Project management consulting and training for social change organisations.
Next month I'm heading home to Toronto to participate in Social Tech Training, a three-day, hands-on, Web 2.0-oriented learning intensive for people working in the social change sector, presented by members of the Web of Change community in partnership with MaRS.
A whole bunch of people I really admire and respect are going to be there, I get to present on what I'm really, really into at the moment and I expect to meet dozens of people doing amazing and interesting work — it should be awesome :)
Hope to see you there!
importantprojects, MaRS, nptech, socialtechtraining, STT, toronto, webofchange
Two weeks ago I started working with the Internet and E-Communications Programme (IEP) team at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International (and thank you, David Heath, for recommending me; I've wanted to work with Amnesty since starting Important Projects and am extremely excited to be doing so now) — prior to beginning a CMS replacement project very similar to the one I'm currently working on with Greenpeace UK, I'm working with the IEP to organise and plan a 2 year work programme designed to both meet their defined goals and objectives and give them better visibility into what is actually achievable given their staff and resource constraints.
I'll post more as things progress, but in the meantime, thanks, Dan and Helena, for the opportunity to work with you and your team. I'm really looking forward to the work ahead :)
projectmanagement, programme, planning, softwaredevelopment, nptech, importantprojects, amnestyinternational
Shakespeare, Richard II
(act 5, scene 5, lines 42-49)
AND NOW DOTH TIME WASTE ME.
projectmanagement, timemanagement, importantprojects, shakespeare, richardII
Alright — Phillip, Rolf and I have been having a conversation about whether personal time management training is more important for not-for-profits than project management training, given that (to quote Phillip):
Initially, I thought we were debating this in terms of whether not-for-profits could or should put (to quote Phillip again) "traditional, top-down project management processes into practice." Red herring! Turns out we're debating whether personal time management training is more important than project management training for not-for-profits given that (again, says Phillip) "...many people don't have an accurate picture of their available time." Ahem. Alright, then!
I agree that understanding available time is critical to getting things done, especially when you're working on a number of things at once (and as not-for-profit staff always are). And I do recommend looking at David Allen's book — at the very least, his time-management-as-martial-art metaphors are very cool ;-)
The point I'll make in this post is this: very often, when folks working for not-for-profits are overextended and/or unable to manage their time effectively, the root cause is organisational (i.e. cultural), not individual. Culturally, not-for-profit organisations need to understand and value the concepts fundamental to good project management before individual staff are even in a position to manage their time effectively. It's ironic, but many not-for-profit organisations working for sustainability often do so in a very unsustainable way.
An example: when work is planned, effort estimates for individual tasks should be provided by the people who are going to perform those tasks, and not by the individuals/ teams/sponsors who may need the work done.
projectmanagement, timemanagement, training, nptech, importantprojects, community bandwidth, phillipsmith, rolfkleef, webofchange
Back in August of 2004, I met and became friends with Phillip Smith, founder of Community Bandwidth, organizer of Social Tech Brewing and co-convenor of Web of Change. Since then, we've had quite a few great, really enjoyable conversations over pints about project management and the not-for-profit sector — about whether or not project management processes are "lightweight" enough to work with social movement projects, whether or not "traditional" project management makes sense on community/volunteer-based and/or open source projects, and so on.
Now Phillip has posted a piece on project management vs. time management, arguing that for not-for-profits, training in the latter is more important than the former because few not-for-profits are in a position to put "traditional, top-down project management processes into practice." Ahem.
While I don't disagree with Phillip on the value and importance of personal time management training in the not-for-profit sector (very different from project time management training and a topic for another post), I'd like to address the whole "traditional- project-management-is-heavy-weight-and-top-down" thing briefly.
