The document summarizes a case study about developing a web-based learning program for project management training at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. [1] The institute felt a need to make the popular project management training program accessible to working professionals unable to attend in-person due to work pressures, so it was decided to develop an online program aligned with PMBOK guidelines. [2] The development of the web-based program itself was managed as a project, with planning of scope, schedule, budget and execution. [3] The case study details the project planning and management processes used, and discusses challenges faced during development and post-implementation of the new online learning program.

2. Project Management National Conference 2011 PMI India
CASE STUDY: PROJECT FOR
DEVELOPMENT OF A WEB-BASED
LEARNING PROGRAM
Jyoti Jagasia
Asst. Prof - S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research
2|P a g e
Application of Select Tools of Psychology for Effective Project Management

3. Project Management National Conference 2011 PMI India
Contents
1 Abstract:.............................................................................................................................4
2 Introduction:.......................................................................................................................4
3 PROJECT CONCEPT........................................................................................................4
4 INITITATING PROCESS.................................................................................................6
5 PROJECT PLANNING – WEB LEARNING PROGRAM..............................................7
6 PROJECT EXECUTION, MONITORING AND CONTROL........................................11
7 CLOSING – LESSONS LEARNT..................................................................................12
8 POST IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES:...............................................................13
9 REFERENCES:................................................................................................................16
10 AUTHOR’S PROFILE:.................................................................................................16
3|P a g e
Application of Select Tools of Psychology for Effective Project Management

4. 1 Abstract:
During the admissions process of one of its very popular project management
training programs, SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, an REP of
PMI®, felt strongly the necessity to address the need of a large section of the
working professionals from other locations, who were interested in taking up the
program but unable to attend classrooms at specific times due to work
pressures. Accordingly, the institute decided to develop a Web based course on
project management aligned with the latest edition of PMBOK® Guide. The
development of the web learning program was managed as a project – with
development of a well defined scope, course architecture and contents, project
budget and time lines. This case study chronicles the actual events and
decisions taken during planning and execution of this project: the project life
cycle events, issues coming up during development of the project objectives
aligned with the institute’s strategic vision, development of detailed project
scope, schedule and budget, organization of the project team and resolving
quality related issues during execution. The case study would provide insights
into the project management processes and issues involved in knowledge
management projects and would be of particular interest to PMI conference
audience, since the focus of case study is project management training program.
Keywords – Project management, web based learning, PMI, case study, PMBOK
2 Introduction:
Development of web-based learning program for project management training is
a project by itself. At our institute, this program was conceived and handled as a
knowledge management project - with application of the project management
methods to keep our efforts focused on objectives and for making effective and
efficient use of resources in order to complete the project in planned schedule.
The case study should hopefully provide insights into application of project
management processes for planning and executing knowledge management
projects and issues involved in such application.
3 PROJECT CONCEPT
It would be interesting to go into the genesis of this project idea. Like many
project ideas, it had a start during the brain storming conference of the institute in
Oct’2008 – aptly titled, “Disrupting Class - How Disruptive innovations will
change the way the world learns” inspired by the book written by Clayton
Christensen of Harvard Business School.
During offering programs in project management for over a decade, our institute
had developed the methodology and expertise for effectively delivering the

