Quality Air Force Post-mortem
My time in the Air Force has taught me that changes comes quite often. During my early years, I was put in charge of an project that dealt with Air Force Quality process. This was the new assessment for units that help units to evaluate their process and improve on it. It was called Quality Air Force 2000. Being an eager Non-Commission Officer, I was eager to prove my abilities and took the project head on and attempted to bring our squadron to Quality Air Force.
My main plan was to follow certain guidelines given by HQs which was teach the knowledge, give scenario exercises and validation of new assessment being used. HQs has sent out all the materials to follow thru with the project at hand. Lesson plans, Scenario exercise, class materials, and validation exercises. We were even given training on how to instruct and evaluate the new system. The training went well and majority of the all project managers where excited to institute this new assessment tool. We were ready to get started and I felt this project was going to be a big success.
Once my classes got started, I notice that the different type of culture compared to the training I had. The atmosphere in my training session was needed during my instruction times with my squadron. This is an area that needed to be notice as learning was stand still. A Non-Commission Officer in the AF are taught to understand their folks and be able to comprehend their values in life to be able to better associate yourself with them (PDG, 2009). This ideal should’ve have lead me to re evaluated certain aspects of this project and make it tailored more to the individuals in my squadron. Follow-Through is another responsibility that helps you work with others to institutionalize achieved changes (Beach, 2006). This new system had only valued certain members in this project and they lost their focus on the teaching at hand (Portny, 2008). Training became difficult and seem to lose its steam after the third and final day of the instruction.
Finally, the units in the squadron seem to down play the Quality Air Force 2000 as only 3 of the 15 units instituted the assessment tool. Only one of the three units who did use the system found any value in improving their process. The Air Force across the board did not think the Quality Air Force 2000 project go as well as they plan. Soon after, they develop at least two more different assessment systems . But in the end the Air Force now uses a hybrid method of the old Quality Air Force 2000 system to assess unit process. In retrospect, the tools HQs gave us was adequate tools for the new process. Currently The value should have been place more on units members. Getting the members involve directly with the process could’ve made this project a lot more successful and save the Air Force a lot of money of developing two more different systems. I was too young in my managerial career to be more patient with the members and find how this system could’ve have impact them more in a personal level.
Hermes Sanchez, TSgt, USAF
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Beach, L. R. (2006). Leadership and the Art of Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Hermes,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like the design team didn't do a proper analysis and the deliverables didn't meet the needs of the learner. From my understanding of your post, you were in charge of implementing a program that had already been developed. Do you think that choosing a member from the project audience-a person or group who will be affected by, Portny (2008)-to participate in the development may have helped represent the audience better?
I'm also wondering if the PM planned for any kind of test prior to the actual training. A test audience that truly represented your audience would have indicated not to proceed with implementation.
This was an interesting case and a good reminder about how important it is to know the needs/background of the learner! Thanks Hermes!
Rhi
Hermes,
DeleteI totally agree with you that, “Getting the members involved directly with the process could have made this project a lot more successful and save the Air Force a lot of money of developing two more different systems”. To add to the wastage of money, another important resource that was also wasted is time. According to Stolovich, (n.d.), timeline is a key priority in project management. Additionally, Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008) contended that project management requires careful planning. To this end, the end-users should be of primary consideration in the initial stage of planning and getting them involved should have answered to a number of uncertainties as Portny, et. al. (2008) also argued that project outcomes are unpredictable.
I can identify with the eagerness and enthusiasm you experienced as you embarked on a new project with the intention of gaining success. Upon realizing that the training was not going as intended, you made note that you should have re-evaluated aspects of the project and make it tailored more to the individuals in your squadron – does this suggest that “post mortem” should be ongoing instead of being conducted at the end of a project? I want to believe, too, that probably another mistake that was made was the omission of analysis of the learners Morrison, Ross, Kalman, and Kemp, (2011). In the meantime, you have concluded that you were too young in your managerial position to exercise the necessary patience in undertaking this project. Many of us are guilty of impatience but from our reading about the role of the project manager/instructional designer, our eyes have become opened to the need for effective communication in managing a project (Portney, et. al. 2008) which takes much understanding and patience.
In the end, your company had to do a re-work which saw it re-creating instruction using the hybrid format. What factors do you believe influenced the success of this approach? Is it that the right persons were selected? Or instructions were tailored to fit the learners’ need? Or is it the incorporation of technology?
Morrison, G.R., Ross, S.M., Kalman,. H.K., and Kemp, J.E. (2011). Designing effective instruction (6th ed.). Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Stolovich, H. (n.d.). Project management and instructional design. [Video]. Laureate Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6290461&Survey=1&47=8272809&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.
Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project Management planning, scheduling and controlling projects. Hoboken. NJ:John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Hermes
ReplyDeleteI find out insightful that you realized how your lack of experience could have lead to issues with this project. Sometimes we do better when we know better. It seems that as we move throughout our career we gain so much knowledge and insight into the real world.
Shirelle