Project Management Tips: Team

By: Jett Winders, Program Manager, Charity Dynamics

As a nonprofit professional, you wear many hats, often including being a project manager for your organization's technology projects. Whether you are implementing enterprise software, redesigning your website, setting up a new email template or installing a new printer – you need the right skills to make sure everything goes smoothly.

In this series we'll review best practices for project management, specifically examining the three T's: team, timeline and talking. Developed from real life projects, they will arm you to make your next tech project a hands-down success.

7 Tips for Effective Team Management

Ensure the success of your project by clearly defining the project team and the roles of team members. Winning project teams follow these tips:

1. Active Leadership: You are an integral part of the project team. The project cannot be successful without you taking an active role coordinating activities across your organization.
2. Organization: Organize your project team at the start of the project and make sure all of the people who need to be involved are aware of their responsibilities, time commitments, and key deadlines.
3. Authority & Approval: Know what your authority is to make decisions on the project and when you need approval from someone else within the organization. Make sure to identify who makes those final decisions up front and communicate this to your vendors too.
4. Vendor Partners: Think of the vendor as your partner on the project. Both you and your vendor should have clearly defined responsibilities for activities within the project, but the ultimate success of the project is everyone's responsibility.
5. Escalation: Know who to escalate issues to both within your organization and with your vendors. Voicing a concern to the wrong person may not get the results your project needs. Providing the right feedback to the right contact can help quickly get any concerns addressed.
6. Early & Often: Make sure to include all stakeholders in early iterations of your project, especially if your project involves design or web development. Many project managers make the mistake of only including the final decision maker in the last round of review where significant changes can be difficult or expensive to make.
7. Quality Assurance: Quality assurance is everyone's responsibility. You and your colleagues know more about your organization's needs more than anyone else in the world, and your expertise (and fresh eyes) are required during QA periods to help identify issues with the final product that your vendor may not have caught or been looking for.

In our next post, we'll look at creating and sticking with a feasible timeline.

 

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