Lesson video

Welcome, and my name is Steve, and I'm your computing teacher.

This unit is IT project management.

And in lesson three, we're looking at initiating and planning a project.

You'll need your notes from the last couple of sessions on delicious desserts.

And if there's anything that might distract you, make sure you remove it now.

In today's lesson, we are going to be identifying objects relating to a project.

We're going to be developing objectives into smart goals, and we're going to be defining iteration and interaction.

Task one, let's get straight in there.

Use the following words to fill in the blanks on your worksheet.

Pause the video and complete your task.

So let's get started with the task list.

Why create a task list? At the end of lesson two, you were asked to produce a task list for the delicious desserts project brief.

By creating a list of tasks that will meet the requirements of the project brief, you can begin to develop objectives that will support planning for the project.

But what are objectives? Objectives are sub-parts of the aims we have identified as the user requirements.

So, our aims are to have an integrated system, an interactive dessert selection tool and some advertising posters.

Why do we set objectives though? So far we've considered the aims, the requirements of the project.

We know what needs to be achieved, but we don't know how we're going to achieve it.

To be successful, we need to have more specific tasks to complete.

We set objectives to ensure all the elements needed to complete the task successfully are planned for.

So we're going to look at the first aim, an integrated system.

How? Well, we could use Google Sheets to create a workbook.

What? To collate all finance into one workbook.

And why are we doing it? To make the system efficient and generate effective pricing.

So let's have a look at the how in more detail.

We're going to create a workbook using Google Sheets that has a home page.

We've linked to things like the stock in store, reordering prompts on the same page.

Maybe some running costs, dessert costs and those vital daily, monthly and annual profits and loss things that the client has asked for.

So let's have a look at task two, some aims and objectives.

We would like you to complete the aims and objectives worksheet you've been given for the following aims. Interactive dessert selection tool and the advertising posters.

Pause the video to complete your task.

So we're going to set some smart goals.

You may have heard of these before.

Smart goals are specific, they are measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

Why are they important though? The quality of the goals of objective set will determine the success or failure of a project.

Week goals will affect the planning process.

And this in turn will impact upon the execution of your task.

If your goals weren't in good enough, the final product may not meet the user requirements, meaning the project has failed.

Let's have a look at each one, specific goals.

I mean, that the end product will meet the clearly defined requirements of the clients.

This is also used to monitor the progress of the project.

What have you done so far that relates to the specific goals? Well, you have already completed the aims and objective worksheet, which gives specific tasks that need to be completed.

Make sure you have that to hand.

Measurable.

If goals and objectives are not measurable, how will you know if the project has been completed successfully? Well, each sheet in the workbook must be tested to check for any formula work.

That's really important.

You need to know that the resources you have, including the people, people are also resources, can complete the tasks assigned to them.

What parts of this project can cause you an issue? Creating that workbook might be a challenge.

It might need skills that you're not quite confident with yet.

Realistic.

It is important to set challenging goals and objectives, but not ones that are so hard that they cannot be completed.

Without support from worksheets and guides, would this project be realistic for you to complete in a set time? Well, possibly unrealistic as the time available for this project is limited to lesson times.

And finally, timely.

Each task of a project must have a start and end date or time allocated to it to ensure the project is completed within the given timescale provided in the project brief.

So what timescale have you been given in this brief? Yeah, the project brief says eight weeks.

So smart goals interact and interlink.

When you write smart goals, you will find that they cover more than one of the smart targets.

For example, having one hour to enter data into recipe cost sheet.

One hour is our time.

What we're doing in that hour is specific to this particular task.

So task three, we're going to ask you to create some smart goals.

Use the worksheet provided and your objective sheet.

You need to identify which aspects of SMART are met by the goals you set.

So for example, using the ingredients listed on the project, we've created a stock control sheet for the workbook.

This target is both S, M, A and R.

There's no actual mention of time in there, so we can't write the letter T.

Pause the video to complete your task.

What did you come up with? Here were three of ours.

Use conditional formatting to indicate if the stock is running low and an if statement, indicating stock needs to be reordered.

Again, no time mentioned, it's S, M, A and R.

Use the sample data from the brief to create a running cost sheet.

Same again, and finally, design the layout of the interactive presentation using a diagram to show links between slides.

You might want to add to and improve your own SMART goals based on these examples.

Let's move on to planning and designing.

This feels like planning now.

The reason it feels like planning is because defining SMART goals is the final elements of the initiation stage.

The end of the initiation stage interacts with the planning phase.

Once the feasibility report is shared with the clients, the initiation stage may start again.

This is iteration.

Let's focus on interaction first.

Interaction in the project lifecycle occurs between initiation and planning, planning and execution, execution and evaluation.

If a stage must be repeated due to user feedback, we call this process iteration.

This is usually found in project management methods such as agile and hybrid.

Remember, with the waterfall method, we go from start to finish.

There isn't normally feedback in the middle of a project and therefore, iteration isn't normally found in the waterfall method.

Now, we have already performed some iteration during our development of smart goal buy going back, checking through them.

Are you ready to start planning? Now that we have a set of SMART goals, we can start the planning stage.

Planning uses a variety of tools that can allocate your tasks and resources, identify milestones, which are setting out when each task must be completed by, and creating a visual depiction of the end product.

You are going to do this last bit today, creating that visual depiction of the end product.

So, task four, use the poster designs worksheet to plan the design of the two posters for delicious desserts.

Think carefully about who the target audience is, what is being advertised, the layout of the poster and what colour scheme you will use.

We refer to this colour scheme as the house style.

We'll look at this more soon.

Pause the video to complete your task.

Well done.

Make sure you share your work with Oak National by tagging @OakNational or #LearnwithOak.

Do ask your parents permission to that first before you do that.

We'll see you in the next lesson.