Artifacts:

1. Needs Assessment Report (Spring 2025, EDIT 7150e) and
2. Ayurvedic and Yogic Home-Based Plan for Muscle Growth and Inflammation Reduction (Summer 2025, EDIT 7550E) 

Management, for me, is about creating the conditions that allow ideas and people to thrive. It’s the steady framework beneath all that creative energy for design; It is in the planning, coordination, and reflection that holds everything together. The two artifacts I selected for this theme are the Needs Assessment Report and the Ayurvedic and Yogic Home-Based Plan for Muscle Growth and Inflammation Reduction. They represent two sides of management that have shaped my professional and personal growth. One reflects structured, large-scale organizational leadership; the other demonstrates disciplined self-management and sustainable planning. Together, they capture how I plan, organize, and guide projects that bridge theory and practice with empathy, adaptability, and purpose.

The Needs Assessment Report was one of the most comprehensive projects I’ve managed in this program. As project lead, I developed and implemented a full-scale institutional analysis grounded in Human Performance Technology (HPT) principles. Our goal was to identify performance gaps related to faculty engagement with the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at a higher education institution and to propose actionable solutions. From the outset, the project required strategic coordination which involved balancing multiple stakeholder groups, aligning schedules, and ensuring that the methods were both systematic and ethical.

I began by mapping out the project scope and deliverables, creating a shared timeline that covered data collection, analysis, and reporting phases. Working with faculty, administrators, advisory committees, and IT/marketing teams required constant communication and flexibility. I organized our workflow using tiered data-collection instruments; surveys and document analysis to ensure each group’s voice was represented. It felt like a lesson in logistical choreography! Ensuring that the client stayed informed, that deadlines remained realistic for stakeholders, and that sensitive data were handled with confidentiality.

Managing such a large-scale project reminded me that leadership in instructional design is as much about relationships as it is about results. I learned to anticipate needs, resolved small issues such as timeline workaround before it escalated. These are habits that feel deeply familiar to me, not just as a professional, but as a parent. For more than a decade, I’ve balanced the complex rhythms of raising two children while managing professional and academic responsibilities. The same patience, foresight, and adaptability that guide my personal life found their way into this project. This is something that my friend Natasha and I have talked about, and I believe the M.Ed. program gave those intuitive management skills a formal language and framework.

A central part of this project involved applying Kotter’s Eight-Step Change Model to guide implementation. I used Kotter’s framework to link short-term goals to long-term organizational vision. For example, creating awareness of performance gaps through survey results became a foundation for building momentum toward cultural change. Developing executive summaries and designing presentation for the client and key stakeholders helped make the findings accessible to all audiences. These presentations were crucial for guiding future planning. Balancing detail-oriented analysis with strategic foresight taught me to operate on two levels at once, seeing both the system and the people within it.

This project strengthened my capacity to manage scope, no-cost, and time within the ethical and collaborative expectations of ibstpi standards. It deepened my understanding of how leadership in design requires both operational control and human sensitivity. The CTE needs assessment reminded me that successful project management is not just about hitting milestones, it’s about fostering trust, aligning shared vision, and ensuring that every stakeholder feels heard.

In contrast, the Ayurvedic and Yogic Home-Based Plan for Muscle Growth and Inflammation Reduction offered a completely different lens on management. It was one that was more personal, yet equally disciplined. This project, completed as part of a course assignment, required me to act as both client and project manager, designing a holistic wellness plan that merged evidence-based health practices with structured implementation. While its scope was smaller, the process followed the same principles I would apply to a professional project: defining objectives, allocating resources, assessing risks, scheduling milestones, and monitoring progress.

I created a detailed eight-week Gantt-based schedule that balanced exercise routines, dietary changes, and mindfulness practices. The plan incorporated measurable checkpoints, such as muscle recovery markers, meal planning metrics, and reflection logs to evaluate progress. Managing this personal project reminded me that effective leadership starts with self-leadership. Staying accountable to a plan, adjusting timelines when necessary, and reflecting on outcomes are habits that extend well beyond wellness, they are essential to sustainable professional practice.

What I appreciated most about this project was how it reconnected me to the idea of balance, something I had to rediscover while navigating graduate studies, teaching, and family life. It made me realize that good management is not simply about control; it’s about harmony. The same principles that sustain a healthy body, consistency, awareness, and adaptation also apply to sustaining healthy projects and teams. I also found joy in hearing that this project resonated with a classmate who wanted to implement a similar plan with their family. It was a small but meaningful reminder that thoughtfully managed projects, even personal ones, can inspire others.

Taken together, these two artifacts illustrate my progression from managing structured institutional initiatives to managing self-directed, reflective practice. The Needs Assessment Report represents leadership at scale which involves coordinating multiple systems across organizational layers. The Ayurvedic Plan demonstrates individual accountability, adaptability, and intentional self-regulation. Both required planning, monitoring, evaluation, and reflection, and both strengthened my understanding that management is not about doing everything, it’s about orchestrating people, time, and energy toward meaningful outcomes.

What ties these experiences together is empathy. Whether I’m coordinating a cross-departmental initiative or managing a personal project, I strive to create systems that are humane, transparent, and responsive. This perspective has been shaped not only by academic study but also by lived experience from years of managing classrooms, teams, and family life have taught me that leadership built on empathy sustains momentum far longer than authority alone.