Learning from a Project “ Post-mortem”

    One of the most recent projects that I was involved in had to deal with creating a document that placed students that I taught in classes that I thought they would benefit from for the next school year. As a group member I was in charge of coming up with the best way to do this. I had no idea that there were so many ways to complete this task. I ended up creating an excel spreadsheet, but the process took forever.
    Another team member had to make sure that all teachers put this information into the spreadsheet by the deadline, but that quickly failed. Due to the load of work that teachers have the work was not completed in time. Teachers felt like this was just another thing to do on top of what they were already being asked to do. I believe that if teachers were asked to come to a meeting where all they had to do was put this information in they wouldn't feel like they had to make time for this. This would help the teacher get one more thing completed.
    This project may have helped the scheduling process for students and for administration, but it caused chaos and a decreased moral for the teacher. As a result, many teachers were unable to complete the on time which in return caused the schedules to be a whole week late at the beginning of the new school year.