Margot Note's Blog, page 29

A Primer on Archival Appraisal Values

Archival appraisal determines whether materials have permanent, research value within the context of the institution’s collecting policy and mission. Appraisal activities include examining records to discover their contents, provenance, order and completeness, authenticity and reliability, condition, related preservation costs, and intrinsic value.

When performing archival appraisal, archivists consider the primary and secondary values of collections. The records with archival value—value that is permanent, continuing, and enduring—within an organization may be small, often estimated to be about five percent of the total amount generated throughout an institution’s history. Archivists determine the ongoing significance or usefulness of collections to justify their continued preservation based on the information they contain.

Defining Primary Values

Primary values are those immediate to the record’s creation, such as its original administrative, legal, or fiscal purpose. Administrative values relate to the function for which people created the records; administrative values are sometimes described as functional values. Legal values consist of the value for the protection of the organization’s legal rights and interests or the rights and interests of other individuals and organizations. This value also refers to ownership. Lastly, fiscal values correspond to the value for the conduct of the organization’s financial affairs and the documentation of its monetary interests.

Most, but not all, primary values diminish with time so that eventually records are no longer needed for their original purpose. Many primary values expire when the activity that resulted in the creation of the record ends. For example, financial records are unneeded after seven years because the risk of an IRS audit has passed. We are free to shred them since their primary value has ended. This diminishment of usefulness is where the power of enduring value—the secondary value—comes into play. Archival repositories preserve records because they have historical value that will exist long after they cease to be of current use, and because their values will now be for others, such as a diverse array of researchers, rather than for current users.

Defining Secondary Values

Archival holdings have secondary values, both evidential and informational. Evidential values are the value of the materials as documentation of the operation and activities of the record-creating organization, institution, or individual. Three criteria for evidential value for organizational records are:

the position of the department in the hierarchy of the organization

the function of the department within the organization

the activities that are performed to complete their functions

Evidential values document the records creators in terms of policies, operations, and activities, acting more as an organizational history than the legal definition of evidence.

Another secondary value is informational, defined as the value for information about persons, places, events, or subjects other than the organization or individual who created the record. Informational value provides unique and permanent information that users can engage with in research.

Secondary values, unlike primary values, do not diminish with time. The uses of these records are often unforeseen and various, limited only by the historian’s or researcher’s imagination. For example, a 200-year-old inventory of a palatial estate served its primary value by documenting items to be sold at auction—a straightforward purpose at its time. However, the secondary value of the inventory to historians allows for a multitude of uses—such as the examination of material culture, sociology, and architecture and design, among many, many other topics.

Making Judgments

This evidential and informational dichotomy points to the separate roles of archival appraisal to document the history and functions of a specific organization or individual and the broader mandate to document society and people. Appraisal holds that justification of the retention of records must be established based on archivists who first must identify the primary and secondary values the records possess, and then make judgments as to when, if ever, these values decline to the point where disposal may be necessary.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Maintaining Sustainable Archival Collections

The role of archivists has significantly changed with the rise of digitized and born-digital collections.

In the past, we waited at the end of the records lifecycle, acquiring physical records that had reached the end of their everyday use and had transitioned into having enduring historical value. With the advent of digital files, archivists have had to meet the creators of records much sooner in the lifecycle, offering advice on how to maintain digital records that will be sustainable over time.

Small Steps are Still Progress

Educating the creators of records is challenging because of the complexity of digital preservation, as well as being able to articulate the need for steps we can take to make digital records last longer. Unfortunately, most of what is being acquired by archives today is far from being preservation ready. Archivists can be overwhelmed by what we need to do to make records usable in the future; records creators are even more so. However, we can’t let those feelings cause inaction. Even the smallest steps towards sustainability help archival collections.

Key Activities

Here are some digital preservation guidelines for making digital records last longer:

Use short, descriptive file names with no spaces and no punctuation except for hyphens and underscores. Files names will help you find content easier and make it usable on different types of operating systems.

If saving multiple versions, use a consistent method of documenting the version number, such as adding a date (in the form YYYY-MM-DD) or version number (v1, v2) to the file name.

When possible, embed metadata into the file. Crucial information includes the date of creation, creator name, contact information, keywords or description, and any rights restrictions. You can use programs to batch embed the metadata.

Develop a systematic method of organizing your files and folders. Suggest to your creators on how best to organize content based on their needs.