5. project management training program in traditional classroom environment. The
program was duly accredited by PMI as meeting one of the eligibility
requirements for acquitting certification as a Project Management Professional
(PMP). Our institute being one of the few top business schools to offer such
training, our program was in good demand. We wanted to take this opportunity
and scale up the operations to reach out to a much larger number of students
across wide geographical areas in the country. It is at this stage that the
conference for disrupting innovation theme came up and we fully utilized the
opportunity to give a concrete shape to an alternative approach for delivering
course. That is when the project for developing web-based e-Learning program
for project management was conceived.
Evaluating Options - Traditional classroom versus Web-based Programs
Several ideas were tossed around at the conference to evaluate the pros and
cons of developing such a program and how to go about it if we decided to go
ahead. There was a discussion on advantages and disadvantages of web
learning programs. The advantages included - on demand accessibility and
worldwide reach. The learners could access the course anywhere, anytime at
suitable times based on their convenience. By its very nature, e-Learning
programs can be scaled to very large student population, without reducing the
quality standards and at lower overall costs. Typical disadvantages discussed
were that the learners may not be physically connected with other course
participants, leading to a feeling of isolation. The learners would thus need to
have a lot of self motivation to continue through such a program, since no
physical instructor would be available to guide and lead them through successful
completion. Compared to a traditional classroom, here students’ difficulties may
not be immediately addressed. Hence such online learning programs would be
more suited for adult, higher or professional education, where the learner
motivation levels would be much higher as compared to those at lower K12 or
undergraduate levels of education.
Delivery Mode Options
Along with this, there was a discussion on the various modes in which Web-
learning programs could be offered. Programs may be purely online or some
blend of online learning supported by physical or virtual classroom instruction.
Our honorable Dean, Dr. Shrikant, suggested making use of the several
Rajendra Prasad learning centers which have a wide presence in various parts of
the country. We also discussed, if we could use of some video conferencing
based lecture delivery methods whereby the instructors at the Mumbai campus
could deliver the lectures which could be attended by the learners though the
various RP study centers. Blended learning was the option that won majority
votes in the discussion.
Cost and Budget Considerations

6. There was also some discussion on the issues of cost of development of such
programs – whether it is advisable to build in-house capability to develop such
programs or should we buy content off-the-shelf from abroad and repurpose the
same for Indian audience.
In-house capability building would take some time and effort and whether it
would be worthwhile to invest the time and effort. Weighing the preliminary
estimates of the cost of developing the program in house compared with the
prices of off-the-shelf programs and the quality of such program contents, it was
decided to try out developing web-based learning program on project
management at the institute.
Since this would have been an altogether new development at the institute, it
was decided to try out development of a small part of the program (prototype) -
say one of the ten modules – and acquire first-hand experience of the issues
involved in such development. This was how the project got initiated and
conceptualized.
4 INITITATING PROCESS
The project initiation was started with development of the Project Charter by a
working group for presentation and approval of the institute’s management.
Some salient parts of the project charter – project objectives and overall scope of
the project - are reproduced below.
Project Charter (Extracts):
Project Objectives and their Linkage to the Institute’s current activities
In view of the large inadequately met training needs for this discipline and niche
position carved out by SPJIMR with its reputation as an eminent business school
and REP status for PMI, there is an excellent opportunity to extend the scope of
the programs offered. Such large- scale expansion in offering the program, and
making it available to a large number of locations in the country would require a
properly designed and delivered e-Learning program outlined in this proposal. It
would bring to the institution a well-deserved credit for being among the first
leading business schools to offer a high-grade web-based program on project
management. It would also have a good potential for being highly successful
commercially. Finally, a good e-Learning program for project management could
be easily used as a launching pad for several other special MDPs centered on
project management techniques – e.g. New Product Development Projects,
Software Projects Management, Managing Mega-construction Projects and R &
D Projects Management for pharmaceutical industry, etc.
Scope of e-Learning Program:

7. The e-Learning program should cover:
• The contents generally expected to be included in the 1st Module of SPJIMR’s
APPM program as well as a standalone 5-day’ module: Project Management
-Principles and Framework
• The contents should conform to the latest edition of A Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge, 4th Edition, 2008, (PMBOK, 2008) so that
the e-Learning course can receive approval from PMI as meeting one of the
eligibility criteria for PMP certification. There are two distinct advantages in
aligning the proposed e-Learning program to PMBOK: (a) Much increased
marketability of the program, and (b) Comprehensive and systematic
coverage of knowledge base according to one of the widely accepted global
standards.
• The program should be suitable for asynchronous web-based delivery – i.e.
the students should be able to access the program contents from any
location in India (or abroad) at individually convenient time and pace. The
program would require the student to apply himself or herself to the
periodically released organized sequences of quanta of teachings and
adequately master the concepts. This would be ensured by self-assessment
tests and exercises for practice sets dispersed through the program. The final
test at the end of the program would be a measure of quality assurance of
the certificate issued by SPJIMR and earned by the student after going
through the program.
• The program should be deliverable through existing standard e-Learning
delivery systems like LMS (Learner Management System).
• The program should be modular in design, so that parts of it could be
independently utilized for special and customized MDPs for project
management to the industry as well as SPJIMR’s core and elective study
programs on project management.
• The program should be suitable for web-based on-line routine administrative
of registration, payment of fees, monitoring the individual progress, records of
performance, final test scores, certification, etc.
5 PROJECT PLANNING – WEB LEARNING
PROGRAM
SPJIMR always saw itself strong in its faculty and in its classroom delivery and
hence they preferred web learning to be used as supplementing the existing
traditional classroom approach as compared to offering it as a stand-alone
program.

