Final Report | nohokieleftbehind

No Hokie Left Behind (#20)

Final Report

The main goal of our project was to raise awareness for the No Hokie Left Behind (NHLB) organization and their initiatives with Virginia Tech and the Blacksburg communities. Throughout the last few months, our group planned and produced a series of deliverables to raise awareness and elevate the NHLB brand. Our first initiative was an awareness booth outside Sharkey’s Bar and Grill during which we handed out over 200 fliers and merchandise promoting Free Ride Friday, sponsored by Hooptie Ride. Next, we hosted a percentage night at Moe’s Southwest Grill where we raised funds to contribute to the cause of No Hokie Left Behind while continuing to inform people about the organization. Lastly, we undertook a social media revamp in which the Facebook page for the organization was updated through a new profile picture. A social media calendar containing over twenty pre-set and pre-written posts and fliers was also sent to the NHLB organizers for future posts during January-May 2018 to help raise awareness and promote their Free Ride Day on St. Patrick’s Day. We also provided the organization with a baseline website.

Overall the project has been successful deemed both by our team and the project sponsor. As a team we feel that all team members put forth the best effort possible to meet and exceed all of the criteria presented in our project charter. Our awareness booth helped inform over 200 people, leading to the most successful Free Ride Friday NHLB has organized. We were also able to host a percentage night at Moe’s on December 6th to raise funds and inform more community members. Lastly, our social media calendar and revamp have both received positive feedback from the client as well as the overall deliverables and successful project progress and completion.

We used various tools to help us remain organized and prepared for this project. The most notable tool was GroupMe, which allowed us all to communicate and stay on the same page about pending tasks and project progress. Google Drive was utilized to work remotely when needed and view different versions of documents for the project. Excel, Word, and PowerPoint also aided in project completion through formatting and organizational capabilities. Wix made it possible to customize our website per the project and client requirements to ensure that all stakeholders and members were informed about the project on a daily basis.

Our project’s projected hours were 120 hours and our actual hours landed at 124.3 hours. Our team’s projection was fairly accurate and underestimated our initial projection by 3.5%.

Each of our deliverables were completed and delivered on time, so as a group we did not have any issues with delays or late products. Our client was very responsive to our efforts and provided us with avenues to expand our scope as well as feedback on every deliverable. Approval from the client and effective communication with them were essential to the success of our project in terms of both client satisfaction and quality deliverables produced. However, our initial assessment for the quantity of work was significantly lower than what we gauged. Due to this, we had to make a scope expansion effort to increase our workload. After compiling ideas for a scope expansion, our team came to the conclusion of onboarding a percentage night, social media calendar, and a new profile picture design. The client approved the expansion and thus, we were successful in our attempt to increase our workload. Another issue was scheduling meetings among our team members due to schedule conflicts and other obligations. Fortunately, this issue did not have a significant impact and we were able to schedule meetings accordingly.

By completing this project, our team learned the importance of keeping all members and the project sponsor engaged. Since we had to get large portions of the project completed without the project sponsor always present, we learned to continuously update the sponsor with the progress of the project. This allowed the sponsor to remain engaged by viewing progress and providing us feedback. We also learned the importance of online tools such as Google Drive and GroupMe so we could use these platforms to be proactive with our group work without having to meet in excess. Likewise, we learned to communicate effectively with all group members. By doing so, we learned a lot about each other and feel we know each other on a more personal level. When we came together as a group, we saw our project deliverables being much more effective and efficient. While working with No Hokie Left Behind, a legitimate organization, we learned that most deliverables we produce for an official organization must go through approvals from the organization sponsor which requires additional time.

If our group were to do this project again, we would do a few things differently. Firstly, we would put more thought into other potential deliverables so our initial scope had enough ideas to cover the number of hours required by the project. We would also utilize a centralized spreadsheet via Google Sheets to distribute the workload amongst team members instead of assigning weekly tasks on the meeting minutes. Lastly, we would give our project sponsor the website with the project management class materials at the beginning so they could follow along with the progress of the project.

Our team selected Ms. Jenna Sharer, the Project Manager, through a vote. We believed this was the most diplomatic solution to picking a Project Manager. She did a great job and has the following to say about her experience:

“As the Project Manager, I really enjoyed leading the team throughout the course of the project. The team was quite positive with me over the course of the semester. I tried to make sure the group was on task and completed everything in a quality and timely fashion. I would like to pursue a Project Management career in the future.”

Each member of our team was able to work well together and therefore as a team. This was made possible by the initial guidelines we set up in our team contract and an understanding that every member was to adhere to them. The most important aspect of working well as a team was communication. We had a team GroupMe message where everyone would communicate ideas and questions as well as set up meeting times and dates. Everyone was good at keeping up with the messages and responding to them in a timely manner so we were all up to date and on the same page. Furthermore, tasks were delegated equivalently so no one member felt unjustly treated or over-burdened with their work-load which made it possible to complete everything on time without friction amongst team members. Each set of deliverables was divided and given due dates followed by a peer review session where team members selected, reviewed, and provided comments on another members work. This system allowed our team to work well together and ensure that everyone had the same information and ability to provide insight.

As part of our social media revamp, we created a baseline website for the organization. NHLB does not have a website that pairs with their social media accounts. We thought this could be a great way for them to expand their brand and provide additional online awareness. This is also a great opportunity for a project management group next semester to build upon using the login credentials provided in our project. Overall, our sponsor had a positive final outlook of our group and project deliverables and was pleased with our outcomes. The best piece of feedback from our Final Assessment Survey sent to our project sponsors was “You asked questions when you needed to, kept us informed, and came up with the ideas for that project that worked our great.” We are proud of this commentary because it shows the quality and successful work we provided to NHLB and how well we communicated with the sponsor. We are so glad we were able to add value to No Hokie Left Behind this semester.

nohokieleftbehind.wordpress.com

Email: “jenna96@vt.edu” password: “nohokieleftbehind2017!”