If saving files in PDF form, save as PDF/A whenever possible. Even if the PDF/A cannot capture all the information in your documents, keeping a version of the file in this format will ensure that some of the work will survive.

Create images, audio, and video in the highest quality available and save in uncompressed or lossless compression formats. For example, high-resolution TIFF files should be master files for images, with a smaller JPEG created for access files.

In documenting how people should use the work, assign Creative Commons licenses. You will also have to educate your creators and users on how your institution uses copyright to preserve your content and, more importantly, how it is shared among users.

If creating databases, export snapshots in CSV format and document what each table and field mean, and how they interrelate. Document your decisions so that users in the future can better understand the data that you are trying to preserve.

Use regular backup and storage systems, preferably multiple copies in different locations. Don’t depend on external media like DVDs, CDs, and flash drives because they aren’t preservation media.

Choose open-source software, such as OpenOffice, instead of proprietary software, such as Microsoft Word, whenever possible. Admittedly, for many people and institutions, this guideline may be hard to implement because people become attached to specific software programs. However, consider installing open-source applications whenever you can.

Develop a systematic method of organizing files and folders. Suggest to your creators how best to organize content based on their needs.

Preparing Digital Records for Future Records

As you work with content creators, become familiar with their work, their audiences, and the need for long-term digital preservation involved. By taking proactive steps with creators to prepare their materials for future use, you’re doing a service to the creators, digital curators, and researchers and educators in the future. You will also save time, money, and resources for your archives department and potentially preserve vital information that, in other circumstances, may have been corrupted or destroyed.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Digital Preservation: A Community Effort

Archivists have traditionally played a crucial custodial role in protecting and providing access to long-term, historical collections on paper and film, but as the volume and diversity of digital content increases exponentially over the coming decades, digital preservation has become a community effort.

Leadership at All Levels

In the archives field, some institutions lead the way in digital preservation, while others seek their guidance. Only the most well-funded institutions (primarily large universities) can afford a robust level of research and development, and they engage in collaborative efforts with other institutions to develop models and platforms with grant funding. Institutions that take a leadership role gain credibility, which pays off in terms of funding. However, even the smallest or most obscure archival repository can offer aid to the archival field regarding digital preservation techniques. As a community, we can share what best works for us locally, in hopes that others can replicate it in their home institutions.

Institution-lead Collaboration

Institutions in the United States lead projects in digital curation and preservation, because no dedicated support for these activities exists nationally, as in other countries. Well-recognized institutional collaborations include Big Ten Academic Alliance, Digital POWRR (Preserving Objects with Restricted Resources), and the Orbis Cascade Alliance.

While institutions become known for their collaborations, standards development, and outreach, even more important to success is advocacy performed within institutions. As funding opportunities evolve, engaging employees, target audiences, administrators, and donors becomes a challenge. Communication, staff involvement, and access to resources are paramount to maintaining morale in our internal community and shifting environment. Institutional sustainability is key to the sustainability of digital content.

Harnessing Group Wisdom

Archivists should make use of existing networks to share information, establish collaborations, and learn from others. Begin by learning from listservs, publications, and conferences. Then start developing your policies and procedures, testing out the best methods, and share what you learn. By sharing information, archivists can highlight how they provide access to digital materials, discuss the importance of access, and provide guidance on what solutions work in different contexts and communities. What works for one institution may not work for another, but can be adjusted to be the most meaningful to the user communities we serve.

Work with colleagues to develop best practices, which eventually turn into standards. Look to the Society of American Archivists, the Digital Library Federation, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, the Best Practices Exchange, and the Digital Curation Centre community for leadership and innovation in this area.

Working Together as a Community

Digital preservation challenges are born of our changing culture and our responses to those challenges. Formats, software, and media evolve, and the extent to which we have been managing content across those many changes determines just how much work we still need to do. There are steps we can take together to set up safety nets that will help us move forward. For example, we can collaborate with other institutions to store copies of one another’s digital content. We can determine the best way to protect the originals while working out the best way to transform or migrate copies.

