Project Management can be a struggle for volunteer organizations. Resources can be in flux considering the nature of how these organizations are funded and staffed. This article will teach some of the fundamentals of project management which your organization may be missing.
I have worked in corporate spaces for almost twenty-five years. I have been on all sides of the project management table and thus learned a few tricks. I am not a project manager by trade in any respect, though I have filled that role in the course of my career. I have also witnessed, volunteer organizations execute projects without any thought of project management. On rare occasions, it all goes well. Most of the time there is a lot of struggle.
My goal is to share with you, the volunteer member of a non-profit (or anyone else who can benefit from what I have to offer), my experience and a few tools to help you and your organization succeed in your next project with fewer headaches. You do not need to be a certified project manager to manage a project. Chances are you have managed a project in your personal or professional life in some respect and therefore are qualified to try it again. Before we start I would like to point out our project planner workbook available for free download. This planner includes sheets for project tasks, budgets, and expenses. Let’s dive in.
What is a Project?
A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined goal, specific tasks, and a set timeline. It involves planning, organizing, and executing activities to achieve the desired outcome. Projects do not need large budgets or teams to be considered a project. They simply start with an idea.
The Birth of an Idea
All projects start with an idea. Someone will then share that idea with a few others for feedback or buy-in and the idea begins to grow. Before I go any further there are some key terms and phrases I want to share. These may be new to you but you will come to understand them and their importance as we explore this topic together.
- Concept Form (CF) or Project Request Form (PRF): This is a document template that is used to capture the idea and expectations from the requestor.
- Requestor: This is the individual who first came up with the idea and wants to bring it to fruition.
- Project Committee: The group of individuals in the organization who meet to review the viability of a project from different points of view. This should be perhaps the executive board, or the president, treasurer, and a few others. It is important to have different perspectives and expertise in this committee.
- Resources: These are the materials, time, money, and people needed to fuel the project.
- Project Plan: This is a living document that changes over time. It encompasses the tasks, actions, resources, and progress of the project. This is a document everyone on the team can refer to understand the project’s status and their role within it.
- Budget: A budget is a plan for how money is to be allocated within the project.
- Deliverables: Product or project component that must be provided to a customer or stakeholder according to the project plan.
- Lessons Learned Session: This is a debriefing meeting where all of the people involved in the project come together aftger the project to discuss what went well and what went wrong during the project. This should be apart of the project’s planned activities.
- Stakeholder: A stakeholder is any individual with an interest in the successful completion of a project.
- Governance: Governance refers to the system and processes through which organizations or entities are directed, controlled, and regulated. It involves establishing policies, procedures, and structures to ensure accountability, transparency, and effective decision-making. Governance frameworks typically outline the roles, responsibilities, and relationships between stakeholders, guiding the overall management and direction of an organization.
- Project Manager: A project manager is an individual responsible for overseeing and coordinating all aspects of a project. They are responsible for planning, organizing, and executing the project, ensuring that it is completed within the defined scope, budget, and timeline. They manage resources, communicate with stakeholders, mitigate risks, and ensure the project’s success.
When someone in your organization wants to bring an idea to the table to discuss a potential project it should start with a concept form and the governance process. All projects within your organization should start with this process to give ideas fair and equal treatment. Have you ever encountered an organization where only the ideas of certain people ever made it to the right audience? This is usually because there was a lack of governance or a system to capture the idea in the first place.
Sample Project
Our sample project will be a multi-day youth event for a church. I believe this project is a good example because it will involve multiple people leading (adults) and being served (youth). There will be much to consider.
The Request Process
The request process is generally simple.
- The requestor fills out the concept form and submits it to the project committee.
- The project committee reviews the request at their regular meeting with the requestor in attendance for the review. During this time the requestor presents their idea and can answer any questions from the committee.
- The committee can approve, deny, or send the request back for additional information. Note: Approval should be based on the requested or required resources for the project. If resources are not available, the project should not be approved at that time.
- Once approved, the project is assigned a project manager, and perhaps a project kickoff meeting date is established.
The Request
The request form can be basic or elaborate. At the very least it should have the following items:
- Requester Name:
- Requester Email:
- Requester Phone:
- Submission Date:
- Project Type:
- What is the objective of this project? What are the results you would like to see?
