Project Management

Project Management

Bruce McClaflin

Grantham University

Project Management

The project of choice will be focusing on promotion of organic foods by engaging school project that help learners practice production of organic foods from school farms and extend the skills and knowledge to their homes. Also, the project will increase the awareness of the benefits of organic foods and encourages the consumption of these types of food in school and at home. The project will be titled “School Farming for Healthy Food.” Therefore, the main target of the project will be the young children in schools. School Farming for Healthy Food is an educational project for the school going children that aims at creating the desired attitude, knowledge, and skills for the production and consumption of organic foods.

I identified the project because of its benefits to the school children and the entire society. The outcome of the project will be helpful in ensuring that there is sustainable food production and healthy lives due to availability of the right kind of food. On the other hand, the project will help in inculcating the right attitudes towards farming and producing healthy foods. It will provide the resources needed for the practical work needed to ensure the right skills are given to the intended audience. Furthermore, the project will give schools the opportunity to connect with local farms to serve healthy meals in school cafeterias to improve student’s health and offer food and gardening education.

One of the initial steps in almost all projects that affect execution of the project is the identification of the individuals and the groups that have some kind of interest or stake in the project. It is the first step upon which the project management team can carry out more detailed analysis of every group depending on the relative importance of the groups’ stakes. The identification of the various sets of interests in the project can continuously provide valuable insights into the issues at stake. In this case, there are different stakeholders who are involved in the planning and implementation of the project. The stakeholders include school nutrition staff, educators, farmers and community members.

Other than the basic identification of primary and secondary stakeholders, there is the need to carry out some form of ranking of the various stakes of the groups to clarify the groups that are most concerned with certain sets of issues. This is necessary because the project entails the integration of activities where the interactions between different people and activities may become very complex and far reaching such that almost every person in different areas seems to be kind of a stakeholder in all the sectors and subsectors of the project. The interactions should be recognized, but there is the need to have a way of identifying the individuals or groups of people who are the principal or key stakeholders concerned with particular activities to maintain the involvement of the various groups in the project within reasonable limits.

Considering the project stakeholders, the school nutrition staff will be fundamental in helping the project team members to ensure that learners are eating healthy food as a basis for appropriate eating behavior. They have the mandate of approving the meals that children should be consuming in school. As such, their role in ensuring that the project activities related to the type of food taken by the students is implemented. On the other hand, the farmers from the local areas will be required to participate in the project for multiple reasons. In the first case, they will be the source of healthy food that will be used in feeding the students. Secondly, the farmers will help in providing the skills necessary for production of healthy foods for the young children. This will help in encouraging the young children who aspire to be farmers and ensure that the children and other project participant get practical experience of what farmers undergo to produce the much needed food.

The teachers will be part of the project and they will play an important role in ensuring the project goals are achieved. Since the project has a long-term goal of developing a generation of conscious eaters, it is most appropriate to focus on the young children who are already in school. As s result, the teachers will help in reaching the children and deliver the required information to the young learners. They are best placed to communicate effectively with the children in school without causing any anxiety amongst the learners. Besides, they can effectively offer the knowledge and skills that the children require to become adventurous and conscious eaters. They should be given priority in this case because they can help in integrating the required knowledge in the curriculum.

The community is another important stakeholder that will be important for the project because of the need to ensure that the knowledge and skills that the learners acquire through the project is put into practice. In this case, the community refers to the parents, guardians, and the people who have interest in the success of the children within their regions. These people also have a role in motivating their children into participating in the project. While the project will be implemented in schools, the role of various community members in encouraging participation and testing the skills away from school will be pivotal for the success of the project. On the other hand, the community should be part of the project to help in promoting the project’s success through effective response to the project experiences (New Hampshire Department of Education, 2012).

The communities are generally easier to identify and work with compared to other stakeholder groups that are defined by aspects such as gender and age because they can be more easily identified by the members. Also, in this project, the interested community members will easily be identified through their active participation in the welfare of the children who are target of the project. However, the community members often hold different stakes that require clarification and to be taken into account (FAO Corporate Document Repository, 2017). For instance, different perceptions about food may come into play. In many cases, some community members may be supportive to promoting organic foods while others may focus on economic issues that surround food production and consumption.

Some of the characteristics of the stakeholders that have to be considered include age, gender, cultural and religious diversity, experience, and professionalism. It will be necessary to recognize such characteristics. Since the project is open to all the children in the school, who are willing to be part of the project, all project activities will consider both sides of gender. In the same line, other stakeholders including the teachers, parents who are will to give support to project, and farmers will be included without putting restrictions based on gender. On the other hand, the program activities will have to be aligned with age because most activities will be targeting the children.

Cultural and religious diversity will be encouraged by ensuring that there is no any form of discrimination in the implementation of the project. It is expected that the children and the community members may belong to different religious or cultural groups. Finally, the farmers and teachers will be using their experience and professionalism in delivering their part of the project. As such, the project management team will have to relate with these stakeholders with a sense of professionalism as way of respecting their field of expertise.

References

FAO Corporate Document Repository (2017). Stakeholder Groups. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w8623e/w8623e05.htm

New Hampshire Department of Education (2012). Why Family and Community Involvement Is Important. Retrieved from https://www.education.nh.gov/instruction/school_health/health_coord_family.htm