Margot Note's Blog, page 31

What Makes a Successful Archival Project?

Success criteria specify how the project is executed. Archival projects have universal success criteria that include finishing the project on schedule, keeping costs within budget, and meeting the goals that have been agreed upon by the project stakeholders and team—but that’s not all. Additionally, deliverables and objectives are sometimes referred to as critical success factors.

They are elements that must be completed for the project to be considered finished. Most importantly, the success criteria must answer the question, “What must happen for our users and us to consider the project a success?” Also ask, “How will success be measured?” and “What factors may impact success?”

It’s vital to determine critical parameters that include targets, limits, and thresholds. For instance, what’s the delivery date? How much deadline extension can be tolerated? When do delays dictate that continuation of the effort should be evaluated? Milestone dates also help to identify poor conditions earlier in the project. Target values should also be established for costs, technological accomplishments, and areas where performance is critical to supporting the criteria associated with the original goals. This process is central to prevent wishful-thinking projects from sapping the resources of the archival organization.

What Defines Success?

Success criteria such as increased revenue and reduced costs should be measured in hard dollars or as a percentage of a specific revenue number. Improved services in archives are an essential success criterion but may be harder to define than financial benefits. It is usually a percentage of improvement in user satisfaction or a reduction in the frequency or type of user complaints.

When criteria cannot be measured in bottom-line impact, consider quantifiable statements about the impact that the project will have on the efficiency and effectiveness of your archives department. Criteria may be reduced error rates, reduced turnaround time to fulfill research requests, less cost in providing a service, or increased usage statistics.

However, archival project success is more than completing the project within the triple constraint of time, cost, and scope. Success depends on a systems approach where project parts are interrelated and managed with an understanding that failure in one area will affect other areas of the project. Success can be displayed by the agreement among the team and the stakeholders on the goals of the project, support from management to supply the resources and to remove obstacles, and ongoing project communication.

Efficiency, Utility, and Improvement

Efficiency is another level of success to consider. How well was the project managed? If the project hits its targets, but the experience adversely affected those involved, stakeholders and the team will perceive the project as unsatisfactory. In this situation, feelings matter more than results.

Another factor is utility. To what extent did the project solve a problem, exploit an opportunity, or satisfy a need? Was the issue resolved? Are users and stakeholders happy? Have the desired results been achieved?

The final aspect to consider is organizational improvement. Did the organization learn from the project? Does what was learned increase the chances that future archival projects will succeed? High-performing organizations learn from their failures and their successes—and use that knowledge to develop their success rate over time. This meta-level of success assumes a long-term perspective and measures organizational learning and a resultant increase in project accomplishment.

Paint the Picture

Your users and stakeholders may require you to be creative in outlining subjective measures of success. They may have various ideas as to what a successful project looks like and which factors are the most important. As a project manager, you must communicate throughout the project, so stakeholders feel empowered and informed. When the business alignment for the project is constant, the chance for success increases because the archival project stays aligned with the strategic direction of the organization. Paint a picture of success for stakeholders so they can understand all that you have achieved.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Modifying Schedules for Archival Projects

By their nature, all archival projects have elements of uncertainty. Obstacles, some inevitable, can cause missed deadlines, cost overruns, and poor performance. Archivists must expect problems and re-plan activities and shift resources as unforeseen challenges occur. Modifying the schedule is one way to solve problems related to project delays.

Schedule Compression Techniques

There are several schedule compression techniques you can use; all carry some risk. Crashing adds resources to critical path activities. However, some actions can’t be completed faster by adding more workers. They often add overhead that negates any time savings. Another technique is fast-tracking when you perform critical path activities in parallel. This high-risk technique increases the likelihood of rework. Process improvements allow you to increase productivity using different processes, technologies, and equipment. In some circumstances, process improvements are unavailable or may increase risks. Finally, deploy overtime for limited periods. When used too much, morale and work quality can decrease.

