bit slow. This is more true for our team who did not get the chance to listen to our client’s proposal and establish first contact yet. I believe that the dynamics of interaction among the team members will become more established in the weeks to come and the flow of work will become smoother once we meet our client and get a clear understanding of the instructional need. As for my challenge of the week, I would say it was deciding on color schemes. I had to compromise between my preference for vibrant colors and the professional look that should be given to the websites (team or individual). I am glad to have my teammates to discuss the themes with. I find it fascinating to compare our likes and dislikes. On that issue one may say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.