8. Selecting Technology Platform
The technology platform chosen for hosting the web learning was a SCORM
(Shareable Content Object Repository Model) compliant LMS (Learner
Management System). SCORM is a set of technical standards for e-Learning
software products. SCORM tells programmers how to write their code so that
it can “play well” with other e-Learning software. ("Rustici Software")
The Learner Management System provides a robust and scalable platform for
managing and delivering e-Learning content to the user. The LMS supports
deployment of courseware for teaching-learning, creating personalized learning
environments; delivery of instruction, monitoring educational process and student
progress; enrollments; provide guidance to students; conduct examinations; keep
records; provide reports to all who need them.
The Learner Management System provides a mechanism by which participants
can access online course material, interact with teachers, classmates, take tests/
examinations etc.
Instructors can generate a list of students enrolled in their classes, provide help
in learning, monitor student progress and course administrators will be able to
add/delete courses, manage student information, and process student requests.
The LMS supports deployment of courseware for teaching-learning, delivery of
instruction, monitoring educational process and student progress; enrollments;
facilitate guidance to students via FAQs (frequently asked questions) and
discussion forums; conduct assessments; keep records; provide reports to all
who need them. The students and staff need little or no computer background.
Following are the typical features provided in the LMS subsystem
a. Content Delivery and Management (Course Content, Assignments, Tests)
b. Tracking & Reporting
c. Student Personalized Workspace
d. Teacher Workspace (Grading and Management, Mentoring, Assignment,
Tests, FAQs, etc..)
e. Reports
f. Alerts and Notifications
g. Student Registration and Admission

9. A SCORM compliant LMS was already available at the Institute which could be
used for hosting the course modules. Project Charter did include the objectives
and overall scope of the project. The additional points to be kept in mind while
planning the scope is related to providing audio and visual support and
structuring the course contents for making them suitable for hosting on the web.
The major deliverables envisaged for this project based on these requirements
are listed below:
Major Deliverables
The major deliverables for the program would include:
(i) Overall Scheme: Preparing the overall scheme and contents
planning for the entire program
(ii) Contents Preparation: Detailed preparation of contents for about
12-13 topics on project management. This part is the major work. It would
require preparing for each topic:
• Learning Objectives for each topic
• Pre-requisite/Pre-session Testing
• Preparation of 15-25 screens to serve as anchors for the spoken
lesson
• Very brief notes onscreen text –non-verbose but detailed enough to
explain the concepts included in the screen
• Self-assessment tests and exercises as required
• Adding the visual aids for teaching – graphs, tables, animated steps
for a sequential development of concept, etc.
• Review of each section for overall compatibility
• Preparation of a set of questions bank for random selection for final
test
With adequate supporting service for dictation and finishing the text to
desired level of clarity and sophistication, total about 4-6 month would be
required from the formal authorization.