Community Learning

We can learn from one another’s explorations, research, and testing to avoid making mistakes. By working together, we improve our chances of success and the scope of valuable digital content that will survive in the future. This sense of experimentation is critical to applying the right digital preservation techniques and policies in archival repositories of all sizes. By improving preservation efforts and sharing tactics, archivists can elevate the value of their digital content, raise their institutional profiles, and ensure that archives deliver new and engaging ways in which content can be distributed, consumed, and enjoyed.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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The Pros and Cons of Digital Archives Project Partnerships

For many archival organizations, pursuing partnerships outside their institutions is a practical way to make collections accessible through digitization and digital preservation initiatives. Traversing institutional walls can be an excellent way to learn from the successes and failures of others who have more experience with digital projects, especially if your organization is just getting started with these activities.

It’s worth exploring the potential benefits that partnerships can bring to archival institutions, especially in terms of digital archives.

The Advantages are Many

For archives that have small budgets and few staff members, participation in digitization or digital preservation partnerships offers many advantages. Involvement can lower costs—which can be prohibitively expensive when factoring in hardware, software, and staff. While grant funding often commences a project, this type of support is temporary. Collaboration can provide a more sustainable, cost-efficient solution for the archival repository over the long term.

Besides lowering costs, digitization or digital preservation collaborations can ease the burden for institutions that cannot manage their digital infrastructure. For example, large-scale digital archives projects at national, regional, or state levels offer convenience for participating institutions because a third party manages the servers or software. Services for members include technological and administrative support, often with guidance for partners new to digitization and digital preservation. Partnerships in these projects allow archives to make their collections accessible without having to do the work alone or from scratch.

Aside from these motivations, user-centered reasons exist for contributing to a collaborative project, even if you already host your local collections. Making your unique materials accessible via a shared interface, alongside those from other institutions, places your collections within the context of a broader community. Doing so allows users to make new connections that enhance their scholarship.

Words of Caution

However, cross-institutional collaborations have disadvantages. Some projects point to existing digital collections hosted on institutional websites, driving traffic to their site, while others require that participating institutions contribute copies of their files to the hosting organization. Archivists may balk at giving up control of their materials, fearing that transferring the digital surrogates will expose them to misuse or misattribution.

This anxiety arises most often about partnerships with commercial entities. For instance, I once led a project to digitize architectural photographs at a non-profit. Google had approached the organization to partner with them for their Google Cultural Institute, a prospect that excited the organization’s board and executives. Once we submitted the content, we found that the Google branding overshadowed our credit as a contributing organization, and we didn’t receive web traffic as a result. Was the profile of the organization raised by its partnership with Google? Perhaps, but we could not measure that awareness. In the end, the partnership felt like we provided free content to a corporate behemoth with no return on investment.

Less Control

Another drawback of participation in collaborative projects is that it imposes limits on the contributing institutions’ ability to control the presentation of materials to users. Less creativity and flexibility exist in joining a project with specifications predetermined by the larger partner organization. This situation can be helpful, especially for small archival institutions, because it frees them from the burden of making such decisions. Often, it may be their only practical choice for sharing their collections online, making the tradeoff worth it. Going it alone, however, may be worth the work and expense to have creative control over your collections.

Is the Partnership a Good Fit?

No right answer exists when it comes to the question of whether your organization would benefit from a partnership. In some cases, the advantages of such arrangements outweigh the disadvantages. Collaborative projects prove critical to revealing hidden collections and allowing institutions to digitize and preserve their assets when they would otherwise not have the means to pursue such activities. Rather than duplicating capacity and effort, strategic partnerships support connectedness, making digital surrogates discoverable and accessible alongside related materials and maximizing the impact on the creation and dissemination of new knowledge.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Evaluating Archival Workflows and Programs

As you perform archival work—either operational or project-based—it’s essential to evaluate your workflows and procedures as a continuous part of your duties. Conducting check-ins provides opportunities for assessment and reevaluation.

For archival staff, this process could occur in meetings where the team discusses the current state of their department. For lone arrangers, marking a day or an afternoon quarterly for a “step back” and self-reflection allows you to gauge your systems without distraction. If you’re working on a project, you may also wish to perform more formal evaluations at critical points during the project lifecycle, such as at milestones.

Areas to Assess

You should assess the following areas:

Are workflows efficient, or do bottlenecks occur?

What changes can you make to improve the methods and procedures you’re using?

What can you do to work more effectively?

What’s holding you back? What obstacles do you perceive?

Are your procedures well-documented?

Are your guidelines being followed?

Are measures of quality being met?

What activities have a minimal impact? If you stopped doing them, would anyone notice?

