Project Management For Students

These six steps will help your student avoid the dreaded “my project is due tomorrow, and I haven’t started” panic attack.

You wake up on a bright, sunny Thursday morning, and as you greet your school-aged child, you’re greeted with tears.

“My project’s due today,” they explain, looking sadder than an overweight pole vaulter.

“What project?”

“The one that’s due today,” they explain, looking at you as if descriptors are wholly unnecessary since there’s only one project due today.

This starts the trip down the rabbit hole of student projects. If you’re the parent of a school-aged child, you can likely relate. (For this newsletter, a “project” is any multi-day assignment that must be done at home, requires multiple steps, and has a firm due date.)

In this newsletter, I’ll outline our family’s strategy to help our kids do their projects, eliminating last-minute panic and allowing us, as parents, to guide as needed.

This is NOT Overkill (But it Might Be Overkill)

I guess if you have to label something as “not overkill,” it might, in fact, be overkill. Like someone who tells you how humble they are…

Alas, the strategy below is a bit detailed, but I assure you, it works for kids as young as 6 (with a lot of guidance).

If the thought of a project management strategy for your kid’s projects feels silly, I challenge you to try it. If it works, great! If not, you can add it to the long list of things that I do that work for me because I’m borderline crazy but don’t work for others. (Like keeping all of our receipts for purchases over the last three years, sorted by date.)

Intercepting the Project

A key factor to this system working is actually finding out about projects. Some teachers communicate project schedules well, while others tell the students about them in class, leaving recording and disseminating the information to the child.

For this to work, you’ll need a daily method to determine if a project was assigned. Hopefully, your child volunteers this information, but if that’s not their thing, ask them daily and/or scour their backpack and folder for the “oh-I-forgot-about-that” papers.

6-Step Project Management Process

Step 1 - Gather information and supplies

You’ll need any hand-outs that describe the project, 3–5 blank sheets of computer or binder paper, two pencils (or pens), and a highlighter. You’ll also want to be sitting down with your child next to you. You may also benefit from a gin and tonic to help calm your nerves as your 7-year-old asks you maddening questions.

Step 2 - Read and highlight the project description and prompt

Depending on your child’s age, you may do this, or your child may do this with you listening. Read the prompt a few times out loud, then go back through and highlight any action items in the prompt. Any teacher worth their salt will have a thorough project description outlining the actions needed and the deliverables at the end of the project. Highlight any action item, no matter how small.

Step 3 - Write down the goal and deliverables

Now, on one of your blank sheets of paper, write the name of the project and the due date at the top. I recommend the “due date” be one day before the actual “due date.” Why? Because no one, ever, in the history of the world, has perished from turning a project in early.

Under the due date, write “Goal:” and then, yes, you got it, write down the project’s goal! This is not what is due; this is what the child is supposed to be learning. So, the “goal” for a project is not a “complete A to Z country research workbook.” No, the goal is to learn how to research, learn about world geography and learn good penmanship and illustration skills.

Why is the goal important? Sometimes our culture focuses too much on doing the minimum required instead of benefiting from the journey. Let’s teach our kids that school is more than a bunch of tasks. Let’s teach them to enjoy the process of learning, even if that means doing a little extra.

Next, under the “Goal:” section, write out “Deliverables:” then fill in what is due at the end of the assignment. Simply go through the prompt you highlighted in Step 2 and list the items that are due.

Step 4 - Break the project into small steps

Now, list each required project step between now and the due date. Don’t worry about putting them in order; just help your child list all the steps, no matter how small.

For many of us, the most intimidating part of a large project is the initial overwhelming feeling. We don’t know where to start, and we don’t know what to do first. Teaching your child how to “eat an elephant one bite at a time” is a huge life skill they’ll benefit from for the rest of their life. Teach them now!

Step 5 - Create a schedule

Next, go back through the project steps and have your child number them 1-? in the order they should be completed. I’d recommend using a pencil because there’ll be a lot of mistakes and erasing. Make a little check box next to each step. (We all know there are few things in this world more satisfying than checking a box complete!)

Once the steps are in order, get a clean sheet of paper, add your project title and due date to the top, and list the steps in order. By this time, their original sheet of paper will be pretty messy and more confusing than IKEA assembly instructions.

Now that you have a clear step-by-step plan in chronological order assign a deadline to each step. If you have an action that will take more than two days, I recommend breaking it into smaller steps with their own deadline. Ideally, at the end of this step, you’ll have a bunch of steps, one or two due each day, between now and the due date.

Step 6 - Monitor

Excellent! Your child now has a clear picture of what needs to be done and deadlines for WHEN they need to be done. I recommend snapping a picture with your phone or running a copy of the project plan, as these things can grow legs and run away at any time.

Now it’s up to you, the parent, to check the progress. Note this system puts the onus on the child to do the project. It puts the onus on the child to meet deadlines. It puts the onus on the child to ask if they are stuck. Learning such independence is critical to their growth, so only check in enough to make sure the learning goal is being met.

As your child gets older, they should be able to do the above steps first on their own with you by their side, then entirely on their own without your involvement. And, for the love of all things good, hopefully they can manage a project before they enter the work world.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it helpful. Here’s a similar post from a few years ago about how family meetings improved our lives. You might like it.

Books of Note: I just finished Automate Your Busywork by Aytekin Tank, the founder of JotForm. It’s terrible. While it offers a smidge of insight regarding effective workflow diagramming, it repeats itself too many times. It tries to be so general in its principles that it’s challenging to identify actionable items. Skip this one. Even though the book is orange, looks cool, and has some catchy taglines and such…

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