Project Management Skills for

Instructional Designers
A Practical Guide
Dorcas M. T. Cox
iUniverse, Inc.
New York Bloomington
Project Management Skills for Instructional Designers
A Practical Guide
Copyright 2009 Dorcas M. Cox
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ISBN: 978-1-4401-9363-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9365-1 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9364-4 (ebk)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009912949
Printed in the United States of America
iUniverse rev. date: 12/ 30/2009
Cover Design by Dr. Desiree Cox
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Case 1
P J Enterprises
P] Enterprises is a mail-order catalog business that has been in operation for
the past six years. Te company develops, manufactures, and markets high
quality gifs, apparel, and home accessories and distributes them through its
mail-order catalog and its retail store. The company focuses on the needs of
women between the ages of twenty-five and fify-fve years who own their
own homes and have family incomes between $40,000 and $80,000. P]
Enterprises believes that female catalog shoppers look for traditional, nostal
gic, and romantic gifs, apparel, and home accessories to enhance the quality
of their homes and family lives.
P] Enterprises catalog oferings include sweaters, skirts, and novelty items.
Unique jewelry such as pins, earrings, belts, necldaces, and bracelets are also
included in the catalog. Children's products including puzzles and toys for
children ages two to ten years as well as lamps, rugs, and other accessories to
bring traditional or nostalgic appearance to children's rooms are also found in
the catalog. The catalog also includes evergreen wreaths, centerpieces, collect
able handcraft fgurines, plates, dolls, and other inspirational and symbolic
items refecting traditional values.
At present, the catalog division of P] Enterprises is located in a building
that has four thousand feet of ofce space and six thousand square feet of
warehouse space. At present, the company pays about $5,000 per month in
principal and interest for the use of the space.
P] Enterprises recorded a proft for this year with annual sales of $6 mil
lion dollars. Despite the recession, high points for this year included the fol
lowing:

Thirty-one percent increase in catalog customer lists to 250,000
names

Forty-one percent increase in sales

Net profit of $1 million for this fscal year
207
208 Dorcas M. T. Cox
Business Plan Goals
The management team of P] Enterprises is presently negotiating the business
plan for the upcoming year. Some concerns expressed include whether it is
reasonable to expect that the company will continue to grow at the present
rate. If so, could the present management team facilitate and control the
growth while remaining profitable? Where should the company grow? How
will this be achieved? What financial, human resources, and other resources
would be required?
Last Year's Targets This Year's Targets
$5 million in annual sales $7 million in annual sales
$10 million in catalog sales $13 million in catalog sales
$5 million from the retail $7 million from the retail
division division
$10 million from acquisitions $12 million from acquisitions
21 % increase in customer lists 40% increase in customer lists
Net proft of $1 million Net proft of $2 million
Business Objectives

Aggressive growth to maintain or exceed projected targets
Maintain profitability

Focus on quality and customer service with 10 percent improvement
on customer-service scores