When Phillip says "traditional project management," I think what he really means is "bad project management." Not-for-profits do not have the time or money to apply project management processes inappropriately (and nor do/should other types of organizations). But "traditional" project management does not suggest that they do so — according to the PMBOK, "project management is the [appropriate] application of knowledge, skills, tools & techniques to project activities to meet project requirements." If the project management processes being used on your project are too heavy-weight or inappropriately top-down, they are not being applied correctly. And that's bad project management, traditional or otherwise.
projectmanagement, timemanagement, softwaredevelopment, nptech, importantprojects, community bandwidth, phillipsmith, socialtechbrewing, webofchange
I'd like to say thanks to the Allocations and Health Promotion Department of the CBCF-Ontario Chapter for bringing me back to deliver another day of Microsoft Project training today! Alysha, Magali and Sylvia — it was great to meet and work with you three, and Beth, Joanne and Vince — really good to see you again.
And as always, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have as you put your new/improved skills into practice :)
Back in August, I delivered a three-part training in Microsoft Project to the staff of the Allocations and Health Promotion Department of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) here in Toronto. Since then, they've hired new staff (dedicated to the management of special projects), and I've been asked back this week to provide additional training to these new employees, onsite at the Ontario Chapter.
While there, I'll have the chance to visit with the participants from the training in August, check in on how their planning has progressed, and help them troubleshoot any issues they may have come up against. Should be a great day :)
Rolf, Shannon and I delivered our workshop to a roomful of amazing Web of Changers yesterday afternoon here on Cortes. One of the interesting things we learned in developing the content for the workshop was that the debate I think Phillip Smith thought would be created by pairing a couple of project managers with a community development facilitation expert didn't actually happen. Instead, we agreed with each other — for Rolf, Shannon and I, project management tools and techniques, "traditional" or otherwise, can be applied to community development and/or open source projects because project management is about just that — the appropriate application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques :)
Phillip — care to argue otherwise?
Greetings from Vancouver! I'm out here for a few days in advance of Web of Change, visiting friends and collaborating on a workshop I'll be co-facilitating at the conference with Rolf Kleef of drostan.org and Shannon Roy of Thinkhive. I lived in Vancouver for a couple of years after finishing university, and it's great to be back and spending time walking through my old neighbourhoods, eating at my old favourite restaurants, seeing old friends and meeting their new babies :)
The workshop I'm working on with Rolf and Shannon is called "Getting things done: managing software, people, and projects," and will focus on how project management tools and techniques can be applied to open source software and/or community development projects. It should be interesting — I get the sense that Phillip Smith hopes to set up a bit of a debate around whether or not what he calls "traditional project management" can be effectively applied to community/volunteer-based projects, and has put Rolf, Shannon and I together as co-facilitators for that reason. More on this as our collaboration progresses :)
I'd like to say thank you to the 20 CBCF-Ontario Chapter staff who participated in the three-part Applied Microsoft Project training I delivered over the last 2 weeks, and to Polar Bear Corporate Education Solutions for providing us with a charitable organization discount while using their facilities at 20 Adelaide Street East yesterday.
I look forward to hearing about how using Microsoft Project helps you gain visibility into resource usage and availability within the Allocations and Health Promotion Department — please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have as you put your new skills into practice :)
I'm very happy to report that Important Projects has been selected by the Ontario Chapter of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) to deliver a three-part training in Microsoft Project later this month.
Designed to meet the specific needs of the Ontario Chapter's Allocations and Health Promotion Department, this training will take participants through an applied, experiential education in Microsoft Project, and will result in a set of centrally-linked Project schedules the Allocations and Health Promotion Department can immediately use to more effectively manage its ongoing operations, and to determine resource availability for special projects within CBCF.
I've worked with the CBCF before, and am thrilled to have been asked back to provide this training. Thanks in advance to Vince Bowman, Associate Director of Allocations & Evaluation at the CBCF-Ontario Chapter, for the opportunity, and I look forward to meeting and working with the rest of the Allocations and Health Promotion Department in just a few weeks!
From Time and the Art of Living, by Robert Grudin.