Conversely, are there activities that you should start doing that will make a difference with your stakeholders and users?

What’s frustrating you? What’s keeping you from doing what you know you should be doing?

Reviewing the Archival Program

In addition to workflow evaluation, archivists should periodically review the effectiveness of the archival program. This activity is especially important when the scale of the program expands or when there are new hires. Workflows that function well for small projects or departments may prove inefficient for larger ones, and processes may need to be streamlined to maintain an acceptable level of productivity.

If you’ve been in your position for a while, or work with colleagues who have, it’s easy to continue with outdated or overly complicated procedures because you have always performed work in that manner. “That’s how it’s done here” or “we tried that once, but it didn’t work” are unfortunately common refrains. Traditions run deep and change management—the activities to prepare and support individuals, teams, and institutions in making organizational change—is difficult. However, critically reviewing your program and how it can be improved by doing things in new ways is worth the effort. So much of the work that archivists do is invisible to our patrons. We need to ensure that we are expending energy on doing the most highly valued and recognized activities. How can we streamline archival work?

More Product, Less Process

For instance, if you’re conducting a digitization project, your metadata practices may be streamlined over time by placing less emphasis on detailed description so that items may be processed quicker. Perhaps you could readjust the metadata strategy you created at the start of the project for maximum information communication and speed. Embrace the “more product, less process” philosophy expressed by Mark A. Greene and Dennis Meissner that advocates minimal processing as a means of eliminating backlogs and maximizing access to materials. You may need other strategies for improvement, including training new staff members and reassigning existing ones to take on new duties.

Here to Serve Our Users

Aim to maintain an attitude of flexibility and customer service. Realize that policies and procedures change over time and be willing to adjust when needed. Integrating evaluation and assessment into your work will make it easier for you to do your job easier and find and correct issues before they become problems. In an environment where archivists must do more with less, concentrate on the activities that will have the most impact with the minimum investment of time, cost, and resources. You deserve it, and your users will see the difference in their experience with your archival repository.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Controlling Archival Projects to Keep Them on Course

Control within an archival project takes prompt corrective action. As the project progresses, you’ll want to change things within the project’s boundaries. Changes in the environment of the project will impact the activities that are part of the project itself.

Control depends on a stable scope. “Scope creep” or failing to manage scope change within a project is one of the most common reasons for loss of control. When the scope drifts, the results are unfavorable. The project may be over budget, behind schedule, and inadequate with little warning until it’s too late. Control is achievable with a plan against which to measure progress. Best practices for archival projects include developing a plan that is unambiguous about what should be accomplished and when; with that foundation, it’s possible to monitor and control correctly.

The Control Process

The control process manages significant change. Good project managers delegate, monitor, and report progress as a matter of course, making decisions regularly. Even so, overconfidence can be a project manager’s downfall. Slight changes can have a lasting effect on a project. When added together, minute variances may become a critical mass that affects the underlying justification of the project.

Don’t try to solve problems that lie beyond the scope of your archival project, even legitimate or urgent problems that your organization needs to address. It’s okay to change the objectives mid-project but do so consciously, after making sure your stakeholders agree to the new objectives.

Whenever there’s a decision to change the plan, record the changes so that a master plan is maintained. If you register changes, you’ll keep a living document as a basis of continued achievements.

When the Schedule Slips

Slippage occurs when it takes longer than expected to complete tasks, and so it becomes impossible to adhere to the project schedule. Once the project manager has identified that the schedule is slipping, and assignments are late, different responses exist. For example, additional resources may be obtained. However, adding more staff to the project may delay the project further. New team members will need time to be trained and may take time away from the current project team. Introducing a small number of additional people sometimes produces benefits, often when they are given familiar or specific tasks.

You can modify a project in several ways to maintain costs, schedules, and quality, including:

Renegotiating with stakeholders. Can you increase the budget or extend the deadline?

Using contingency. Can you make up the work later?

Narrowing the project’s scope. Can you remove features to reduce costs and save time?

Deploying more resources. Can you employ more people?

Allowing substitutions. Can you use less expensive or more readily available items?

Accepting partial delivery. Can you receive the rest of the work later?

Offering incentives. Can you supply enticements to help the work?

Demanding compliance. Can you insist that people keep their promises? Use this tactic selectively to avoid damaging relationships in pursuit of your goal.

