Managing instructional design projects in large, distributed teams can be challenging. We'll share how our project management system and strategies improve collaboration, integrate data like course completion rates, and streamline workflows across departments. Join us to learn best practices, see our solutions in action, and share your own experiences.

In the world of instructional design, managing projects effectively is crucial, especially when you are part of a large, distributed team. Our university's instructional design and technology office includes a diverse team of designers, technologists, multimedia designers, and project coordinators.

Our course development and revision projects often involve more than just collaborating with subject matter experts; they include input from academic support and library colleagues to offer qualitative feedback and different perspectives, enhancing our online courses to better support student success. The project management system and processes we use allow us to integrate project-specific data—like course completion rates and equity gaps—which are important for making informed decisions about course revisions. Our system and strategies allow us to have shared views and dashboards for communicating information and project statuses with leadership overseeing these programs and courses, providing transparency and supporting data-driven decision-making.

Additionally, our project management approach lets us track workloads and assign tasks efficiently among team members on a daily basis, all while leveraging the strengths of a distributed team. A focus on documenting every aspect of the project, including contacts and progress notes, not only increases the robustness of our records, but improves our agility if a project needs to be transferred to another team member.

In this presentation, we will share the following:

-We will discuss how effective project management practices are vital for coordinating complex projects within large, distributed Instructional Design teams, and describe how robust and agile project management in instructional design enhances collaboration, ensures timely delivery of courses, and improves the quality of educational outcomes.

-We'll talk about the obstacles we encountered while searching for a project management tool and establishing processes, and why adopting a flexible, customizable process was the right solution for us.

-You'll see how we've tailored our project management system, including examples of project tracking, data integration, and collaboration across departments. While we use tools like Airtable as part of our solution, the principles and strategies we'll discuss can be applied using various platforms with similar features.

-We'll highlight how our approach has improved efficiency, facilitated better communication, and enhanced our ability to deliver high-quality online courses.

-We'll share advice and best practices for integrating flexible project management tools into your own instructional design processes.

-We will also engage the attendees by exploring their experiences with project management for instructional design through open discussions.

Supporting resources:
Torrance, Megan. Agile for Instructional Designers: Iterative Project Management to Achieve Results, American Society for Training & Development, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/empire-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7171300.

Wiley, D. (2018). Project Management for Instructional Designers. https://doi.org/10.59668/pm4id