Instructional materials development projects are characterized by management considerations not found in the management of service, construction, or manufacturing activities. Some of the principal characteristics of instructional materials development projects are:

• The work is usually carried out by a team of people assembled for the development of a single project; 
• The work has to deal with many expected and unexpected problems; 
• The user usually derives no benefit until the work is completed; consequently, there are always time constraints; 
• There is usually a sequence of project phases such as planning, design development, production, and distribution; and 
• The relationships between the people involved within the phases change as a project progresses.

To complete the project successfully, control by an instructional materials development project manager of performance, cost, and time is essential. The relative importance of each of these varies from project to project depending on the requirements of the targeted learners. The major techniques of materials project management center upon resource control and time control. Control means more than monitoring performance against set targets. It means making decisions which ensure the use of minimum resources needed to complete the project within projected timelines. A systematic technique is essential if project management is to be successful. Good project management depends on thinking ahead and making decisions about the remaining work, and anticipating and overcoming problems before they arise. Since development projects are carried out by people, human factors are a prime concern and must be considered in detail. Because members of the team need to interact effectively, the management plan needs to turn a group of diverse individuals into a cohesive team that can complete the project successfully. This can be assured by a proper mechanism for planning, organizing, and monitoring; these are defined as follows:

• Planning. Defining the project goals, developing a strategy, and establishing team communication. 
• Organizing. Structuring and staffing the team and integrating the educational institution's mission with the learners' needs. 
• Monitoring.Establishing a regular reporting system for the project team.

The project management objective is to develop materials in an efficient and professional manner to be delivered to the learner at least cost, in shortest time, and with highest quality. When the results are forthcoming and a definite savings in time and resources is at hand, the one question to ask is: What strategies produced these results?

Before replying to this question it may be appropriate to understand various planning strategies and general organizational dynamics for developing instructional materials.

Among the many providers of distance education throughout the world, four "planning scenario" patterns are discernable. These can be classified as: No Planning; Low Planning; Some Planning; and Critical Planning.

The No Planning Organization. This organization makes no attempt to look ahead or to visualize any type of system which may bind people to predict/schedule what is or may be coming, makes no advance preparation to tackle situations. Activities are, in effect, allowed to happen as they happen.

The Critical Planning Organization. On the other side of the scale are critical planning organizations. People in these organizations are continuously and consciously involved in a predicting game from year to year, month to month, week to week, day to day, minute to minute, second to second and, with computers, micro second to micro second.

Predictable possibilities are constantly studied, alternatives are developed, and strategies are modified and implemented. Materials correction through contingency plans are readied in advance. Organizational linkages both external and internal are maintained in a healthy state; good communication channels are established and an organization value system that recognizes the planning ability of individuals as a key asset of the organization operates. Latest methods are tested and made available, and alternate paths critically examined.

The Low Planning Organization. In between the two situations—"No Planning Organization" and "Critical Planning"—is another scenario, "Low Planning Organization." Members of "Low Planning Organizations" perceive planning as an essential evil and feel it is to be conducted as a duty. These people are committed to planning only at a minimal level. It is perceived that planning involves extra work.

The overall organizational ethos in such cases reflects either total dormancy regarding this element of management or considers it too insignificant to be given any importance. The assumption in such an organization is that if people do their jobs as the roles are defined, there is no need for planning. With generally poor support and recognition for any planning endeavors in the organization's value system, individual planners tend to adapt the path of least resistance, with the result that planning effectiveness becomes a casualty.

The Some Planning Organization. Between the "Low Planning" and "Critical Planning" is the "Some Planning Organization." Qualitative planning in these organizations is done as forced discipline to meet the needs of limited resource requirements.

An everyday example is the pressure both on and from the top management to develop a program based on resource utilization. Such a program needs to be completed by a date beyond which the resources will not be available. It is essential to establish the channels for the flow of resources, but the planning and control framework is usually minimal. It is more related to the use of equipment, supply of materials, and lack of people than to productivity goals.

Organization and Planning

Many factors in an organization influence the successful establishment of (and operation of) the planning component of instructional materials project management. Significant among them are:

• Consistent top management involvement in the planning process;
• Appropriate meshing of planning with the system dynamics, which enables an appropriate cause and effect situation and gives planning a purpose and a sense of completeness;
• Institutionalization of the process, which calls for the provision of an appropriate planning organization; and
• Engaging of personnel committed to the planning.

This last feature needs greater emphasis in the initial stages of installing the planning processes. Once the formal system becomes organized others can be trained to merge into the various roles (Roman 1986).

Project Management—Key for Introducing Planning

The aim at all levels of project management should be to ensure that management of planning, design, development, production, delivery, and learner support services are all part of a single coordinated and integrated materials development project management concept and process. Project managers at all levels should examine those tasks and responsibilities which are relevant to a specific project, how to best carry them out, and with whom they need to cooperate in doing so.

