Project Management in the Ed Tech Era: How to Successfully Plan and Manage Your School's Next Innovation(MAPIT®)

More than 80% of Technology projects fail. What does that mean? It means the project has broken one of the "Triple Constraints", scope, time, and budget. This book is focused on project planning and project management of IT projects in the education realm.This book provides the most streamlined methods for defining, developing, documenting, and executing any Education Technology project. It provides the methods to insure integrity and accuracy in the planning phase, and control and communication in the execution phase. It defines how projects start and end, and all the milestones and control points in the middle. And it details how you can execute it all. After reading this book, you will have the methods, templates and examples, in order to deliver successful Education Technology projects, but more importantly, this book will give you the insights of how to become a successful Education Technology Project Manager.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface Introduction MAPIT® IT Project Management Strategic Planning vs. Project Planning CHAPTER ONE - PROJECT FUNDAMENTALS Project Plan Project Management Key Concepts First Things First - Project Initiation CHAPTER TWO - CORE PROCESSES - CREATING THE PROJECT PLAN Scope Development Task Definitions Task Sequencing Resource Staffing Schedule Development Project Budget Plan Development CHAPTER THREE - SUPPORT PROCESSES Communications Plan Project Control Plan Resource Staffing Plan Risk Management Plan Change Management Plan Quality Assurance Plan Data Integrity Plan Project Completion, Acceptance, Delivery and Closeout Project Execution FINAL THOUGHTS About the Author

About the Author :
Darryl Vidal holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and a Master’s degree in Education Technology and has been consulting for K-12 school technology programs for over 20 years. He has been responsible for planning long-range technology programs for schools of over $2 billion and holds the registered trademark for authoring the MAPIT® Strategic Planning and Project Management methodology.

Review :
Project Management in the Ed Tech Era is the "how to" book on successful implementation of the strategic plan. MAPIT® provides the plans and procedures to manage resources, communications, changes, risk, data integrity and overall project quality. The methodology in this book will assist Project Managers in the implementation of technology projects. Darryl Vidal possesses an expertise in organizational leadership and planning that many organizations lack. His guidance has been vital in ensuring our organization is more efficient as we support students throughout our district. The knowledge and skill sets I have acquired from him will benefit me in my current role and beyond. Managing major projects at school districts requires unique skills and processes.  These processes have been developed and refined over years.  As Darryl very expertly points out many school districts are reluctant to take the extra steps necessary to properly manage a large technology project.  It may be a better value for tax payers if the project is managed properly and the methods described in this book are essential to achieving that best value for tax payers. Project management is its own skill set and needs to be respected as such.  Darryl provides a roadmap to manage any large scale technology project.  More districts need to heed these methods in order to make sure the best is provided for our students. During a major technology infrastructure project we used the project management techniques described in the book to great success.  What Darryl has written needs to be read by all school district leaders in charge of implementing major technology projects.