Introduction to Project Management in Digital Humanities

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.