A Project Management Crisis: Moving a Multi-Institutional Collaborative In-Person Sprint Online

Introduction

It was 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17, 2020, and Kim Carter, Professor in the School of Business at Conestoga College, panicked. Carter was the project lead for a multi-institutional collaboration project called Medical Terminology Open Educational Resources (MT OER). She had just received communication that the college was closed until further notice. On the same day, Marie Rutherford, a collaborating partner from Georgian College, called to ask, “has the project been pulled, and what are we going to do?” All in-person events at both colleges were cancelled due to concerns and unknowns over the contagious COVID-19 virus that had resulted in a global pandemic. The MT OER collaboration project was two weeks into phase 3, which involved multiple faculty subject matter experts (SMEs) adapting chapter content to prepare for the launch of phase 4, a two-day sprint (see Exhibit 1 –– MT OER Collaboration Project Plan and Schedule). The phase 4 sprint, an iterative agile approach to completing tasks, was critical in completing the project in time for publication in August 2020. Phase 3 was in jeopardy since all faculty SMEs were pivoting their work to accommodate remote learning requirements until the college re-opened. All phases of the project had to be completed on time to meet project timelines and to allow integration of the MT OER in Fall 2020 courses. Carter exclaimed, “All the work to get to this point, and now we may not be able to complete the project. What will I do for a textbook this fall? I don’t have one for the health care terminology course.”

The project’s key deliverables were open educational resources (OER) that encompassed a 20-chapter openly licensed digital textbook, interactive learning objects, and accompanying ancillary resources to be published in time for Fall 2020 delivery. Carter needed to re-evaluate whether the key deliverables could still be met and adjust the project plan based on situational factors. A key component of the phase 4 development was the in-person sprint, which was critical to the MT OER being published on time. The in-person sprint was scheduled for April 29 and 30, 2020, at Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITAL) in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Since in-person events were no longer allowed, Carter and Rutherford had to re-evaluate the situation, including the project plan, to determine if, and how, this project could be completed in time for faculty to have the resources in early August. An early August delivery ensured time for course preparation so that learners had the resources on the first day of classes in September of 2020. Carter needed to re-evaluate whether the key deliverables could still be met and adjust the project plan based on situational factors.

Background

Conestoga College has campuses in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, Stratford, and Ingersoll, Ontario. The college has over 20,000 students and a variety of programs that suit a diverse study body including degree, diploma, and certification programs.^[1] Conestoga College School of Business is student-centric and prioritizes the use of OER materials in its programs because OER are free to use, so they reduce financial barriers for students.

Carter was the curriculum guide and the faculty member responsible for designing the curriculum and choosing resources for healthcare terminology in the health office administration diploma program in the business school at Conestoga College. Curriculum guides at Conestoga played a key role within their programs, as they were responsible for course development and ensuring courses contained all required materials in preparation for the coming term. Carter became interested in developing OER for her courses after learning about the social justice implications for students who could not afford the high cost of commercial textbooks.^[2] Students who cannot purchase textbooks are disadvantaged. Without access to the textbook information, they can fall behind or drop out of the courses, and the associated program. Health office administration textbooks are expensive as this program of study combines business and health, often requiring faculty to customize resources to suit course delivery. OER could be customized for courses, be made available to students at no cost, and are digital by design. These benefits matched Carter’s values of equitable and affordable education for students. Carter embarked upon a quest to learn more about publishing platforms and open licenses, and to find like-minded faculty to assist her. A collaborator was found in Rutherford, a colleague from Georgian College, College of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT). After some discussion and excitement at the annual Technology Enabled Seminar and Showcase (TESS) conference in November 2019, the multi-institutional collaboration project was formed. Carter and Rutherford left the meeting armed with a plan to advocate at their respective institutions for support to complete the MT OER project.

Rutherford had previously authored a published textbook, and brought 22 years of subject matter expertise, teaching experience, and an instructional design lens to the project. She was the curriculum guide for an anatomy and physiology course in the office administration – health diploma program and faculty in the business school at Georgian. College, College of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT). Rutherford had met Carter while participating in eCampus Ontario’s Empowered Educator program, which included a curator module where they learned about developing OER. During this meeting, they discussed the lack of OER for Health Care Administration programs. Carter envisioned a medical terminology OER with content divided up by the eleven body systems, introductory chapters to medical terminology word breakdown, and an overview of how body systems work together, mental health, and chapter chapters focused on pathophysiology such as oncology. Her vision included interactives and videos throughout each of the 20 chapters. Carter demonstrated one chapter of completed content as an example of what could be possible.  This was the launching pad for the MT OER multi-institutional collaboration project. Rutherford advocated and successfully gained support from Georgian College leadership to participate in this project.

