November 4, 2020 Training

Project Management with Bonnie Biafore on Lynda.com

What problem are you solving? Use this to direct your attention and resources. Define success criteria. Identify requirements, deliverables, and scope for your solution

Project Management Skills: Technical, Business Expertise, Problem-Solving, Interpersonal, LEADERSHIP

Process Groups

Initiating > Planning > Executing > Monitoring and Controlling > Closing

Traditional VS Agile Project Management

When one step happens after another, it is traditional (or waterfall). Works well when goals are clearly defined. It works well for simple, low risk projects, projects with familiar tech (or processes), and with teams who’ve done similar work before.

Agile projects work through iterations, where you may not have a defined process. Value is delivered sooner, and you can involve customers more in the process. Teams tend to be smaller and can work with less supervision.

Organizational Structures

Hierarchy

PMs have little authority, functional manager in charge of budget, resources don’t report to PM, and PM may have divided responsibilities

Matrix

Still a hierarchy, but also projects to succeed more. PMs have some authority, resources can report to multiple managers. Can be considered weak, balanced, or strong, depending on how much focus is spent on projects.

Projectized

Focus is entirely on projects. PM have almost complete authority, resources are dedicated to project, and most time is spent on projects

Organizational Culture

Depends on locale, mission statement, leadership, etc.

Know the boundaries, and respect the culture of team members

Planning

Use it to direct and correct as needed over the course of the project

Work Breakdown Structure – a way to divide and organize parts of a project, estimate time and cost, assign work; can be used to improve buy-in; can still be adjusted over the course of project

Summary Tasks – higher level tasks, could be divided by task, group, or deliverables.

Consider matching status reports to match work packages, a breakdown of work often in 8-80 hours

You can assess whether or not the breakdown of steps/work is good by seeing if time and cost are easy to estimate, if status is easy to measure, if task durations are shorter than reporting periods, and if the details are manageable

Agile places importance on people and interaction in genuine, need based ways instead of schedules; goal is producing product, not documentation

Elearning Tips by Tim Slade (?) on Lynda.com

Needs Analysis – What are people currently doing? What do you want people to be doing? Why aren’t people doing what’s needed?

Articulate Storyline 360: Advanced Elearning by David Anderson on Lynda.com

Lots of options to use variables to allow users to select how they want to interact with the presentation (audio on/off, 

Connect colors/fonts/text styles/master slide design to themes to easily build lessons

Maybe work to make lessons less lectures and more “workbooks”?

    Textbox entries could be used to increase engagement in lessons for K/RW learners. Ask prompt and provide answer.

Allow questions that involve math (calculating serving sizes, amount of food to prepare)

    Could include bg music and allow it to be toggled

Set text values for user to select option that could later customize content displayed to them.

Use learner name in questions?

WordPress Accessibility by Joe Dolson on Lynda.com

Four Principles of Accessibility

Perceivable – content can be perceived with more than one sense, text to speech, see text, etc.

Operable – all elements can be used regardless of tool (mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, etc.)

Understandable – language is clear, explainable, and easy to navigate

Robust – site works regardless of browser version and accessibility tools

ADA regulations are vague, but accommodation is still required

Good accessibility design benefits all users

WCAG 2.0 requires color contract of 3.12:1 for large text (24 px, or 19px bold) and 4.5:1 for anything smaller

    https://www.joedolson.com/tools/color-contrast.php to measure ratio

Background images should meet contrast guidelines for the majority of the image

https://toolness.github.io/accessible-color-matrix

Use focus state instead of hover state on items where hovering provides an action

  • NOTE: focus states only apply to item its attached to, no parent of descendent items

Many menus don’t allow keyboard navigation, which is a problem for users who aren’t using a mouse