Simultaneous Sometimes Trumps Consecutive

Execute phases simultaneously when possible, even if your original plan intended consecutive scheduling. Be aware that some steps must run consecutively. A later phase can’t start until the results of the earlier phase are available. In these instances, delays are troublesome since your team can’t proceed. However, in many cases, you can begin a subsequent task without completing a prior one.

Support your team’s effort to absorb previous delays. A phase may be one team member’s responsibility, but setbacks may make it impossible to complete it on schedule; you might be able to overcome the problem by assigning other team members to help.

Where Else Can You Move Forward?

Begin preliminary steps for future phases to save time. You may be frustrated because delays are keeping your team idle. You can’t accelerate the phase underway or begin the next phase. However, you might be able to save time by partially completing the upcoming tasks. Some late phases in an archival project may be executed in a shorter period than initially scheduled. To do so is the most likely way to make up delays created during earlier phases.

Working with Flexibility

When schedules are shortened, encourage everyone on the team to make each day count. They should be sensitive to changes that increase the scope of the archival project. They should also raise alerts if they find themselves waiting for someone else to complete their work or if they sense a delay. They should start and finish jobs early if they can without compromising quality.

Working overtime may be a way to bring the archival project back on schedule. Most team members will understand the occasional need to catch up on work—but you should ask for overtime only when needed. Not only does paying for overtime increase project cost, it may also lead to burnout, which, in turn, leads to a decrease in efficiency, defeating the purpose.

Distributing Work Evenly

Additionally, there may be a need to balance the amount of work assigned to people on your team, such as lengthening, delaying, and splitting assignments, which will affect the schedule. Extending the duration of tasks and letting them run simultaneously can be helpful when a team member is overloaded. When you increase the duration of tasks, the person works fewer hours on each job during the project. Delaying assignments is another way to balance a team member’s workload, especially if someone has several work packages scheduled at the same time. Delays are ideal when tasks are short because it helps the person stay focused and productive. Splitting a longer assignment into smaller tasks is the third technique for leveling workload, which is a good solution when you need to include a brief, critical task into your schedule.

Look Out for Your Team

Scheduling is done on the assumption that you will have the archival project team you initially planned on or were promised. If someone is working on another project, or a team member will be used for several tasks, you may find that they are overloaded. Look out for and protect your team members so they can achieve project success without burnout.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Following the Critical Path for Archival Projects

The critical path is a sequence of tasks that enables the completion of an archival project in the shortest possible time. It encompasses the duration from project start to completion and identifies which tasks must be finished before others can follow.

While some tasks can be sequenced with much flexibility, critical path tasks are confined to task relationships.

The critical path is imperative when project costs are significant because scrupulous scheduling can ensure that the committed work days are as low as possible. Although learning about the Critical Path Method (CPM) can be overwhelming for archivists new to taking on project leadership roles, becoming familiar with the strategy increases project success in an environment in which every penny counts.

CPM Methodology Background

The CPM was created in the 1950s by DuPont to schedule renovations to its chemical plants. This technique uses a diagramming method called activity on node and creates the project schedule based on the longest path through the network. To show relationships between tasks, you draw arrows from predecessor to successor.

The CPM employs several definitions, which include:

Duration: Number of work days, excluding holidays or other nonworking days, required to complete an activity.

Forward Pass: A strategy to develop early start and early finish dates for each task, starting at the beginning and progressing to the end.

Backward Pass: A method to gauge late start and late finish dates by starting at project completion, using finish times and working in reverse.

Float or Slack: The latest point a task may be postponed from its earliest start date without delaying the project finish date.

Early Start Date: The earliest point an action can begin, based on any schedule constraints.

Early Finish Date: The earliest time the activity can finish.

Late Start Date: The latest point that the action may begin without delaying the activity’s successor.

Late Finish Date: The latest point a task may be completed without hindering the activity’s successor.

Slackers, Forward Passes, Backward Passes, Oh My!

