Work Package n° 1 Project Management
PARTNERS’ CONTRIBUTION
The Partnership is composed of:
– University of Bari (UNIBA)
– UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU (AMU)
– UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA (UVEG)
– IASIS (IASIS)
– University of Turku (UTU)
– Serious Game Factory srl (SGF)
For the Work Package 1 the following activities are established:
* An intranet platform: set during the first month of the project, a free cloud storage system is established on Google Drive. It ensures the management of tasks and enable partners to share documents and files of interest.
* A mailing list: set during the project’s first month called (gemma-project@googlegroups.com), it facilitates contacts and exchange among the Partnership.
* Face-to-face and virtual meetings (applying a frequency of about 6 months)
All the partners actively participate in the online and physical meetings. We organized many face-to-face meetings and the partners organized the meetings, in particular the organizers were UNIBA (first physical meeting in Bari), AMU (second transnational meeting in Poznan), UVEG (third transnational meeting in Valencia) and SGF (final meeting in Bari).
IASIS NGO was responsible for the implementation, coordination and monitoring of the Quality and Evaluation Plan, acquiring the role of Internal Evaluator of the project. It will be supported by the rest 7 members of the Steering Committee of the project, appointed by each partner organization.
MANAGEMENT AND COLLABORATION
The project consortium combined complementary expertise under UNIBA’s leadership. The project established a streamlined communication and cooperation flow using several key methods:
– A shared intranet platform (with Google Drive and OneDrive Microsoft) for document management and secure file sharing.
-A dedicated mailing list and weekly progress reports from the project manager to keep all partners aligned.
-A balanced schedule of meetings, alternating every six months between in-person and virtual (via Google Meet) to ensure effective collaboration while minimizing the ecological footprint. These were strategically timed to coincide with key project milestones.
A project management tool (via Excel schedules) to assign tasks, track progress, and provide a continuous, shared overview of the project’s achievements for all partners.
UVEG guided the creation of the integrated well-being model, while SGF was responsible for developing the serious game, with UTU ensuring its scientific and pedagogical validity. AMU led the creation of guidelines and managed trial executions, and IASIS oversaw quality assurance and the project’s adaptation for the VET sector. Each partner also implemented national activities in their respective countries.
MANAGEMENT DIFFICULTIES
The project started with a consistent delay due to late internal signature and it brought some problem.
Nevertheless, after the first physical meeting the actions were set and the Partnership had a clear idea of what any organization needed to perform. Unfortunately, the Principal Investigator, Prof.ssa Alessia Scarinci changed its position and moved to the University Online Mercatorum, leaving the leadership to Prof. Alberto Fornasari. This change caused some internal problem with a lack of communication inside the Partnership, with a low control on the action.
However at the mid of the project in coincidence with the progress report, UNIBA took in place some actions to complete in a good direction the project, containing the emerged problems.
In particular there was an acceleration of the WPs with some delays publishing an internal new GANT with the inclusion of the new deadlines. The problems were contained in April. At the end of the project the Partnership agreed to ask for an extension of three months due to the organization of the final meeting in Bari instead of in Turku organzed by UTU and to allow for the completion of WP5 with a good level of quality. WP5 has been slowed down by delays resulting from the change of Principal Investigator (initially Professor Scarinci, who moved to another university) explained in the first part of this paragraph. The change in management has caused organizational issues that have prevented the Work Packages from being completed. Although the delays were reduced, the WP5 needed more months to reach a consistent number of users. For this reason, to allow for testing of the developed tools (MOOCs and Serious Games) and to draft the appropriate guidelines the project has been extended for three months and the effect was positive.
CONCLUSION
The implementation of Work Package 1 was very successful. Project management activities were well organised, with clear communication and strong cooperation among partners. Monitoring and reporting were carried out efficiently, ensuring that all tasks followed the planned timeline.
The only reason for not giving the maximum score is the natural complexity of coordinating several partners across different countries. However, overall management was smooth, transparent, and effective, providing a solid foundation for the whole project.