Focus Group Meeting Minutes – Medium Size Project
28/06/2024 – 12:00PM Midday
Language Academy Wales
- Mike Tan
- Roy Edwards
- Joe Liu (Zoom)
- Harri Shuffley
- Jun See Wei
- Paul Law
- Lloyd Tan
- David Tang
Mike discussed the project idea. The discussion had with Lottery funding. Mentioned needing to consult with the local community. Mentioned application maximum number. Mike mentioned LAW, what we do, why we are applying for this project with Language Academy Wales.
Project Management for the Third Sector
1 Year project, 26 sessions of project management sessions. 1 session each 2 weeks. Going for 10 individuals per session. Workshop will be breaking down traditional learning barriers and offer a holistic education experience.
Project is for 3rd sector staff and volunteers, under or unemployed people from GEM groups 18+. Project management indoor and outdoor activities. Develop professional attitudes and interpersonal skills. Be able to manage projects is the main objective.
Weekly workshop around Microsoft project. People can come, manage using MS Project (Possibly look to other PM software?).
1 day training works out well, providing the content is good for 1 day. If it requires outside training or requires more than 1 day training, then that will need to be thought about.
Understanding the project management that we are looking to, 1 day training should cover that well. Along with the day workshop at our office as well. Candidates can do any amount of mid-week workshops, but only 1 day training. Mentioned training we have provided through ILM around project management up to Level 5.
Use simpler modules which are more fun, rather than boring PowerPoint time after time. Do things outside, non-formal learning instead of just sitting in a classroom.
Mike speaks about Microsoft Project and what can be done with it. Workbooks be developed and given to candidates on the workshops, staff will help but this is not specific training.
This project is about helping people to understand how to manage a project, communication, face to face and the tools will be very useful.
Does anyone have any comments?
This would be roughly £50,000 project. We feel that this is better than going straight for £100,000 to ensure the project is doable for the organisation.
Our focus group will be, NEET, GEM or anyone?
This will be people from the third sector. We also aim towards GEM individuals, but our target group is individuals working with, for or volunteering with third sector organisations. We will also aim at under and unemployed individuals.
How do you propose to promote the scheme? As the groups you are talking about are quite hard to reach groups.
Fortunately, we have in the last 12 months made connections with many third sector organisations as well as universities and colleges. These will be the main points of contact for this project. These will be the facility to ensure we can collect the numbers that we need for this project. This will be a project that is free, 1 day attendance with an attendance certificate which will make people more confident coming to this programme.
There will be no test? – How will we ensure they reach their outcomes?
The learning outcome can come under 3 categories, as long as the training and workshop is attended, they have completed the course and receive a certificate. We will monitor with evaluations and questionnaires to ensure knowledge has been brought in, understood and that they do gain better project management skills. These KPI’s will be analysed throughout the programme to ensure the quality of the training and workshops.
What kind of experience will this be if it is not a traditional office learning?
They will do half a day in the office through presentation and teams. Afternoon session will be out in the field, for example Roath Park or in our car park behind the office. Design a learning programme that relates to non-formal learning. Candidates to learn outside using different tools. Use items so every learning style is understood.
Do case studies not cover more of what we want from project management? I’m not sure how well non-formal learning will benefit project management as you need to know more about techniques etc?
A portal will be used to upload documents or Dropbox. So formal items will be kept and shared through this. But the learning should be non-formal as it will deliver an interesting and practical learning methodology.
The project management project will be to understand the importance of cost, quality control and time. We will use activities to ensure they understand all of these. The more “boring” techniques will be provided through the online variant and shared. It is related to project management, and will show the basic skills you NEED to understand to run a successful project.
This programme will provide a simpler way to understand the importance of cost, finance and time as not everyone is good at an academic way of learning.
Could possibly look at job shadowing as well, instead of just learning?
Job shadowing may be more difficult to do now, but it is something we may look to do in the future. Finding individual project managers who would be happy being shadowed may be difficult, and so we would need to build up a number.
We will have a group of people, give them aims and objectives to target – through this they learn cost, quality and time? Will these targets be running within a day, or a few days?
There will be time for candidates when they sign on where they can read up on the more formal learning. The 1-day workshop will let them connect with people and learn from people. They will then come to more workshops to learn about the project management software. We will look at the booking mechanism as well as a schedule to ensure we provide this to a wide variety of individuals.
How will we write a bid to ensure the Lottery funding provide for this?
I will present for you the PowerPoint we showed the Lottery funding during our initial meeting to show you what we mentioned and what is covered. To give a better idea of why the Lottery funding would fund this, our proposal, and a bit more info.
What added value would an app or website give to candidates and users?
I would suggest that creating an app or website, people will have more technological awareness and this will reach more people across Wales instead of just South Wales. It can be shared further than if it is just the training and workshops.
Mike showed our research and SWOT analysis among other slides of the Powerpoint.
The strengths of the team and organisation really should ensure this project is successful, in particular the ability of the organisation in Project Management.
We need to contact more stakeholders and consult with them about the project, the idea, whether it’s useful and needed. Joe Redmond said the overall project meets the brief. Perhaps more links to the community and focus groups are needed.
The only gaps were that we need focus group consultations and stakeholder engagements, which are what we are now doing. We will ensure we evidence all of this so that evidence can be collected and quality feedback can come back to us in case the project should be changed at all. I believe that most third sector orgs that provide this charge for it. The ability to do this for free should reach those who perhaps have a great need, but do not have the money for it.
Question about the costing -> For my question, when you talk about staff cost how many staff is included in this?
The figures now have been collected but are not fixed. We will gain feedback, possibly adjust the project and then the figures will need to be changed. We will ensure we have multiple volunteers on the training days. This lump sum will be divided into how many people, how many hours.
The more people we engage with, the better the project that we create. We will ensure stakeholder engagement is at the forefront of our decision making. We could go for £100k, but we feel that is too large for where we are now, and the around £50k makes more sense for our organisation.
Discussion around who is involved with the project, who is being engaged.
End of Meeting -> 28/06/2024, 12:58PM