Determining the free and total slack for each activity helps archival project managers make schedule trade-offs. Free slack or free float is the amount of time an action can be postponed without delaying the early start of any following activities. The early start date for an action is the earliest possible time an activity can start. Total slack or total float is the amount of time a task may be deferred from its early start without delaying the planned project finish date.

You calculate free slack and total slack by performing a forward and backward pass through the project. A forward pass establishes the early start and early finish dates for each activity. The early finish date for an action is the earliest possible time an activity can finish. The project start date is equivalent to the early start date for the first network activity. Early start plus the duration of the first activity is equal to the early finish date of the first activity. It is also equal to the early start date of each subsequent activity. When an activity has multiple predecessors, its early start date is the latest of the early finish dates of those predecessors.

A backward pass determines the late start and late finish dates for each activity. The late start date for an action is the latest possible time an activity might begin without delaying the project finish date. The late finish date for an activity is the latest possible time a task can be completed without impeding the project finish date.

Crashing the Party

If the finish date is more important than the budget, spending money to shorten the schedule is an option; this is called “crashing”. A common crashing technique is adding more workers to a task. This approach is useful when used in a limited way. If you add too many workers, the project slows as people get in each other’s way. Other options include paying for overtime, paying rush fees for faster delivery of materials, or paying for people with higher rates, who can hopefully complete work more quickly.

Like any technique for shortening the schedule, the tasks you want to crash are on the critical path because they are the ones that determine the duration of the project. First, look for the longest tasks on the critical path. Crashing can increase the risk of those tasks which is why the number of crash tasks should be kept to a minimum. Crashing one long task duration might cut all the time you need out of the schedule. By crashing longer tasks, you can crash fewer of them. After you have crashing candidates, evaluate those tasks to find the most cost-effective ones.

The Path to Success

While some archival projects may not necessitate the detailed use of the Critical Path Method, mapping out a project from start to finish allows archivists to see how they can best use their time and resources. Doing so allows archival project managers to modify the project schedule in relation to the real-world challenges they face in archival repositories.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Forty Resume Tweaks to Get You an Interview

During your job search, a well-crafted resume is vital. As a representation of yourself, it is the first impression you make on potential employers. Like any piece of writing that has been reviewed multiple times, you tend not to read it after awhile. If you’ve been job seeking without success, looking at your resume with new eyes many land you an interview—and your next library job. Here are some questions to ask yourself while refreshing your resume:

How does the resume promote you as a suitable candidate?

What should you emphasize for the position you are seeking?

What makes your experience surpass other candidates?

Have you made sure to focus on your accomplishments, rather than on your job responsibilities?

Are you giving your accomplishments context and explaining exactly how you achieved them?

Have you over- or understated anything?

Have you perused LinkedIn profiles of people with similar work experience? Is there any phrasing you can co-opt for your resume?

Is your resume one page? If it is longer, can you justify its length? If you need a second page, place your most relevant experience on the first.

Are your bullet points listed in order of importance, with your best and most relevant achievements first?

Does anything on your resume seem superfluous?

Can you say anything more clearly or with fewer words?

Are there unnecessary adjectives or adverbs?

Have you used buzzwords, rather than examples of demonstrated success?

Are you employing the strongest language to describe your accomplishments?

Are you using power verbs, such as directed, improved, launched?

Can anything be quantified?

Are any words being used repetitively? Can better words replace them?

Are you using jargon that readers may not understand?

Have you divided your resume into sections, such as Experience, Education, and Skills?

Is the layout and section order logical?

Do you feel comfortable asking a colleague or mentor review your resume? Does he or she believe that the resume accurately reflects your work?

Can you ask a friend outside of the library, archives, and museum environment to review your resume? What feedback can he or she provide?

Do the organizations you worked for still have the same name? Are they still located in the same city?

Are your position titles accurate?

Are your employment and education dates correct?

Is your contact information current? Is it easily findable?

Are the numbers and percentages you use to quantify your success accurate?