In a presentation to the chair and dean of the business school, Carter received approval and support to host a multi-institutional sprint at Conestoga College in the spring of 2020. The agile sprint approach plan was to have small groups of subject matter experts (SMEs) and student participants each review one chapter of content at a time, then a different small group would make additions and edits, and a final group of support people would copyedit and clean up the code. On day two, a similar approach was to be used to build interactives and additional resources like slide decks and test bank questions. Any work not completed during the two-day sprint would be divided up and completed within two weeks post-sprint. Rutherford received approval to participate in the project from Georgian. Carter and Rutherford knew a large amount of preparation was needed to be ready to sprint in the spring. Carter and Rutherford met weekly to prepare a project plan with the first phase set to start in early January. Phase 1 involved recruiting SMEs teaching in similar programs from nineteen out of twenty-two Ontario colleges. Phase 2 involved technical training for SMEs and logistical planning, such as hotel bookings. In phase 3, SMEs began writing content and logistical planning intensified, such as room booking, equipment booking, and meal planning as more support people joined the project (see Exhibit 1 –– MT OER Collaboration Project Plan and Schedule).

Situational Factors

Carter and Rutherford successfully gained support from their institutions to work on the project during the Winter and Spring terms of 2020. Chapters were divided up between Carter and Rutherford, and more faculty SMEs from around the province agreed to join the project by contributing chapters. A project sprint was to be hosted by Conestoga College on April 29 and 30. A sprint is an agile project management approach that allows for fast production by improving efficiency and adaptability, while minimizing waste.^[3] Following an agile approach at the two-day event would allow for the re-evaluation of deliverables and adjustments before continuing on to the following deliverable. The plan was to support faculty SMEs to complete chapters and peer review others’ chapters. Then have students provide a review of subject content and construct digital learning objects with faculty using new H5P technology. H5P is an acronym for HTML 5 Package, which was a relatively new technology that gave course developers a toolkit of applications to develop interactive components such as flashcards with audio, quizzes, matching exercises or knowledge checks within their course resources. During the two-day sprint event, the participants would also collaboratively develop interactive pre-assessments and post-assessments of chapter readings, with ancillaries such as slide decks and test banks. Five Ontario colleges committed to sending faculty SMEs, students, and support staff, including instructional designers, project managers, technology for teaching experts, and library supports. Rooms, technology, and motivational speakers had been booked. Meal plans and schedules had been formulated.

On March 17, 2020, months after that initial meeting in November 2019, all in-person events were cancelled, and future events were paused due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.^[4] International flights were restricted, and class enrolment numbers still needed to be determined. It was not business as usual. Carter’s challenge was how to re-engage faculty so they would complete the project without the in-person sprint event. Carter explained, “The priority is to convert courses for remote delivery, having an online digital resource ready for fall will support this priority.” Rutherford exclaimed, “I have faculty willing to contribute medical transcription reports for activities that we can use immediately.”

As the pandemic and restrictions continued, people were told to stay home and work from home. People were stressed due to so much uncertainty about the future.^[5] They cared for multi-generational family members in their homes, assisted children with their studies, and worried about the future. Faculty continued to convert the delivery of courses, and with their students, learned to navigate new technologies like video conferencing to complete course work. Internet bandwidth was not distributed equally, creating inequities in the ability of students to work and learn, despite internet providers waiving overage fees.^[6] People who lived outside of major cities often did not have adequate internet infrastructure to support full days of working and in-home learning.^[7] For the project to continue, all of these situational factors had to be successfully navigated.

Alternatives Explored

Some of the challenges to completing the project sprint remotely included technical logistics. For example, people were new to virtual conferencing software, and each institution used different platforms. Hence, not everyone was familiar with Zoom, Conestoga’s choice of video communication software. Sprint attendees had extra situational factors, and meeting for two full days did not appeal to many participants. Emails sent out to the group requesting responses generated increasingly fewer results, which seemed to indicate that people might not be able to participate on April 29 and 30 due to factors such as workload, family stressors, or discontinuance of institutional support. Moving the dates of the project sprint was problematic as there were no consistent dates that everyone would commit to. People were unsure if they could complete their portions of the project and they were reluctant to commit to two full days of virtual conferencing.

Institutions could no longer financially support allocating participants to a virtual project sprint. However, Conestoga agreed to continue to provide resources such as tech support for Pressbooks, the publishing platform used for the OER, a copyright liaison, a tech liaison, and a final review editor. Faculty being compensated for converting courses for remote delivery were approached to see if part of that conversion compensation could be allocated to complete the OER project. Carter advocated with her colleagues, explaining, “these resources will be digital and free from copyright concerns for remote delivery.” Program students who had been assisting with planning for the project sprint were asked if they would be interested in participating in building the H5P learning objects and working with faculty to create the OER chapters. Three students agreed to take on these tasks and were compensated with co-curricular recognition, an acknowledgment in the book, and an honorarium.

