The project I was working on was based on testing the harmful influence of pesticides and developing organic alternatives for the High School Science Fair. The primary goal is to engage in science learning; however, experience is usually grounded on focusing on the group project competition and participation in the fair. We researched the effect of pesticides on different plants versus natural alternatives, such as salt, onion/garlic spray, and the use of eucalyptus oil.
According to Larson’s Organizational Culture, the projects have the following features. The member identity was organization oriented, meaning all participants related more to the school fair as an event than to the project theme and assignment. While there was group team emphasis, the plan of work and division of tasks was built around each member. Management’s focus on task-oriented created a sense of responsibility for the final result. The unit integration automatically became interdependent regarding the school science project. The work was controlled tightly, even though the internal organization among the members was loose.
Other important aspects were the low degree of risk and conflict tolerance, which meant that aggressive attitudes and conflicts could result in disqualification from the fair. The means-ends orientation focused on outcomes defined the whole system of the science fair. It was also closely connected with reward criteria which reflected the performance and results of the project. Meanwhile, the open-system focus was external, dealing with problems and questions of applying presented projects during the fair to real-life situations. For instance, how our natural pesticides could be integrated for personal use in small gardens and flowerbeds.
Another point – the project’s organizational structure during the science project worked as dedicated teams. In the system of such a structure, the school functions as the parent organization while the student’s project is a dedicated team. Harrison and Lock (2017) state, “The sole purpose is to gain and present results in the studied topic without focusing on daily tasks” (p. 55). It was the best choice for the organizational structure based on its peculiarities. The leader of the students’ project became the project manager who assigned priorities and divided tasks between members. Such an approach allowed simple and fast project development according to separate but interdependent links of tasks completed but individual participants.
Several points have to be answered to define the project’s scope. The objective of our project was to identify the damage of chemical pesticides and test various alternatives with a budget of less than 40$. The product scope was to offer affordable natural pesticides that would be accessible for home use in the form of a spray (salt and onion or garlic) or oil (eucalyptus). The increasing environmental problem with the rise of pesticide pollution and their harm to health became the project’s justification for resolving this issue, suggesting more safe variants. In the process, there were several deliverables – reports of the initial state of the analyzed plants, formulas of natural pesticides, and check-report during each week. At the same time, milestones were more significant results, such as response to the chemicals, changes during the growth period, and the reaction of different stressors (sun, insects). The main technical requirements were considered interoperability for other plants and accessibility of the ingredients. The limits of our project were an application of results and findings only to the small home gardens and flowerbeds. The difference measured acceptance criteria at the beginning of the flowering period, and the flowers finished look.
During the project, there was no scope creep; everything went according to the measured periods. Due to divided responsibility, each group member provided their results on time, making the whole project easy to follow and completed without delays. Therefore, all milestones were successfully achieved, and results were presented at the high school science fair.
References
Harrison, F., & Lock, D. (2017). Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.