Have you tried proofreading your resume by reading it aloud to yourself, printing it out and reading it, or reading it backwards line by line?

Have you temporarily changed your font to help find errors?

Are you using serial commas or not? Either is fine, as long as it’s consistent.

Similarly, does each bullet point end with a period or not?

Is the page visually appealing?

Is your resume cluttered? Does it have enough white space?

Is the font size too small?

Is the font easy to read? Consider using Georgia, which was designed for computer screens, rather than Times New Roman.

Is there enough line spacing? To improve readability, increase the leading to at least 120% of the font size. In Word, highlight the text and right-click to select Paragraph. In the pulldown menu under Line Spacing, choose “Exactly” and set the spacing to two points more the size of your font. For example, if your font is 10 point, select 12. 

Is the format and font size for each section consistent?

Are the margins suitable? If more room is required, reduce the top and bottom margins to 0.5" and the side margins to no less than 0.75."

Have you created a PDF of the final resume? A PDF retains your formatting and makes accidental changes impossible.

Is the file name helpful? Change it to “[First Name] [Last Name] Resume” to make it easier to find your information. Include a job ID if necessary.  

Crafting a resume is an ongoing project of iterative improvement, much like a career in the information field. Periodically reviewing your resume prepares you for your next big opportunity in the library, archives, or museum of your dreams. I wish the best of luck to my LIS colleagues employing these improvements!

What suggestions do you have?

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

How Procurement Works for Archival Projects

Since archival projects require you to work in new ways, you may not have the necessary equipment or skills internally. For resources beyond your organization, the procurement process includes solicitation, evaluation, selection, contracting, and management.

As part of your procurement, you should include a project procurement plan. You will then have to review and approve the plan, define your selection criteria, identify potential vendors, create a statement of work, and create contract change processes.

Information Please

During archival project resource procurement, you may have to employ a Request for Information (RFI). This document enables you to obtain information from the suppliers of the products and services you’re seeking. A form of fact-finding exercise, the RFI provides valuable information, such as which vendors can provide the services you need, pricing data, price comparisons, and the identification of similar products and services. Contracts rarely come from an RFI. Releasing an RFI informs vendors that you might be procuring these products and services. It also means that you may issue a Request for Quotation (RFQ) or Request for Proposal (RFP) in the future.

Archival Project RFQs

An RFQ seeks only a price from the vendor. Straightforward purchases for archival projects, such as the purchase of scanners for an in-house digitization project, typically use RFQs. Because of the RFQ, you should be able to select a supplier and sign a contract based on their response. It’s slightly different from an Invitation for Bid (IFB), which implies that several vendors will be bidding on the opportunity to provide the goods or services.

RFQs allow you to decide whom to engage without the substantial investment of time that an RFP requires. RFQs also enable you to collaborate with smaller vendors who may not have the time or resources to complete a complex RFP—but can provide better customer service and more flexibility than larger vendors.

Work Proposals

Solicitation often starts with an RFP that asks vendors for bids. A proposal is used to procure products and services that are complicated, such as the construction or renovation of an archival facility. RFPs bring structure to the procurement decision-making process and enable you to identify archival project risks and benefits. RFPs require the vendor to provide information, such as company history, financial stability, technical capability, and examples of similar project deliveries.

An RFP contains the services you need, your schedule, and your budget. Include your vendor selection criteria, so companies can decide whether to bid. Provide instructions and the deadline for submitting a proposal, and the date you will announce your decision.

Evaluating Your Offers

Once you have all the vendors’ proposals, evaluate the responses using the criteria you identified and determine who you would like to use. The selection process depends on the size and complexity of the project. The evaluation may be as easy as filling in a spreadsheet with ratings and choosing the vendor with the highest score.

For large archival projects, you might reduce the submissions down to a short list of vendors and ask vendors in the second round to prepare a more detailed presentation. Some organizations require selection strictly on the lowest bid; others evaluate each vendor’s quality, reliability, and price. Some selection processes require complicated point systems for selection; others go with their gut feelings.

