Learning from a Project "Post-mortem"

My First Paint Project

herspeak.blogspot.com

It took me forever to decide what project I was going to use for this assignment. I was so excited that there was no work related requirement. Then I sat with a bobble head doll look not knowing what I would actually write about. The sky was the limit and I was in a fog. Suddenly, I thought about paint project for my second bathroom.

Two weeks ago I attempted my first Do-It-Yourself paint project for my second bathroom. I selected the 2nd bath because it’s upstairs and guest do not use. Secondly, I don’t use. So if I botched the paint job, I wouldn’t have to look at it every day until I figured out how to fix it.


The first thing I did was scope my project. Since it was my first time painting I wanted to know how much paint I needed, type of brushes, how time it would take me to complete the painting and where to find paint for the trim. I had an idea of the color of paint and took a swatch of the material I wanted to match down to Lowes. While at Lowes, I took an opportunity to ask the paint expert what I needed for the trim work in the bathroom. Yeah, I know trim is white, but is all white actually white. Hmm….. that was my question. They were kind enough to share that in most sub-divisions the builder of the homes typically has a contract with a company that supplies all the paint for the homes. This brings to mind the stakeholders and identifying them all upfront in a project. I’d just found out that there was a stakeholder in this project I hadn’t know about. I took my three samples from Lowes and painted a small area on the wall and none of the samples where exactly what I was looking for.


In the interim, I continued some research from the builder’s website and located the number for the Builder. I contacted the builder and they shared that Sherwin Williams is the company used for all the paint jobs in my neighborhood. I visited Sherwin Williams to pick up the paint for the trim and voiced my concern about the current paint samples and what color I was actually going for. The assistant at Sherwin Williams asked to give the color match a try. He took the sample from Lowes and took up a few levels. I took it home and added a sample to the wall. It was exactly what I was looking for. I went back and purchased two gallons of the color and I was off to paint my bathroom.


I successfully painted my bathroom with the first coat. I waited a couple of hours and painted the second coat. I definitely under estimated the amount of time it would take to paint the bathroom. I estimated about ½ a day. It was an all day paint project. WOW! It took forever and my back and neck were killing me. This definitely caused a large amount of scope creep, due to my underestimation of time to paint. Rekom, states that scope creep is inevitable, and you must build time and money to deal with it ahead of time (Rekom, V. n. d.). I was really impressed with my work. I allowed the paint to dry overnight. The next afternoon I began adding all the items back to the bathroom I removed. Last, I hung the shower curtain. I was all smiles.


A few days later I noticed the rod wasn’t even. I attempted to adjust the rod on both sides. As I moved the rods, the paint began to chip off. I panicked and stood in amazement. I didn’t know why the paint was chipping off each time I moved the rod. All of a sudden my light bulb came on. Even though I allowed the paint to dry overnight, the paint was dry to touch. I didn’t research how long it would take for the paint (satin-latex) to actually set, referred to as curing time. That prompted me to search the timeframe for paint to actually cure and discovered it can take up to a month to cure hard for latex based paints. YIKES!


Reflecting back on the painting project I felt like I had not really identified all of the stakeholders. Sherwin Williams was that unknown stakeholder that was identified early on in the project. Identifying them early in the project didn’t affect my budget or painting time line. I had already estimated cost for purchasing trim. My project timeline was grossly underestimated. The level of paint detail in the corners, making sure I didn’t have streaks and applying the second coat took two times as long as I had estimated. Finally, the curing process for the paint job was a critical task in the project that I didn’t even know about. I simply thought it took a few hours to dry. This should have been a part of the analysis part of the project and calculated into the timeline. Although every project is different, the activities that make the most sense early on in the project are confirming the needs; drafting objectives identify the audience selecting the strategies (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008)



Overall…. I LOVE my paint job. It was a huge success because I met my goal of painting the bathroom myself and painting it a color I really liked.

Rekom, P.V. (n.d.). Practitioner Voices: Barriers to Project Success. Retrieved July 5, 2012. https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1342057_1%26url%3D

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.