However, scheduling project tasks became problematic, as no one would commit to two full virtual days. Carter needed to determine whether it was too risky to continue with the project, given the current scenario, or whether it was feasible to continue trying to get commitments from project members during such an uncertain time. It was time to determine if people really needed these resources for their teaching in the fall. Carter asked Rutherford, “Do you think the faculty who needed these resources for fall would be willing to work asynchronously?” Rutherford responded, “Let’s find out?”

After a series of emails, chats, texts, and phone calls, it was determined that the faculty needed the textbook and H5P learning objects for Fall 2020. Many faculty had difficulty accessing digital copies of their commercial resources and were reluctant to share information from those paid resources in the remote environment for fear of copyright infringement.^[8] Students who relied on a physical library copy of the commercial resources or shared resources with other students were disadvantaged, as they could no longer access the library. Most also did not live with other students with whom they might have shared textbooks. To complicate matters further, several publishers would not allow the purchase of an e-text version of their publications for student use through libraries.^[9]

The conclusion was that people required the resources, but they could not commit to a large amount of virtual synchronous time. Carter knew a significant amount of flexibility would be required to engage faculty in completing chapters and to ensure some MT OER version was ready for Fall 2020. This meant re-evaluating the final deliverable of the digital textbook with ancillaries. Carter and Rutherford wondered if ancillaries such as test banks and slide decks could wait for a future edition. This meant finding a solution that would effectively accommodate faculty workload, faculty internet challenges, and stressful situational factors to meet the deadline.

Dilemma

There was a looming threat that this project plan would go “off the rails” and that these OER would not be developed and published in August 2020. Carter knew she had to identify all relevant risks in this precarious situation to establish an alternative plan to meet the publishing timeline. If the project was not completed in time, the resources would not be ready for Fall 2020, and the course would have to run without a customized textbook. Carter had to decide if the project plan could be adapted and if people were available to complete the tasks, or if it was too risky and she should cancel the project and look elsewhere for resources. The project risks had to be re-evaluated based on the pandemic situation, and a revised project schedule including a new communication strategy had to be created. A decision had to be made on how or if the project could move forward. Carter had to evaluate the situation and determine whether it made sense to move forward. Where should she start?

Exhibits

Exhibit 1 – MT OER Collaboration Project Plan and Schedule

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Glossary

adaptive approach: A type of approach that allows for refinement and changes after each iteration is sometimes called an agile approach when there is uncertainty about a project.^[10]

H5P  (HTML5 content): A platform to create interactive content or learning objects that do not require the user to know code. To learn more, visit the H5P website [new tab].

minimum viable product (MVP): Describes the least number of features that would still deliver value to the end user.^[11]

OER – open educational resources: These are resources in which the creator has applied a creative commons license to their work and, depending on the license applied, allows the content to be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon. To learn more about the Creative Commons license, visit the Creative Commons website [new tab].

predictive approach: A type of approach, also known as a waterfall approach, reduces uncertainty early and has well-defined phases that may use templates from prior projects.^[12]

project sprint: This is a term in the context of the OER sprint that refers to the two-day event that was planned to use an iterative approach to complete specific tasks to advance the project.

SME (subject matter expert): A specialist in a particular subject. Faculty specialize in a subject they have studied through formal education and have worked in the field for several years.

sprint: This is a term that means to take an agile or iterative approach to a project.^[13] In the context of developing OER, it means bringing many people together to work through multiple tasks in a circular path. The cooperation allows for fast production as each phase is completed; it can be evaluated before proceeding to the next steps.

Technology and Education Seminar and Showcase (TESS) Conference: An annual conference where eCampus Ontario members are celebrated, showcase, and share their work. To learn more, visit the TESS conference website [new tab].

Download a PDF copy of this case [PDF].

Read the Instructor’s Manual Abstract for this case.

How to cite this case: Carter, K., Gravill, J. & Yegul, F. (2023). A project management crisis: Moving a multi-institutional collaborative in-person sprint online. Open Access Teaching Case Journal, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.58067/1GT9-1345

The Open Access Teaching Case Journal is a peer-reviewed, free to use, free to publish, open educational resource (OER) published with the support of the Conestoga College School of Business and the Case Research Development Program and is aligned with the school’s UN PRME objectives. Visit the OATCJ website [new tab] to learn more about how to submit a case or become a reviewer.