Selecting Your Vendor

For complex or competitive procurements, review the proposals, choose your preferred vendors, and arrange for demonstrations of their products if appropriate. Select your vendor, negotiate a contract, and update your schedule and project management plan if required. In addition, you will also want to allocate activities to monitor the procurement process throughout the project life cycle, such as maintaining relationships with vendors, performing invoice reconciliations, monitoring delivery, and performing contract change control.

The Statement of Work

The section of a contract that details what is expected from the vendor is the Statement of Work (SOW). Regardless of the contract type used, SOWs should contain a detailed list of products and services to be provided—including your responsibilities and those of the vendor. Also include a deliverables schedule and a price structure with the payment schedule. You may also include reporting metrics, incentives, penalties, acceptance criteria, and the warranty period. In some instances, you can consider an SOW that contains characteristics of both the fixed price and time and material contract types for different services.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Archival Project Scheduling Tips

Plans for archival projects have expressions of how to meet quality, budget, and time expectations. Archivists heading projects should calculate the funds required to deliver the specified products within the proposed timeframe. Archival project managers need to demonstrate that planned activities, number and types of staff, and time frames are all realistic. The project must have a reasonable chance of succeeding in achieving its objectives, especially given its schedule.

Planning Questions

As you develop your project schedule, ask yourself the following questions:

What’s the purpose of the archival project?

Who needs to be involved?

What will be the results?

What constraints must be satisfied?

What assumptions are being made?

What work must be done?

When does each activity start and end?

Who will perform the work?

Will other resources be needed?

When will the project be done?

How much time will it take?

How much money will it cost?

What are the risks?

What resources are needed? How will they be obtained?

When should the project be canceled?

Your responses lay the foundation of a project plan and schedule to build upon as you gather more information.

Don’t Rush Yourself

When developing the schedule for archival projects, avoid assigning aggressive start and finish dates. Although it’s usually better to pursue a schedule that completes the project quickly, compare the benefits of speed with its risks and potential consequences.

Fortunately, many projects aren’t time-critical. Few organizations are impacted critically if the schedule slips. Occasionally, a deadline is arbitrarily established to motivate the team. Keep that in mind while scheduling. As a project manager, question and push back on deadlines that seem unrealistic.

Avoid Backward Scheduling

A common mistake made by archival project managers is backward scheduling. Senior management sometimes mandates a deadline for the project. Project leaders then start with the end date and move backward through the schedule for all supporting work. This results in dates leading up to completion of the project that are often invalid.

With backward scheduling, the project team undermines the planning process by accepting the entire scope of the project with a definitive deadline. When a project has a fixed end-date, there is a tendency to try to compress the schedule to fit everything into the time available. Too often, it becomes apparent that the timing is impossible. Be realistic at the outset about your team can deliver. Productive time may only amount to four days a week, and it’s important to ensure that meetings, communication, and coordination are integrated into the schedule.

A far more successful approach is to plan the date your project ends; don’t let the date plan your project. Decide what the team can carry out within the timeframe and with the resources available. A firm end date derived from your realistic schedule creates a sense of responsibility for the project, gives the team something to work toward, and confirms that the archival project will conclude without dragging on indefinitely.

10% Padding

When scheduling, be practical with the days allotted to complete each aspect of the project. Build in flexibility to allow for delays. A good benchmark is to build in 10% extra for each step of the process.

If a project occurs over the winter or summer holidays, plan for less work to be completed. Allocate additional time to act as a buffer if the project falls behind schedule. Team members are motivated to catch up on their work if there’s a realistic expectation that it’s doable. By planning for the inevitable slowdown that occurs during the holidays or at other especially busy times for your organization, you ensure the team can get back on schedule without Herculean efforts.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Archival Project Planning: The Essentials

Archival project planning is dynamic because managing a project keeps a balance between having a plan and responding to changes. Planning, of course, is iterative. The project team needs to re-evaluate the plan throughout the project—and communicate changes to those involved to move the project forward. Archival projects should have plans at both global (or milestone) and detail (or activity) levels.

