Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

How to Create Your Schools Education Technology Strategic Plan

By (author) Darryl Vidal

Publication date:

21 March 2017

Length of book:

104 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475834161

FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL is a book for Education Technology professionals who understand that Ed Tech projects are complex and costly, and therefore must be planned and managed just like any other large-scale project. Oftentimes Education Technology professionals move straight from naming an initiative, such as “1 to 1 computing, or BYOD” right into implementation, without taking into consideration the necessary infrastructure, bandwidth and capacity. These requirements may double or even quadruple the overall expenditure.
But in recent decades, with the massive call for classroom technology, the large-scale technology programs that have made the news have been huge failures, and have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, taking some superintendents with them.
What is the key to avoiding these failures, and how can you insure that it doesn’t happen to your school? The key is planning and project management. Education Technology Strategic Planning is the subject of this book. It provides a detailed process, called MAPIT
TM that guides the planner through five phases for developing your school’s Ed Tech Strategic Plan: Needs Identification, Needs Analysis, Recommendations, Feasibility and Implementation.
I have become very familiar with Darryl's writings. He provides a practical, knowledgeable approach to the complexity
associated with planning, implementing, and managing projects in complex IT environments. His most recent work around
his MAPIT methodology provides tremendous guidance on this subject. I am a big believer in utilizing consistent processes
to be successful, and MAPIT is an outstanding methodology for organizations large and small.