Functions which will make achievement of results possible in working as a member of a project team to achieve a common goal are:

• Planning, developing and testing strategies, approaches, systems and processes;
• Communicating to ensure that information and directives are clearly targeted, transmitted, received, and understood;
• Initiating and ensuring the effective operation or provision of all essential mechanisms, strategies, opportunities or tasks;
• Maintaining and providing services and structures which will assist all the elements of the process to achieve the project team's objectives within a specific time and the effective utilization of resources; and
• Reviewing and enabling all elements of the process to be monitored in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness, and amending or updating accordingly.

Development of a Project Plan

Once a materials development project and a project team has been established, the next step is the development of a plan. The planning function sets forth the nature, sequence, and inter-relationships needed to achieve the prime objective. The planning at this level is primarily concerned with the structuring and relationships of units of required effort. It establishes the feasibility of meeting the due date for the successful completion of instructional materials. The plan must be realistic in its requirements and consistent with the available resources and time. The planning function sets forth the important objectives, quality, and quantity of the materials to be developed.

The scheduling of activities is the bridge from the plan to coordinated effective materials development. It is the translation of the plan, with its specific time allocations, into a calendar time span. It considers competition for available resources from start of development to completion. The ultimate aim of scheduling is to produce a calendar time "phased network" consistent with desired completion dates. This schedule serves as a basis for the continuous review of progress.

Once the scheduled plan has been activated it is necessary to establish a formal procedure for regular reporting of progress. This should provide early detection of a potentially significant problem area while there is still time for the team to seek solutions. The process should allow for:

• Regular and continuous evaluation of actual performance against the scheduled plan; and
• Detection and isolation of significant deviation of time and resource utilization from the scheduled plan as forecast.

By considering only the significant deviation from the schedule plan, the development team needs only to obtain a detailed analysis of each specific problem to decide: 1) What remedial action needs to be taken and by whom?, and 2) What results may be expected and by when?

Before any decision or action is taken it is necessary to examine the magnitude and relationships of all desired changes in light of their effect on the scheduled plan. Deviation from the scheduled plan may require only a change in schedule. Deviations could, however, require a change in plans or even a change in objectives. By concentrating on the most important current or forecasted problems, the development team can expend its efforts to achieve the maximum potential returns relative to the completion of the instructional materials.

A technique called a "phase network" is a simple but powerful management tool for scheduling, supervising, and controlling instructional materials development projects. This technique is based on the concept that any materials development project can be broken down into a number of separate operations. Each of these operations is, of course, important and must be carried out before the project as a whole can be completed. However, only some of the operations are critical to the rate of completion of the project, whereas the remaining operations are not critical and certain delays are permissible.

By using a phase network it is possible to graphically illustrate the balancing of human effort, time, and equipment usage, thus making the best use of available resources. Even more importantly, it allows management to focus its attention on the critical activities.

A phase network can only be effective if realistic plans are produced and used by all team members. The network plan should organize and control the work on a project and not be produced to impress the uninitiated development team-or to decorate walls! For any form of network planning to be fully effective, the plan itself must be understood to be nothing more than information graphically illustrated. Unless the people responsible for executing the work act in accordance with this information, nothing will be achieved by this form of planning.

The phase network enables a materials development project team to see the inter-relationships of the work elements and the activities which make up the whole project. It enables the most efficient use of resources and time and is an effective tool devised for progress control.

The Four Stages of a Phase Network

The phase network consists of a four stage process, each stage building upon the other and dependent for its successful execution on completion of the previous stage.

Stage One: Preparation of the Phase Network. Planning consists of analyzing the materials development project, breaking it into work elements, and arranging them into their logical and sequential order. This becomes the working model for the development. As the work elements are defined, three questions are asked about each of them: What immediately precedes this work element? What immediately follows this work element? What can be developed in parallel with this work element?

Stage Two: Estimation of Expected Time to Perform Each Work Element. Up to this stage no allocation of time or resources has been made to the individual work elements in the phase network. The scheduling operation begins when the development team places time estimates against each work element. It is best to select work elements at random for time allocation and then compare all time estimates to the total list of work elements. The basic question is: How long do you estimate this work element will take with the resources available?

Stage Three: Development of the Phase Network. When these times have been allocated to each work element, it is possible to determine the total time required to carry out the project. This time will be the sum of the individual times of all work elements not being developed in parallel with each other. Any delay to any work element will result in a delay to the project schedule completion date. Some delays in work elements being developed in parallel can be tolerated without jeopardizing the project provided the delays do not effect the starting date of the work element which immediately follows the last completion date of the work elements being developed in parallel.

Development teams have been in the position, as the date set down for the completion nears, of saying, "If only we had another two to five days to complete it." Phase networking is not the remedy for all instructional materials development project management ills, but it will most certainly minimize the number of occasions in which the team will make this pleading statement. It will highlight for the team probable danger work elements in the project which must be watched carefully to keep the team from falling behind and thus not meeting the objectives.

Stage Four: Monitoring and Control. The phase network produced at the beginning of a project should never be taken for granted as fixed. If the benefit of the network is to be realized, the basic information start dates, durations, delays, and completion dates must be updated regularly. The use of phase networking can only improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the instructional development team.

References

Roman, D. D. 1986.Managing Projects: A Systems Approach. New York: Elsevier.