Benefits of Planning

A good plan explains the project’s scope in a way that the stakeholders and decisionmakers agree upon and understand. It tells a story of how project work unfolds sequentially, and shows the milestones that the project team must reach before the work can proceed. It presents a schedule of activities and deliverables that show progress or lack thereof. It also introduces uncertainty in a manner that stakeholders can understand—so they can then act. The advantages of creating a project plan include:

Communicating to others what you are going to do

Reducing uncertainty

Keeping up with changes

Understanding the objectives

Monitoring the work

Clarifying goals

Determining budgeting needs

Forecasting the time and schedule to achieve goals

Gaining support from team members

Ensuring that team members review tasks

Iterative Archival Project Planning

Always prepare to re-plan, because obstacles will occur. The team should create a plan and then begin to execute, then do more planning and more executing. Accomplishment of incremental activities the team committed to generates momentum. Progressive elaboration continuously improves the plan as more information becomes available. The most important aspect is to plan enough to improve your project outcome, without becoming mired in details.

You should avoid granular planning at the start of the project because there’s a likelihood that the plan will change. An archivist can spend considerable time preparing the project to the smallest detail, to the point that the plan becomes so rigid it’s difficult for the team to respond to unexpected events. It’s impossible to know all contingencies and foresee every problem in the planning stages. However, teams can suffer from excessive flexibility, which can lead to ad hoc decision-making and lack of team cohesiveness, causing time and cost overruns.

Time Well Invested

In organizations where there’s an urgency to see results, stakeholders often forget the benefits of archival project planning until it’s too late. In many instances, the organization doesn’t produce plans because “there’s not enough time to think ahead”. For small projects, preparation seems unnecessary, and the absence of a plan is considered unimportant enough not to warrant creating one. However, this does not recognize the likelihood of change. Change can affect even small projects or ones like those previously undertaken. The time taken to develop a plan is used to understand how circumstances have changed since the project’s initiation—and how much more it may change during the life cycle of the next project.

A Group Effort

The team should plan the project together. When you encourage your team members to take part in the planning process, you take the first step in developing your team; it will also results in a more realistic plan.

Collaborative planning results in shared understanding of the work required for project completion. The people who implement a plan should help prepare it. Otherwise, you risk uncommitted participants, erroneous estimates, and overlooked tasks. People dislike being told what to do, especially for a project that is outside their regular duties. Instead, you should use the team’s knowledge to determine the best way for them to perform the work.

Team members forming estimates have ownership. If the estimates are wrong, they will take steps to correct them and learn from the experience. Members are more likely to cooperate with your requests when they understand or agree with them. Developing the plan together ensures that commitments are based on decisions made by the contributors themselves.

Taking Time to Plan

Archival project planning focuses on making sure the project has enough support to achieve its purpose. Many projects flounder because they’re set up to address issues that people feel are urgent. The inclination to take action means that ideas and their consequences aren’t considered in their entirety. Rushing the initial thinking may fail to achieve goals and add more delay. The time used to plan a project is always well spent.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Getting Started on Archival Projects

Starting work on an archival project can be challenging as your attention shifts from planning to action. When archivists allocate tasks and complete the scheduling, team members may not automatically start working. The archival project manager ensures work begins by making sure everyone knows who should perform what tasks and when each should start. Team members must be free to start work, and the essential materials and equipment should be available.

Even then, it’s often necessary to urge your team to commence the project.

The work of an archival project manager changes from developing frameworks to monitoring activities to ensure that everything progresses as planned. The attention of those managing projects never strays from planning because it keeps the balance between time, cost, and quality. Even when the project is about to start, a little more planning ensures that the transition from planning to activity is smooth.