Other Actions to Gain Control

A project manager can ask people to work harder or longer. In the short term, this strategy works. If funding is available in the budget, paying overtime is possible. However, used as a long-term solution, overtime can demotivate staff and lead to stress, burnout, and increases in sick leave or staff turnover.

Another response is to accept the slippage and renegotiate a new end date. Sometimes this is the most sensible course of action, as the implementation process often reveals blockages or problems that hadn’t been anticipated earlier.

If the progress of activities is different from the plan, you’ll need to take action. A danger exists that the project will miss its targets because progress is too slow, or if a delay in one activity will impact on others causing further delay. Control may be regained either by taking action to change the progress or by revising the plan to accommodate the variation in the development of activities. Either way, best practices for archival projects include taking control of a project before it takes control of you.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Monitoring Archival Project Progress

Under the best circumstances, archival projects are completed on time, within budget, and to your standards. In practice, though, projects involve a unique set of problems that create complexity and risk, such as slowdowns.

Best practices for archival projects include monitoring and controlling. These are related concepts: monitoring refers to watching the activities whereas controlling means acting to correct the course. Accordingly, monitoring involves performance measurements and recommendations for corrective and preventative action based on the variance of the measured performance from the planned performance. Controlling involves implementing the approved corrective actions.

How to Monitor

Monitoring collects information about project progress and compares it with the plan to identify any differences. Monitoring should be done routinely to determine any discrepancies between the plan and reality.

To keep track of what’s happening, gather information on two levels. The big picture level includes objectives to which the project contributes, and the balance of time, budget, and quality. The project activity level includes tracking individual tasks that have been initiated, are on schedule, or are due to be completed. Once you identify any differences, you can consider whether there are issues. In some cases, the variances will be within the plan’s tolerance.

Macro- and Micro- level Monitoring

It’s challenging to pay attention to the big picture issues when a project immerses you. You lose touch with events occurring in the rest of the organization because people have little time to think of anything other than the immediate pressures of the project. Stay alert to changes in your organization because projects must move in the right direction. You’ll need to balance focusing internally on your project with what’s happening in your organizational environment.

There are a variety of ways to gather the information required to track project progress. Project status reports and regularly scheduling daily, weekly, or monthly meetings are formal reporting methods that enable you to collect this information and determine the amount of variance in your project plan. Monitoring depends on the flow of information, and systems should be in place to get feedback on what’s happening.

A Group Effort

Monitoring isn’t an activity accomplished only by the project manager. If the project team is meeting to review progress, monitoring becomes dynamic, and group consensus changes the plan. As problems arise, the strength of your relationships—with your team members, stakeholders, and sponsor—will in large measure contribute to how well you keep the project on course. Best practices for archival projects include involving team members; this helps keep everyone on target and builds commitment. However, if you rely solely on the impact of others, you may miss signs of difficulties. Project managers should make a point of regularly checking in to keep in touch with the daily realities that emerge as the work progresses.

Monitoring progress enables the project team to detect problems quickly so they can make proper changes. Projects rarely run as the team envisions them. Sometimes planning results in a smooth startup with minimal problems. The project team can launch activities according to the timeline outlined in the plan. In other situations, the project team encounters setbacks and obstacles that delay the planned activities. When the project is delayed, the project manager and team members have an opportunity to review the plan to determine whether reallocation of funds can resolve problems and allow the work to move forward.

The longer you wait to fix problems, the longer it’ll take to restore balance in your project plan. Best practices for archival projects include regular monitoring and evaluation; this empowers the project team so they are aware of shifting circumstances, respond to them, and ensure a successful project.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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Managing Changes Throughout an Archival Project

Changes in an archival project occur frequently and can affect its objectives. For some archival projects, changes are predictable—which allows you to formulate the next actions. If an unanticipated change is significant, seek the advice of the sponsor before taking any action that might alter the project’s direction.

Common archival project changes include or result from:

Over-optimistic time estimations

Omission of tasks

Lack or loss of resources

Adjustment of priorities

Loss of sponsor interest and support

Funding adjustments

New personnel

Usage variations

A realized risk

Added benefits

Poor planning

Modified objectives

Interference due to increases in other workloads

Delayed decisions

Indecision

Poor teamwork and coordination

Some project tasks are planned specifically to cause a change and may be challenging to manage. Planning and monitoring helps you to administrate these aspects effectively.