10. (iii) Conversion of Contents to web-based e-Learning Program: Conversion of
the contents into a good web-based program with the participation of the team
consisting of instructional designer, visualizer, video-recorder (optional – if video-
record of the session is o be included), and professional reader of notes. Use of an
outside agency is required for this. The work could be carried out concurrently with
the content preparation phase if planned that way.
(iv) Hosting the Program on the Web: Negotiating with the web-based hosting
agency and embedding the suitable instructions for its automatic web-based delivery.
Refer Exhibit 1 for high-level work breakdown structure
Preliminary estimate of resources/cost requirements and timeline
• Preparing the overall scheme and detailed contents: Internal faculty
resources could be used for this part. Some steno-typing secretarial help
would be critical for timely and high quality work. As mentioned earlier about
3-6 months will be required.
• Conversion of course contents to program suitable for web hosting: An
outside agency would be required. Assuming about 20 Power Point slides on
an average, for 12-13 topics, total 250 slides may be required. The
corresponding time and cost estimates were developed and discussed.
• Hosting the program on web: The hosting could be almost instantaneous
after negotiation of the contract and final delivery of program for hosting to
the agency. The charges for web-hosting were negotiated and corresponding
charge per participant was also worked out.
Project Team Organization
The Project team was organized with the following team members:
• A Project Manager,
• Different subject matter experts (SME) for different knowledge areas
having immense teaching and industry experience in managing projects,
• One ID ( Instructional Design Professional) who was an expert at
suggesting strategies to make the learning content interactive, engaging
and effective and
• One visual media expert who developed the entire visual interface for
the online course environment (from a collaborating vendor treated like a
team member)

11. 6 PROJECT EXECUTION, MONITORING AND
CONTROL
The course material for one module was authored by the SME and then
developed by the project team. Review of specimen module was done high level
management committee (Dean, Director and Departmental Chairpersons). There
were a few suggestions made (scope creep) which would affect the schedule,
scope and cost of the project as compared to that envisaged during the planning
phase. At the same time, an evaluation of readily available programs in market
was also done, which showed several deficiencies in the process and
unsuitability to function as a supplement to institution’s traditional classroom
based training programs
Based on the review, changes were made to the total scope of the e-Learning
program, and fresh estimates of efforts and cost and tentative time schedule
were created.
Finally the decision to develop the program departmentally as per revised cost
estimate and schedule were taken and the project proceeded further based on
the revision.
Sample screen of the developed content is attached in Exhibit 2
Communication Management
Monthly progress reviews were planned and delivered – however, they became
somewhat irregular later. Instead, periodic status reviews were issued in their
place of monthly reports.
Quality management
At each and every stage of the module development, there were detailed reviews
carried out to ensure the content met the desired quality standards that were
planned by the project team. There were several stages of review as outlined
below:
• Content outline stage – At this stage, the original content was made
concise and divided into several screens, where each individual screen
would cover a particular concept intended to be taught within the course.
• Story board stage – At this stage, the strategy of media mix (on-
screen text, graphics, animation, and audio) for every screen were
described for the SME to get an idea how the course would be treated in
the online medium.

12. • Alpha review stage – Here the course was assembled screen-by-
screen, to ensure that the graphics, on-screen-text and animations
collectively present the learning content as envisioned by the author or
SME.
• Beta Review Stage – At this stage, the final version of the course
with voice over embedded into the course screens was provided for final
SME review.
The suggestions compiled after the review of each stage were incorporated into
the final revision of that stage and used in further stage developments.
Web trials with student batches were also carried out by hosting some of the
initial developed modules on the LMS and allowing students to access the
learning material. The students were able to learn at their own pace, and as per
their convenience and the idea of gaining additional skills along with their regular
studies was something that they came up out of their learning experience.
7 CLOSING – LESSONS LEARNT
No article prepared for a professional project management conference organized
by PMI would be deemed complete without sharing the lessons learnt!
The happy part of the conclusion is that the project was managed with almost
each and every deliverable completed as initially visualized. Though our
judgment is bound to be partial, we find the overall contents, comprehensive
coverage, and the quality of presentation of text and audio part of our program
distinctly superior to 3-4 such web-based programs we had an opportunity to
look at (locally developed as well as foreign sourced).
The sad part was that we overshot the cost budget by about 25-30 % and time
schedule by almost 80- 100 %.
The lessons learnt to avoid such slippages in future would include, among
others, the following:
1. Organization of project team
The project was managed within an essentially functional organization with one
of the faculty members serving as project coordinator. The senior faculty, which
served as SMEs were very busy with teaching and administrative duties and
found difficult to reserve free time for creative writing.