Chart Your Milestones

A milestone chart focuses on planned events scheduled to occur at specific times in an archival project. Events may be the commencements or conclusions of tasks, equipment deliveries, reviews, or approval dates. The chart presents a broad picture of a project’s schedule and control dates. It’s a bar chart that shows start and end dates, deliverables, and external dependencies. It also lists critical events that highlight decision and completion points that require approval before the project can proceed.

Because it lacks detail, a milestone chart is unhelpful during the planning phase when more information is needed. However, it’s particularly useful at the start of an archival project because it provides a summary of the project’s progress.

Identifying Appropriate Resources

Work will be impeded if the necessary materials and equipment are unavailable or if the accommodation for the project hasn’t been arranged. The archival project manager handles resource allocation and utilization, but if the resources can be linked to areas of responsibility, relevant budgets can be delegated to other members of staff in functional departments.
Some resources must be managed by qualified people. If the project necessitates the handling of special equipment or materials, there may be statutes to observe. For example, in an archival repository, you might have new digitization equipment or preservation techniques to implement. In setting up the project, identify people with qualifications or experience to manage these areas of work.

Make Compromises When Necessary

Getting the appropriate resources for a project makes a difference. Working with fewer resources than you planned for, or assigning people with less experience, can delay the schedule. However, people, equipment, and materials are usually in short supply, so compromises are a probability. The project plan shouldn’t just list resource names or generic skill sets. If you can delineate the skill sets you need, when, and for how long, it’s easier to obtain resources or negotiate alternatives if the resources you want are unavailable.

Ready, Set, Go

Once you’ve finished planning and scheduling, you can start to execute the project. Execution is usually the most extended phase of an archival project and consumes the most energy and resources. As you work, ensure your plans are realized with precision and limited deviation. Consistently evaluate your plan to deliver the project as per the agreed specifications.

You may work with a core team for initiating and planning an archival project, but executing the project is the time when you bring on the rest of the team and acquire the equipment and materials the project necessitates. Procurement may be as easy as telling your team to start the project if team members come from within your organization. Once your team is in place, start your project and aim for success.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

How to Kick Off Your Archival Project

Archival projects should begin with a kickoff meeting, which is the first formal meeting of the project team members and stakeholders. The meeting announces that the project is about to commence, communicates what the project is about, and generates commitment to goals and deliverables.

The kickoff meeting happens somewhere between scoping the project and in-depth planning. This moment is the busiest time for a project manager across the entire lifespan of the project. Everyone should recognize what the project should achieve, why this project is important, and where it stands on the organization’s priority list.

Create an Agenda

The archival project manager should prepare an agenda to keep the meeting on track. Common kickoff meeting agenda items include:

Introduction: Welcome the team and name who will be involved in the project and their roles and responsibilities.

Executive Perspective: Allow the sponsor to discuss why the project is vital.

Project Initiation Review: Hand out copies of the project charter and review it with the team.

Approach: Elucidate on how the project will be undertaken, explaining the project phases.

Overview: Discuss the project’s goals, requirements, and deliverables.

Schedule: Explain how the project will unfold, including milestones.

Team Roles: Explain what elements the team members will handle.

Communication Plan: Clarify how and when you will communicate updates.

Plan Moving Forward: Determine the tasks that the team will be working on next.

Conclusion: Provide a summary of the meeting.

Face-to-Face

Since the meeting sets the tone for the project, it’s essential that everyone understands the goals, deliverables, and schedules for the project. Even more important, however, is team building. The meeting should take place in person. The cost of getting everyone together at the beginning of a project will be saved many times over with better communication and fewer conflicts. Shared experiences are the fastest ways to build rapport with a team.

The beginning of the kick-off meeting should focus on introducing all the players, supplying context for how the team and the project fit into the institution, and offering an overview of the project itself. Many organizations also invest in team building activities. 

Welcome everyone and make introductions. Many attendees will be core team members, and others will be peripheral members who take part in the project for a limited time. Share the meeting’s goals, being sure to highlight opportunities the project will present to the organization and team members. You should also cover any unique aspects of the project that might present challenges beyond the ordinary.

