Project Problems
From apse
This document contains a list of problems related to projects as experienced by APSE students and faculty. These should be moved to appropriate problem statements within specific patterns. Some may belong in more than one pattern.
Problems related to projects as experienced by APSE students and faculty Procrastination caused by lack of motivation.
- Tendency to get distracted.
- Losing track of deadline.
- Transportation – getting to and from the project site.
- Finding a project site in a reasonable time frame.
- Collecting materials in the environment of the project sire, and if needed try to bring out side materials to the project site.
- Weather and environment maybe a problem because of the season as well as the remoteness of the project site.
- Not enough days in the week to be at the project site and school – including doing work for all. projects and class, having to go back forth from school to project site instead of staying at the site completing the project then returning to complete work at school.
- I rarely feel motivated or energized to work on a project in the mornings.
- I get sucked into doing other things, such as watching a movie, going for a walk or being with my friends.
- Having a job get in the way and leaves less time for working on projects.
- Having too much to do and stressing out about all of it, makes me want to do none of it.
- Trouble sleeping at night makes it difficult to feel rested enough to concentrate on the project.
- Lack of transportation makes it difficult to do outreach for the project in areas outside of Olympia.
- Other work and responsibilities can take time and energy that could otherwise be used for the project.
- Schedule conflicts between participants can make it hard to coordinate group efforts.
- Communication with a contact is difficult, possibly causing a missed appointment and throwing the schedule off.
- A certain piece of needed equipment could be very hard to track down.
- Inadequate output could be a problem: For example, if you have time with your subject, but do not do not achieve desired results, it may be difficult to reach the subject again for further work.
- Coordinating means of travel to coincide with your schedule could be difficult.
- Construction starts outside my office at 8am each day (for 3 weeks). (<-this is actually happening)
- Office space is to small to maintain all the stuff needed for multiple projects
- Working at home gives access to tempting video games.
- Not owning a car means that food is harder to manage. i.e. cannot easily go out to eat or go shopping.
- Over multitasking, trying to do too many things at once.
- Group Dynamics – Communication of ideas and proper distribution of individual skills as best suited.
- Balancing work, school, and the rest of life in a harmonious fashion.
- Having an overly macro- or micro- scope view of the tasks at hand – either getting hung up on details, or not making them clear.
- Writer’s Block – out of ideas.
- Difference in opinion/power struggles.
- Missing prop, can’t shoot scene.
- Not transportation – incumbent weather.
- Computer crashes – lose data.
- Voicemail/Email notifications when working is distracting and breaks focus and concentration.
- Waiting for response from other people to move further into project.
- Not getting answer from advisors. Answers insufficient to continue work and require more time asking questions of other who may know.
- Inspiration in face of Deadline: Something I face all the time and something I have talked about with other artists and organizers. To me this problem is described as follows: Maintaining high energy and motivation throughout the duration of a project, especially when confined by a timeline or deadlines that can be prohibitive to creativity.
- Flannel sheets: or another luxury that makes getting up, especially in winter, ardvors and bitter task.
- Solution: an office fitted perfectly in your bed, i.e. laptop with wifi.
- Season “Sickness” or weather prohibitive: I personally suffer a December thru February Depression brought on by lack of sunlight. Other times to poor weather. Projects orientated outdoors can fall behind schedule due to poor weather.
- Scheduling conflicts
- Mental blocks/motivation
- Outside distractions (work, friends, etc).
- Not having group members show up.
- Rails doesn’t support asynchronous notification via the database backend.
- Reading and understanding library interface documentation always seems to take longer than I expect
- I don’t’ get anything done when I have internet access
- I keep forgetting to set up a version control system.
- The weather has been very disruptive this year, and I’ve had to make extra trips to work to fill in for other people.
- People at work keep trying to get me to do work on my off-time.
- I try to start working and I get distracted by lots of things (people wanting to talk, music, computer, internet, my own thoughts, etc). So a lot of my mental energy is drained from trying to block out the distractions and focus on my work at hand.
- This may sound like a joke but a huge distraction for is having to eat. When you work two or three jobs every free minute is time you could be working on what needs to be done. Eating and preparing meals for your “eats” into that time.
- Making a bad product ends up wasting my time even though I always learn something ultimately that product can’t be used so it’s a huge waste of time and materials. So I try to concentrate hard and do it right. Goes back to the distraction thing, which is why it’s so important to be distraction free.
- Problem – Individual – Everyday from about 3 to 7pm I get grumpy, exhausted and I am in need of a nap. The problem is that this is a time that I am expected to do work. If I could take a nap, the problem would be solved.
- Problem – Team –Many people are working with me on this project; organizing meetings and such can be difficult, as someone is often forgotten and not told about the meeting, new idea, plan changes, whatever.
- Problem – Environment – My house has an amazing living room, one that could potentially be a productive space for working on projects. The problem is that one roommate has claimed it as a lights-out-all-free-hours T.V. room. Discussion about the problem is rarely productive. How obnoxious.
- Annoying housemates constantly make noise and interrupt. I usually crank up some music, but then they complain. I got headphones but they still interrupt, “Where did I leave my…”.
- The cats. I close the door, they scratch at the door. I lock them outside and they cry.
- My project involves digging up painful memories. The Irish painkiller works, but can leave me unable to write – or anything else.
- Motivation or lack thereof
- Easily distracted
- Others can be unreliable, people make promises and don’t follow up
- Fear of failure
- Self-doubt
- Underachiever
- Illness
- ADD/ADHD
- Learning disabilities
What happened to the Amabile obstacles?!?!
Creative Challenges (from Linda Dessau, http://www.tenwaystothrive.com/)
- Procrastination
- Perfectionism
- People-pleasing
- Distorted or negative thinking
- Disorganization
- Isolation
- Feeling uninspired
AS WELL AS:
- Self-doubt
- Self-judgment
- Low self-esteem
- Envy of other artists
- Intimidation
- Performance anxiety
- Fears about having enough money and enough work
| Problem | Solution |
Poor Memory
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