Here is the outline for my workshop this morning on project management at THATCamp New England.

Conceptualizing the project

• Collaboration — reach out to others in the field; know the field

Writing the Grant: Necessary fictions

• Follow the guidelines
• Select the staff
• Create the workplan
• Key Deliverables
• Estimating work
• Budgeting: personnel, materials, travel, indirect
  • Office of Sponsored Programs

Get the Grant==>Hooray!! What’s next?

• Redo the workplan — reassess in light of changing technologies and staff availability and skills
• Collaboration — reach out to others in the field; know the field

Team management: Trust

• Protect the staff: administrative concerns, competing demands
• Supply the staff: software, hardware, space
• Meetings (syncronous and asyncronous communication)
  • Individual (how are things going? what can I do for you?)
  • Larger group (where are we? what problems do we foresee? how shall we proceed? concensus building)
  • Small group (paired programming, etc.)
• Tracking systems
  • Github/SVN for tracking coding tasks and issues
  • Basecamp for tracking other project activities and deliverables

PI Responsibilities:

The buck stops with you, so it helps if you are at home with complex organizational systems and detail oriented.

• Budget and Deliverables
• Conflict management
• Individual time management
• Communication with the grant officers
• Communication and work with the institutional systems
  • Administration
  • Office of Sponsored Programs
• Learning enough about all of the elements of the project and the technologies to make decisions comfortably.