Project Management

Presented at the ALA annual conference on Sunday at 8:30am. 

Potential applications for me:

1. The summit

2. The Wave eNewsletter

3. The workshops I teach or will teach (monthly technology workshops, appy hours, 1:1 eresources appointments)

4. Planning the yearly workshops I pay outside presenters for

5. Committee work (MLLI)

Chestalene Pintozzi:

Must have clear vision, goals, and priorities

Full and deep commitment from admin

Clearly defined process and core group of trained people

Project management institute (qualify people as project managers)

Agile/scrum project management (software developers)

The waterfall PM technique:

Define to project

-what is to be accomplished and why

-timeline desired or required

-parameters (scope of project)

-constraints (people, budget, etc)

-resources available (knowledge, skills, etc)

Ownership of project

-admin level owner (sponsor, steering committee, champion, etc)

-project manager (leads the process and project team, they liaise between project and organization)

-project team

Plan the project

-major components of the work, deliverables

-define the tasks required to complete the work (to a level that allows key stakeholders to understand clearly what is going to happen, has to happen, etc)

-estimate time required to complete the tasks

-identify dependencies (which tasks are dependent on others being completed)

-assign owners of tasks and deliverables

-establish, test, and revise baseline schedule 

Risk management plan and communication plans

-identify and assess potential threats

-develop risk management plan for major threats

-identify critical stakeholders and develop a plan o communicate with and to seek input and feedback

-obtain admin level support to proceed with project 

Project execution and reporting

-project manager monitors progress and works with team to resolve issues

-timeline may need to be adjusted or additional resources may be needed

-communication with stakeholders must be frequent and clear

Completion and handoffs

-if project results into going efforts then team needs to negotiate where and by whom the work will be done

-team needs to verify completion of project with admin owner

-assess success of project and develop a handoff process to assess ongoing work (organizational success criteria)

Close out and recognition

-formally handoff

-have a formal close out session

-celebrate and recognize team for their individual and group achievements and contributions

Potential Pitfalls

-vague project definition

-inadequate planning

-use of expert as project manager (group will just do as he/she suggests rather than thinking on their own and or the expert will end up doing the bulk of the work)

-failure to communicate

-inadequate or inappropriate resources

-lack of organizational commitment

Kevin Barclay @ Deschutes PL in Oregon

Implementation at a a public library

1. Identify the issue

-project form

-action form (a task that a dept can accomplish)

-relationship issue (if its a communication issue)

2. Who does what

-chair of project or team

-members of project or team (diversity of perspective is important)

-project management team

3. Project form

-improvement goal

-expected results

-success factors

-impacted resources or RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed)

-milestones

-actions

If you have a large project then it might be beneficial to chunk the project into mini projects

Who is in charge -- See RACI above. 

Make sure your goal is an end and not a means. 

Stephanie...

Constructed a high density shelving facility at university of Illinois 

Note to self- look at project management literature

Book: The superior project organization? Says ambassadorships are extremely important (kinda gets to accumulating buy in and support)

Lorene...

A special library perspective

Question: did any of you use any project management software or other technologies to help you keep track of things? - they sued Microsoft project and access. One guy chose not to use it because he felt like it would inhibit the transparency of the project. Tom's Planner - cheaper and easier to use than ms project.