When Surprises Occur

Changes can occur suddenly. For example, some stakeholders cannot give your project the attention it deserves until it’s being executed. If you don’t receive requests for changes from key stakeholders, don’t assume it’s because no changes are required. Instead, your stakeholders may be too busy with competing priorities to focus on your project. It may take time for your project to capture their attention, but you should be accommodating their suggestions.

Two types of changes exist: those that have happened and those that must occur. The first response to changes is to understand them and evaluate their impact. Identify them as soon as you can to minimize their adverse effects and maximize their contribution. For example, a value-added change such as an additional feature increases the return on investment of a project. This change involves the determination of costs so you can make an informed decision.

Gold plating, conversely, is the addition of features that are outside the project’s scope, don’t add value, and aren’t requested. A well-meaning team member might think of an idea that becomes part of the project, without documentation or broader agreement. These unauthorized changes add unexpected costs and risks to a project. Monitor and control them, so they don’t add to the cost of the project.

Change Control

Change control protects the project from “scope creep.” If a project manager mismanages changes, the project becomes over budget and/or behind schedule. You should use a formal change request process. Several outcomes are possible after a request, such as identifying changes that:

Can be accommodated within the project’s resources and schedule

Can be adapted with an extension of the schedule

Can be adjusted with added resources

Can be furnished with more resources and time

Cannot be accommodated without considerable changes

The further along the project, the more damaging the effect of changes because more work must be undone or redone. Additionally, the more complex the project, the higher the number of changes in the original plan. Such changes cause cost and schedule overruns, low morale, and poor relationships between stakeholders and users.

Each change has a ripple effect. In response to a problem, the project must be modified, but like a chain reaction, these changes require modification to other elements—that in turn impact others. Rarely does a change occur in isolation.

Renegotiating, Re-baselining, and Just Saying No

To make changes, you may need to renegotiate the schedule, cost, or scope, or some combination. Any decrease in the time that keeps scope constant will increase your cost. Likewise, a reduction in cost with a consistent scope will increase the time. You and your sponsor will decide which factors are critical and adjust the others accordingly.

Re-baselining, or adopting a new project plan, may be necessary if work deviates from the schedule. Exhaust all strategies and approaches to get back on track before you change the plan itself.

If all else fails, decline the changes. Just because someone tasks for a change, it doesn’t mean that it’s desirable or justified. As a project manager, you’re working to ensure delivery of a successful project, not performing heroics against unassailable odds.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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A Primer on Archival Project Contracts

Archival project managers may need to sign contracts with vendors for some project phases or tasks. Reviewing and negotiating contracts is often new territory for archivists, especially for projects which require undertaking new endeavors, developing new skills, and creating unique deliverables.

The type of contract you’re working with will define your budget management behavior. Contracts comprise a statement of work, terms and conditions, deliverables, deadlines, and costs. The three main contract types are: time and materials contracts, cost plus contracts, and fixed price contracts.

Time and Materials Contracts

Time and materials contracts require that activity is tracked, for billing purposes. Time and materials contracts are typically used for the purchase of services, not products. Most time and materials contracts have a fixed duration for a period with an agreed amount to be paid per hour or day. This type of contract is often used when the work cannot be specified, and total costs cannot be reasonably estimated. With this contract, you need to monitor project performance to ensure you are receiving value for your money and obtaining acceptable results in a timely fashion.

Cost-Plus Contracts

Cost-plus contracts are comparable to time and materials contracts. Costs are specified for billing, with the plus factor being a predetermined profit margin that is added above cost. With this contract type, the costs for work completed are reimbursed to the vendor, plus a fee representing agreed upon vendor profit. Incentives may exist for meeting or falling below the agreed costs, schedule, or other performance targets. A cost-plus contract is ideal when scope flexibility is desired. You can redirect your vendor if the scope changes during the project. If you use cost-plus contracts when project risk is high, surprises may emerge that will need to be addressed with a more flexible contract model. Cost plus contracts are the riskiest contracts to use because the vendor may waste resources without financial accountability.

Fixed Price Contracts

Fixed price contracts may not dictate the same cost tracking structure as the previous contract types, but you’ll want to note the spending against the revenue being generated by the contract. It may not require details as with a time and materials contract, but it’s likely that cost elements like procurement or labor costs will be tracked.

