Leading From Looking Back on Learning: Best Practices in Project Management

I was tasked with giving a presentation on my experiences in Project Management this month, and through preparing and presenting, came across some ideas that you may find useful as a teacher, leader, and manager.

 What is Project Management? What is a Project Manager?

By definition, a Project Manager is in charge of short-term endeavor that has a cyclical life span with a beginning, middle and end. Using this rather broad definition, there are aspects of my work life that clearly demonstrate my best practices as a project manager, and to extend that job description, as a leader. Through the stories I will share, these practices will come forward.

Do you Know Me? Can you Trust me?

My name is Kathleen Ruen.  She her hers.  I am a white, cis-gendered, bisexual, able-bodied, medium weight, middle-upper class, Lutheran woman. I am a painter, a dancer, a singer, an actress, a playwright, a sculptor, a poet, a teacher, a researcher, a grant writer, an activist, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, and an auntie. 

I am the first child of two amazing parents who were and still are my first teachers.

My mother, descended from the indigenous Irish, inherited the trauma of a people who were survivors of English oppression and genocide. My mother taught me what it means to have resilience and how singing, dancing and laughing can be a tool for survival.

My father grew up on a farm in southeastern Minnesota, the son of Norwegian Americans. My Dad was the first of his family to get a college education, to become a Lutheran Minister, and an Executive Director of several non-profits. My father taught me how to make things happen, and also that the best way to teach is not to tell someone how to be, but to be an example.

From this short introduction, I can pull forward three best practices for Project Management

·      One needs to get to know thier manager before they can trust them

·      Develop Inner Resilience in self and others

·      Model behavior and Best Practice

Are you getting an idea of where I’m going here?

Camp Koinonia – Summer Program Director

My first experience of Managing was working at a wilderness camp in upstate New York in the early 90’s. At the ripe age of 21, I found myself taking on the role of Summer Program Director, after two earlier summers of directing the early childhood program and running the Art and Farm Program. The previous year, as the director of the early childhood group, I built in support for my three counselors by having daily meetings while the children ate breakfast. I asked these three counselors to all move up with me the following year, taking the leadership and skills they had gained from me and making it their own. This was one of many critical decisions that I made in order for the summer to run smoothly. The children who came to the camp were primarily in foster care and warranted special attention and energy from the counselors. I paired each counselor with a support staff person who could give them an hour break during the day and also sleep in the same cabin with the counselor and the children at night. During staff training we had a session on safe holding techniques, and enlisted a social worker for guidance. In our last session, where we were over capacity with 100 children aged 7-18, I took the advice of one of my counselors and devised an elaborate points system based on the summer Olympics, which provided safety, structure, and solid feedback for the campers. I wrote a report after each session, detailing what worked and what was a challenge. I felt the responsibility of the position. As I was ‘running’ one session I was planning the next, including staffing, cabin sizes, and other details. From this experience, the following best practices were learned:

·      Foster leadership and skills in those you supervise

·      Build a ‘team’

·      Give people more responsibility when they are ready

·      Make sure that workers have the support they need

·      Find creative and unusual solutions to possible problems

·      Build capacity to be in the moment while also thinking ahead

Be aware of one’s own bias, and how ‘isms operate in institutions

To be perfectly honest, when I began my work in education I saw myself as someone who was providing a service to others, and had no idea that my approach to the world, what I saw as ‘normal’ would be harmful to the children I taught. Over a long period of time in education, and through attendance in several anti-bias and anti-racism workshops and conferences, I have become more attuned to how bias operates in educational settings and my role in undoing this. I have moved from the idea of ‘providing a service’ to working alongside those affected by bias, and as much as possible following their lead. This is an area where I need to constantly grow.

Central Park East I Elementary School – Movement Theater Teacher

I was the founder and head teacher of a school-wide Movement and Theater Program in a Public School in East Harlem for 8 years, working with roughly 250 students a year three to thirteen years of age. Most of the classes were in half groups, so I had on an average 12-15 students at a time. I also was in charge of the whole student body during breakfast and recess. This work helped me see the importance of valuing each student in the group while also recognizing that they were a part of a larger community.  I also learned the importance of making detailed plans for my classes, timing out each part, and then telling the children what we were going to do before we began-this approach has also been useful for graduate students I have worked with! With any plan, sometimes it is clear that you need to change direction mid-class in order to address the educational needs of the children. Communicating with the students before a transition is going to occur (five minutes to clean up) and then being steady until the transition is complete is essential. And finally, sometimes everything needs to stop in order to give students time to rest, refocus, and let go of things that were preventing them from being open to learning. I had a full class of third and fourth graders one year who always arrived bringing in one conflict or another from recess. I began to start the class with them all seated along the wall, and asked “Is there anything we need to talk about?” Soon I did not even need to ask the question, as the act of sitting along the wall and getting still helped them ‘let go’ of what they had brought in. From this experience, some best practices learned were:

·      Recognize individual’s needs while attending to the whole group

·      Detailed planning based on previous classes and objectives

·      Flexibility to change direction if current direction is not working

·      Communicate change and next steps before they occur

·      Create rituals that help everyone focus on the work at hand

·      Stop everything if something is negatively affecting the whole

CONFLICT

I’m going to halt here for a few minutes to talk about what I have learned about conflict. As a first-year teacher I certainly was ‘baptized by fire’ in this area, and it took me a good three years to be able to have a short conversation with another teacher in my class and not have everything fall apart. Good practice is when the class can run itself.

For immediate conflicts, either with students, family, or faculty:

·      Deescalate the situation

·      Give the person choices

·      Be willing to say you made a mistake

·      Listen calmly, show them you hear them

·      Set a boundary – be clear about what you can do and what you can’t

·      If possible, follow a consistent pattern with each person in the group

What I really began to understand about conflict as a teacher of elementary students, which I then transferred to teaching graduate students and extended to my work as a leader, is that you can put things in place that prevent conflict. When a conflict is happening in the moment, you have already missed the opportunity. Here are some best practices that I rely on and use:

·      Open lines of communication between self and faculty/students

·      Having a transparent process for complaints and issues

·      Making sure that the first communication/interaction is positive

·      Building an organizational structure that predicts areas that may be problematic and working on closing the gaps

·      Weekly individual communication with faculty, with student body as a whole, providing clarity and building trust

Acting Director for the Art of Teaching Program at Sarah Lawrence College

For three years I directed the Graduate Early Childhood/Childhood Education Program at Sarah Lawrence College. Since it was a small program with limited administrative support, I had the opportunity to be involved with all aspects of management. In addition, I secured a $10,000 research grant and a five year, $500,000 NYS My Brother’s Keeper Teacher Opportunity Corps grant that I had to budget, monitor, and write reports for. There was a lot going on! It was in this position that I was able to put much of my former learning to the test, as well as gain new best practices, which I list below:

1.    Understand what is going on in the whole institution-getting a grasp of the culture of the school, so to speak. This is done by observing, listening, and if appropriate, asking detailed questions.

2.    Develop or adapt an existing structure that best meets the needs of the students. Needs can be either inferred, pulled from a survey, or taken from individual conversations with students and faculty. 

3.    Look for and make deep connections with supports within the institution, also known as delegating resources/services. 

4.    Connect with the outside community, including local superintendents and state regents.

5.    Create manageable events that are opportunities for the whole cohort to be together, learn, and connect

6.    Stay open and abreast to new funding opportunities in order to build on current services or move a program in a direction that it is already growing

7.    Work closely and collaboratively with all faculty and the administrative assistants, bringing them into the process of decision making and advising, and show that they are valued in every interaction. If possible, beginning the year with a day long retreat and orientation.

8.    Meet weekly with Administrative Assistants, and meet bi-monthly with faculty-one meeting for business and to discuss student concerns, and the other meeting to focus on curriculum or professional development

9.    Develop a strong relationship with the Dean or direct supervisor, determining the best ways to share information and make decisions.

10. Allow space for feelings to come up in oneself and others, encourage reflection on all levels, celebrate triumphs and use humor to soften a disappointment.

Reflection and Data

I have used multiple ways to document my work in education over the years, from creating my own observation form, to videotaping and photographing students and their work, to creating self-assessment tools for students to chart their own growth. In preparation for AAQEP, I helped design several assessment tools which clearly articulated the standard to be met. I find that the process of looking closely and collaboratively designing assessment tools has the effect of building stronger practice. As in the act of teaching, Project Management needs to have a balanced assessment model, where human interactions and self- reflection are on an equal level as detailed survey results. One has to be able to hold both the whole and the parts at once.

Conclusion

As has happened throughout my career, I trust that my next administrative/leadership adventure will continue to build upon what I have learned about project management. I hope that this post will inspire you to reflect on your own trajectory as a leader, and create new areas to consider for your future growth.