Spotlight on the Sponsor

Arrange for the archival project sponsor to speak briefly on his or her perspective on its importance. Support from senior management is a critical success factor for projects. Hearing from one of the organization’s executives gives the project team a sense that the institution is behind the project. The sponsor’s presence and engagement at the meeting are imperative.

The sponsor should explain why the project’s work is important and how its goals align with broader organizational mandates. In larger organizations, political ramifications at the start of a new project may cause the sponsor to invite other senior managers to make them aware of the project and its value to the organization.

Outline the Archival Project

The project manager should identify significant tasks and milestones and ensure that everyone understands the scope and purpose of the project. Seek a shared understanding of the project charter. Engage people in discussion about the project with the goal of reaching consensus. Give an overview of the project that summarizes the business requirements and the current plans for meeting those requirements. Ensure that the summary addresses the project charter, including any schedule or budget constraints.

Describe the resources available. Although you will want to stoke the team’s enthusiasm at the kick-off, it’s equally important to set expectations about the amount of support they will get. Describe team incentives. What, besides their regular compensation, will members receive if they meet or exceed goals?

Let’s Begin

Finally, once the project has been outlined and understood, you can begin assigning action items and due dates, identifying dependencies, and helping the team establish both formal and informal lines of communication. The kickoff meeting sets the vision for the project and allows you to achieve your goals.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Archival Projects: Evaluating and Acknowledging Performance

A challenge for archival project team members is that they become torn between the conflicting demands of their supervisor and their project manager, especially in repositories where archivists wear many hats.

This conflict arises if there’s a lack of clear priorities in their everyday duties and their project assignments. The best way of ensuring that this stressful situation doesn’t occur is for team members to clarify project requirements and agree on boundaries. Sometimes a meeting with the team member, the project manager, and the functional manager can lead to an agreement on a set of boundaries for the project work.

Leading by Motivation

Motivating team members on an archival project can be tricky. Many project managers lack the authority to hire, fire, or reprimand team members. In many cases, team members have been assigned without the project manager’s involvement. However, archival project managers are still accountable for managing the team to achieve project goals. Since project managers may not have much position power, they need to rely on motivation and influence.

There are interdependencies among team members, and they know that every person is accountable for his or her success. Therefore, if a team member is not performing well, another team member may challenge them. In some cases, individuals may need some help; in other instances, their performance may be unacceptable. Either way, effective teams hold each other accountable in a respectful manner.

Archival project managers seek out team members equally, not just the people who are easiest to find or those with whom project managers are already friendly. Archival project managers should be approachable to everyone. They should offer spontaneous recognition. If they see something good, they compliment the team member. If they see activities that trouble them, they talk to the team member in private at a later time.

Trusting the Archival Project Team

Team members trust each other. Each relies on other team members to get the job done. If there are performance issues or differences in style, team members should feel comfortable enough to address variances in opinions, values, and attitudes. High-performing teams find ways to handle differences with methods that increase trust between members.

Top performing teams show a high level of energy and achievement. They spend their time aimed at the target, are clear about what the objectives and goals are, and are focused on meeting them. Achievement fuels the energy and enthusiasm of the team. As the team stays focused on achieving the goal together, their performance improves, and their enthusiasm grows.

Inspiring and Recognizing Project Team Members

Archival project managers should focus on people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses, and find a quality that they can respect in each person on the team. People enjoy their work more and work harder when they are surrounded by others who appreciate their efforts. When someone does something well, project managers tell the person, the person’s boss, and other team members that they appreciate the effort and its results.

Recognizing good performance confirms the value of their work to team members. Mention the quality of the results that he or she accomplished as well as the effort that he or she invested. Be specific and tell the person exactly what he did or produced that’s appreciated. Provide feedback promptly; do not wait weeks or months before recognizing great work.

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.

Follow me on Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook