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www.epic.co.uk
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Scaling up developmentlessons from the
e-learning industryeLRC e-LearningHigher
Education Academy, York22 March 2005

• John Harris
• Director of Education

Epic Group plc
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About Epic Group plc

• An e-learning business with
• Clients in public and private sector
• Shareholders
• 200 employees
• Content and web services projects
• Processes to mitigate risk of project failure
• PROJECT FAILURE BUSINESS FAILURE

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Who are our clients?
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What kinds of projects do we undertake?

• E-learning content web services
• Public sector
• Private sector
• Education

• Scale of projects
• Small 25,000 to 50,000
• Medium 50,000 to 200,000
• Large 200,000 to 1M

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• Small projects
• Few stakeholders
• Low profile
• Self contained
• Low risk
• Hands on
• One person multiple roles
• Ad hoc processes
• React to risk
• Artisan
• Risk of project failure

• Big projects
• Many stakeholders
• High profile
• Complex
• High risk
• Hands off
• One person one role
• Clearly defined processes
• Mitigate risk in advance
• Industrial
• Risk of business failure

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What is a successful project?
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Risk over delivery
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Risk over budget
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Risk late delivery
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Nightmare!
Prize winner!
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Mitigating risk through processes
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Setting up a project to succeed

• Joint Project Initiation
• Objectives and success criteria
• Scope
• Stakeholders
• Project Team
• Communication
• Escalation Procedure
• Risk analysis
• Change Request procedure

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What are you planning to achieve?

• What are the aims of the project?
• Widen access? Improve quality? Reduce cost?
  Increase flexibility?
• What are the objectives for the piece of work?
• Production of X hours of learning? Covering A, B,
  C learning outcomes?
• How will you know if it is successful?
• In the short term? In the long term?

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How are you going to get there?
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Who is your client accountable to?
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Who will undertake the work?
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Communication weekly progress

• Schedule
• Achievements
• Outstanding issues
• Risks
• Next steps
• Invoicing status

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Communication project extranet
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Some checks and balances

• Timesheet recording
• Time spent measure against time allocated
• Internal review of all deliverables
• Epiclabs
• User consultation and persona development
• At requirements definition stage
• User testing
• Use of iterative prototyping
• Change control
• Measure impact of any change on cost, time,
  quality

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Continuous improvement

• Review the project with the client and the
  project team
• Ask your client how well you did
• Offer to evaluate the success of the project
  against the success criteria
• Adapt your process in the light of feedback

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The BIG lessons

• Understand what you are trying to achieve
• Work in partnership to develop a shared vision
• Share the vision with the whole team
• Be methodical in management and monitoring
• Provide timely information to all stakeholders
• Understand the performance of the project at any
  time
• Focus on delivery, not process
• Dont just manage a project, lead it!

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www.epic.co.ukjohnh_at_epic.co.uk

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