Project Proposal
BEMSCA approached the team with the primary goal of raising awareness among students and citizens of Bath. The secondary goal was to help with the COMF project in that BEMSCA is involved. Gathering data using surveys and focus groups about different experiences during the pandemic was the responsibility the team took up. To conduct focus groups while actively spreading awareness about BEMSCA, the hiSTORY event was an idea that helped realise both tasks.​
Gantt Chart -
Project Management
The use of a Gantt chart from the beginning of the project, helped all team members understand both group and individual deadlines, this holistic overview of the project helped provide direction, and the transparency encouraged group members to help out where needed in more demanding areas.
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The Gantt chart allowed the team to easily recognize that the detailed action plan would demand the majority of the group's attention, as this was the sole objective at this stage. We broke the document into chunks, allocating a few chunks per person and kept in regular contact with our client, continuously augmenting the documents with any nuances. The Gantt chart is a simple tool but provided the group with invaluable awareness and transparency.
In the second stage of working with BEMSCA, we completed the necessary tasks, such as risk assessment. After completion of the case project, we returned to the action project and soon thought we may have misallocated our time as a resource. We had promised to deliver too many deliverables for our client. Not just an event to both fundraise and gain awareness, but the completion of two surveys, videos of various events, a trailer video, focus groups, and social media development. Already aware the deliverables were a considerable requirement.
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In the next meeting with our clients, we consolidated our requirements, streamlined our deliverables and developed timelines. This augmentation to the scope helped keep the team motivated. Our client was very willing to enable this change, as it also benefited their goals.
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Keeping daily communications with our client helped us understand there was an element of malleability with how much we would be able to deliver. We communicated to our client if we had the resources available we would endeavour to complete any secondary deliverables. Ultimately, this approach resulted in the team being able to deliver all primary and secondary deliverables.
Project Methodology
Utilising techniques from the taught stage of our course, such as project management was invaluable. After our first meeting with BEMSCA, we discussed various types of project management methodology that we could utilise in this project. We decided to use Agile for a number of reasons, Coursera (2022) states Agile is particularly useful “for ongoing projects and projects where certain details aren’t clear from the start”. This was heavily aligned with our outlook during that first meeting, we had a brief outline of how to provide value to our charity, but we lacked the specifics, agile methodology provided a foundation for developing our ideas. Additionally, Agile was preferred over alternative project management methodologies such as waterfall, as Agile encourages both client collaboration and responding to change in a succinct manner, (Coursera, 2022).
From our experience with AECOM in the case project as a group we understood the importance of communicating with the client and the need to adapt to any changes the client may expect, flexibility and resilience were key. Agile project management methodology accommodates all these factors, thus was the methodology utilised. Layton, Ostermiller and Kynaston (2020) highlight Agiles inclusivity, “unfettered transparency: everyone involved in the process understands and can contribute to the development of the process.” This point in particular made the agile methodology appeal even more to the group as we would all be aware of each other's work and could help if needed. When selecting methodology, we had not known each other long, so focusing on the team's morale and ensuring the team felt connected and reassured was vital, the “unfettered transparency” manifested in the gantt chart and gave individuals ownership of individual tasks that contributed to the overall vision.