13. Also in the organizational set up of the institute, the project coordinator could
merely remind the senior faculty of the pending work and coordinate the text
preparation and not much more.
For development of such knowledge base, say for a research organization, the
team for such project work should be organized as a fully dedicated projectized
group team.
2. Time Overrun:
Our original estimate was for the project to be completed in around 6-8 months
time. It took much longer - close to 14-16 months. There are several reasons for
this and some important lessons, which could be useful to our own next similar
project (or even to other organizations), are listed below.
• Unavailability of suitable steno-services (which was envisaged to be readily
available at the project start) and difficulties of senior faculty in creating a
large volume of written text in digital medium..
• Organization of active members of project team from senior members of
institute’s functional organization as discussed above and hence difficulty in
managing desired schedule management for preparing the course text.
• Being a first of its kind, there was no guidance from earlier projects track
records (in terms of PMBOK terminology, "inadequate support from
Organizational Process Assets”) for more realistic cost and time estimates.
This resulted in some under estimation of cost and time.
With rapid development of information technology, and particularly usage of web-
based processes for a wide variety of educational and commercial applications,
web-based e-Learning programs would be a far more common feature in the
entire educational arena. The institute would be in a good position to take a lead
in creating and exploiting such programs in future. In that sense, this project of
creating a web-based e-Learning course for project management would serve as
a avant garde of similar programs in future at the institute.
8 POST IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES:
These challenges mainly had to address the following issues which arose in the
faculty group discussion about how this newly developed program could be
utilized as a part of our training program.
1. Some faculties suggested that the institute needs to apply for and
obtain an approval from the Distance Education Council, Ministry of
Education, Govt. Of India. After checking out the information, it was found

14. that such an approval would be necessary only for Institutes awarding formal
degree and diploma if they were predominantly based on distance learning.
Approval would also be necessary, if the degree or diploma was to form the
basis for educational eligibility for employment in government. Since our
program was not confirming to this need, it was decided to offer this program
without obtaining such approvals.
2. Whether this program should be offered as standalone training or as
a complimentary part of the traditional classroom training. The program was
actually developed to function as a standalone resource, however, the
traditional classroom training, especially the strongly interactive mode in
which it is offered at SPJIMR, would be definitely more beneficial as a
training programme. The classroom training at our Institute involves highly
interactive lectures by the faculty, group debates on case- studies, hands on
workshops, simulations etc, and these have been very much appreciated all
along by all students. This part was therefore agreed to be retained and it
was decided to offer the program in blended mode.
3. Administrative issues concerning the certification, application of
efforts by the participants in learning, the testing of skills or knowledge
acquired, the payment of fees etc. were discussed and suitable procedures
have been developed.
Exhibit 1
High Level Work Breakdown Structure

15. ( *- such work packages would be developed for each component of the module (
i.e. pre-assessment, topic wise contents , etc...)
(# - such work packages would be developed for each stage of the course
development for web delivery ( i.e. developing story board, visuals etc...)
Exhibit 2
Sample Screens

16. 9 REFERENCES:
[1] PMI Standards Committee. A guide to the project management body of
knowledge (PMBOK guide); 4th edition, 2008.
[2] Rustici Software: SCORM Explained. 22 Jun. 2011
<http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/>.
[3] Horton, William. Designing Web-based Training, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
New York, ISBN: 0-471-35614-X
10 AUTHOR’S PROFILE:
Prof. Jyoti Jagasia is an Information Technology professional with 20
years of overall industry experience which includes 12 years of
experience in handling IT projects in training and education industry. She
is currently associated with S.P. Jain Institute of Management and
Research, Mumbai, where she teaches various programs in the
Information Management and the Project Management area. She is also
a Certified Project Management Professional from the PMI, USA. Prior to
SPJIMR, she has held various leading roles handling IT projects for India
and overseas clients.