Focus on quality of work environment and staf development and
recognition
The company estimates capital expenditures of $400,000 to $500,000
would be needed to increase catalog sales to the $13 million dollar mark.
There is also a need to increase the company's customer list. The larger the
house list, the less need for the company to rent other lists. As the house list
grows, promotional costs decrease as net sales increase. The company can also
earn money from the rental of its own house list.
Prject Management Skils for Instructional Designers
Organization and Staffing
PJ Enterprises' catalog division presently employs fify people. Forty staf are
employed on a full-time basis. Included in the number of employees are our
customer-service supervisors and twenty-five telephone operators.
The catalog director, Judie Thompson, is responsible for all aspects of the
catalogs. This year is the frst year that the company produced four diferent
catalogs-one for each season. Previously, the summer catalog was essentially
the spring catalog with sale prices. The spring catalog, featuring Easter gift
. items, was forty pages and was mailed in the end of December. The summer
catalog was thirty-two pages and was mailed in mid-April. The forty-page fall
catalog featured Halloween, Thanksgiving, and some Christmas items and
was mailed in the end of June. The biggest-ever Christmas catalog was forty
eight pages and was mailed in mid-September.
Sheena Perez, the merchandising manager, is responsible for selecting and
promoting items for the catalogs. Sheena and Judie frequent gif, apparel, and
other trade shows throughout the year, seeking vendors with quality prod
ucts and reputation for reliability in shipping. They bring potential catalog
items back to the ofce where they, along with the assistant merchandising
manager, examine each piece and argue for or against ofering it to the PJ
Enterprises catalog customers.
After the catalog merchandise is selected, Sheena Perez works closely with
a contract copywriter and professional service frms contracted to design and
produce the catalog including layout, photography, and printing. The vendor
selection process includes interviewing, negotiating, inspecting, and manag
ing. Before the catalogs are mailed, the customer-service supervisors and the
telephone operators are trained on each catalog item. This training is con
ducted by Sheena Perez, the merchandising manager, and Judie Thompson,
the catalog director.
Tis half-day training is conducted using a PowerPoint presentation
method. Thirty minutes are reserved at the end of the meeting for questions
and answers. Training materials include a summary product description for
easy reference on the automated entry system. Product catalog training is
conducted four times per year prior to the introduction of the new season's
catalog.
At present, the company has rotated more than fve hundred products
through its catalogs over the six years that it has been in operation.
210
Dorcas M. T. Cox
Quality and Service
PJ Enterprises has a goal of quality service deliver The company has a toll
free telephone number for placing orders and for customer-service inquiries
and complaints. Its present telephone system can support twenty incom
ing lines and forty headsets and has automatic call-distribution features and
activity-reporting capability. The results of a brief customer-service survey
that the telephone operators are required to conduct with every customer
are also captured as a part of the activity reporting. Telephone operators can
access product reference guides and answer questions while the customer is
on the line.
Te phone lines are stafed twenty-four hours per day, seven days per
week. Te telephone operator answers telephone calls using the standard
greeting, places the order directly on the system, and encourages the customer
to answer a few brief customer-service questions. If the customer requires ser
vice, the telephone operator transfers the call to the customer service super
visor on duty. The present system is designed to answer 90 percent of all
customer inquiries within two minutes and to ensure that the customer is
kept happy. At the moment, the telephone system is only used at 85 percent
capacity.
Reports generated by the system indicate that each telephone operator
only responds to three calls per hour as opposed to the required number of six
calls per hour. Customer-service data reveal that two customers out of every
three who respond to the customer-service survey have a complaint about
the telephone operator. Complaints are typically around product knowl
edge, telephone etiquette, and prompt response to calls waiting in the queue.
Customers complain that even afer the long wait to speak to a telephone
operator, they are asked to call back or are redirected to a customer service
supervisor to have their query answered satisfactorily. Fify percent of the
customers surveyed from last year responded that they are not inclined to do
business with PJ Enterprises again as a result of the poor customer service that
they received.
The average order is between $250-$500 dollars, so revenue is gener
ated by call volume and sales volume. Customer benefits include competitive
prices, optional overnight delivery, and quick shipping from receipt of order.
PJ Enterprises stresses the importance of quality in all aspects of the work,
from producing the catalog to taking, packing, and shipping an order. Incen
tives are awarded for both warehouse and customer-service staf for error-Iee
performance.
Project Management Skils for Instructional Desiners l
Issues for Management

Upgrade of current hardware configuration with additional
stations as well as new equipment and technical improvement in the
warehouse is necessary for the projected increase in catalog sales.
Human resources challenges continue to be a concern for the
company's management team. One of the greatest challenges is
recruiting, selection, hiring, training, and managing new people.
There is a high turnover of staf on all levels, particularly with the
telephone operators, customer-service supervisors, and warehouse
staf On average, one staf member resigns or is terminated every
other month.
Just recently, some new HR policies were introduced to the staf.
These policies include a performance evaluation/self-evaluation
process, a new company handbook, and an upgrade to the company's
pension plan.

Employee meetings are now scheduled to be held once per month
but often times are very poorly attended because of the employees'
working hours. Employees are not compensated for attending these
meetings.

Customer-survey figures indicate an increase of 30 percent in
customer complaints with the telephone operators as compared to
the same period last year.

More than half of the total number of telephone operators were
informally interviewed and indicated dissatisfaction with their jobs
to the point of leaving.
Practical Eercise
In light of the aggressive targets and alleged employee dissatisfaction among
telephone operators in particular, senior management is proposing the use of
a slightly diferent approach for the training that is typically conducted before
the catalog mailing.
As the instructional designer and project manager, you are hired by PJ
Enterprises to design, develop, and deliver a learning program for the tele
phone operators. The training course is intended to be delivered before the
catalogs are mailed.
The target audience is customer-service supervisors and the telephone
operators. Participants are to be trained on each catalog item. The course that
212 Dorcas M. T. Cox
you will design, develop, and deliver will substitute the training course that
was previously conducted by Sheena Perez, the merchandising manager, and
Judie Tompson, the catalog director.
Management believes that increase in knowledge and skill in describing
the features and benefits of the products in the catalog is necessary to increase
catalog sales and reduce customer complaints.
A budget of $400,000 is allocated for all staf training during the upcom
ing fiscal year.
Review the details in the case presented above and consider how you may
use your knowledge and skill in instructional design and project management
to address the situation above.
Use the data provided in the case to complete all project management
and/or instructional design documents that you recommend to be completed
as a part of this case analysis. Submit these documents, along with your writ
ten case findings, for grading.