Fixed price contracts typically favor you as the buyer, as the vendor needs to commit to the fees upfront for the scope of work. Smart vendors will include a risk-based contingency in their price to cover unexpected costs. Scope changes can be accommodated through a formal change management process. If the change is approved, the contract costs will increase, and project documentation may be adjusted.

With these contracts, the price for the products or services is agreed to up front. You must understand your needs and provide detailed information on what you want to procure. The vendor needs to be specific regarding the products and services they’re offering. It’s possible to establish incentives for meeting or exceeding agreed milestones. In addition, there can be penalties for missed milestones. When creating a fixed price contract, use both incentives and penalties for a balanced approach. Fixed price contracts are best for projects with specific, known requirements.

Reviewing the Terms

No matter what type of contract you decide to use, it’s wise to have an attorney review the terms before you sign it. An attorney can spot problems or unfair or problematic terms before you sign on the dotted line. The time and money invested in a contract review can save you plenty of future pain.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

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Tips for Calculating Archival Project Costs

Archival projects have a range of costs to contemplate; for example, those that are direct and those that are indirect, those that are labor-related, and those paid to vendors or subcontractors for parts or services. Please read on for definitions and tactics to manage all these types of archival project expenditures.

Project costs are either direct or indirect. Direct costs are expenditures benefiting, and associated with, specific projects. Direct costs may also be allocated direct costs, which support the research, design, development, or production needed to accomplish project requirements. Indirect costs are those that, under standard requirements for expenditures, don’t directly contribute to the accomplishment of project requirements. Indirect costs are sometimes referred to as “overload”.

Labor or Non-Labor Costs

Costs also may be classified as labor or non-labor. Labor costs are those paid to employees, expressed in hours, to which direct labor rates are applied to get dollar values. Non-labor costs are those paid to vendors or subcontractors for purchased parts or services.

When an archival project begins, consider the consequences of redirecting staff from their regular work to the project. Discuss assumptions about staff availability an early stage—because it influences costs. Assumptions about the percentage of time staff members may be asked to work on projects can also be an issue. Project work costs may be concealed in the budget because work is only partially devoted to projects.

Balancing Workloads

Reviewing workload allocations ensures that staff members are treated fairly when they’re asked to work on projects— while still delivering their usual outcomes. When several managers share claims on a staff member’s time, there can be unrealistic pressure to achieve the same performance levels in different areas of work, unless there is a mechanism for overseeing the individual’s workload. Staff members can also be at risk when performance expectations are raised without additional support and resources; unfortunately, this is common in the archives field.

Sometimes, it’s less costly to hire staff specifically for a project than to redeploy existing staff, especially if current staff require training and skill-building. If training existing staff is preferred, costs and staffing associated with training are another element to incorporate into the project plan.

Tracking Staff Time

Another variable that affects costs is your organization’s model for tracking staff time. Some organizations, like consulting companies, record staff time carefully by using a profit and loss model and billing by the hour. You may be asked to track staff time against your project and your team members’ tasks. However, archives usually consider internal staff to be a fundamental cost of doing business and may avoid tracking staff time against individual projects.

You may be asked only to track external resource costs like those related to contractors. However, even if it’s optional, tracking people’s hours helps you validate current estimates and produce new, more accurate ones. It can help you understand how much money and time is spent producing your deliverables. Additionally, if your project is a substantial part of someone else’s budget, senior executives are likely to want budget details.

Sometimes costs are hidden. Some might suggest that a project that doesn’t require additional staff members doesn’t have staffing expenditures; however, this is a false argument because employees have job descriptions and agreed areas of work. If they are asked to do something different from what they would typically do, this represents a cost because you’re employing the staff to accomplish different work. In some circumstances, this is acceptable. In others, it might indicate that workloads are unmonitored.

Adding Contingency

Project managers should avoid including extra or inflated costs in their budgets. A better way to budget is to use contingency funds instead. It makes sense to add a contingency element to early cost estimates. As each stage passes, it’s possible to reduce the contingency, accounting for what has been learned during the project’s progress and the reduced risks that remain. Thus, the contingency element is assessed without becoming a fund used for rescuing a troubled project.

The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.

If you like archives, memory, and legacy as much as I do, you might consider signing up for my email list. Every few weeks I send out a newsletter with new articles and exclusive content for readers. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with you and letting you know what’s going on. Your information is protected and I never spam.

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