- Who is the target audience of this project?
- What date would you ideally like this project completed by?
- What is the approximate budget for this project?
- Is there anything else you would like us to know?
ORGANIZATION PROJECT REQUEST FORM
| Requester Name: | Sam Smith |
|---|---|
| Requester Email: | ssmith@organization.org |
| Requester Phone: | 555-321-6789 |
| Submission Date: | 08/15/23 |
| Project Type: | Winter Weekend, a multi-day youth event |
| What is the objective of this project? What are the results you would like to see? | To serve the teens of our church with a weekend of fun and engagement during the middle of winter. |
| Who is the target audience of this project? | Teen youth group |
| What date would you ideally like this project completed by? | January 28, 2024 |
| What is the approximate budget for this project? | $1000.00 |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know? | We will ned use of the church from Friday evening through early Sunday morning. We will need adult leaders to be present for the entire event. |
Note: If your organization has a website, this form could be added to the site for easier access. You may want to include some sort of access control to it as well.
The governance committee should leverage its review meeting to openly consider the project and hear from others on the committee or in attendance (if appropriate) who may have concerns or expertise regarding the proposed project or its elements. This meeting should be constructive and seek to understand any risks or potential points of failure.
The Kick-Off Meeting
During the kickoff meeting the PM will state what the project intends to accomplish. The PM will also establish the following:
- A budget and other resources for the project.
- The stakeholders.
- A complete project plan to include the tasks, actions, timelines, and project due date.
- The communication plan: This is the frequency and method through which the project status and progress are to be shared. In addition, how the team will communicate changes in between meetings also needs to be established.
- Any known or anticipated caveats to the project’s completion.
- The frequency of subsequent project meetings.
Everyone should leave the kickoff meeting with a solid understanding of their roles and next steps before they meet again.
The Project Plan
The project plan is the measure and heartbeat of a project. The PM is responsible for managing the plan while others can consult it. However, only the PM should be able to edit the project plan.
There are a variety of tools and platforms your organization can use for a project plan such as Microsoft Project, Eclipse, Smartsheets, and more. For our purposes, we are going to leverage an old-fashioned spreadsheet template. Spreadsheets are accessible to most people and organizations with intermittent internet access.
Download and use our project planner to follow along with the rest of this tutorial.
Project Plan Breakdown
The project plan will encompass the following fields:
- Task names, are generally grouped.
- Assigned to The individual or group who is responsible for the task.
- Progress: This is entered manually by the PM as the project progresses.
- Start and End Dates for each task.
It is the responsibility of the PM to keep the project on task and to call out any dependencies. Dependencies are tasks that are required to be finished before another task can begin. Example: In our project, we cannot begin securing the events and calendar for the weekend until we have collected all of the permission slips and secured the number of youth attending.
As your team meets the PM will ask for a status on any tasks that have been started but not completed to record the progress. Immediately after each meeting the PM should make available to the team, a read-only copy of the project plan in its current state.
Project Execution
Very few projects ever follow the plan exactly as it was laid out. Dates can move forward or back for many reasons. It is vitally important to establish during your kick-off meeting a "go/no go" meeting date. This is the date upon which the project team meets to determine if there is any reason they cannot move forward with the completion of the project by the end date. In the case of our Winter Weekend project, a reason for a no-go could be a lack of leaders recruited and, a lack of youth permission slips/participation. While no one likes to see a project fall flat the team needs to be honest in these situations and put the project to rest until a more opportune time.
A Word on Finance and Budget
The Stakeholders and the Project Manager must agree upon a project budget before the project kick-off meeting. The PM will need to establish (based on your organization’s policies) who can make purchases on behalf of the project and how those purchases are approved and reimbursed if needed. With the budget established, every expense needs to be captured. If team members make any purchases that were not budgeted for and are also deemed needed during the event or project, these will need to be captured as well. Unbudgeted purchases will likely cause an overage. These purchase are still important to be realized for the next time a project of a similar nature is planned.
As your project moves along and tasks are being completed it will be important to collect all receipts for purchases made concerning the project. It may be easy enough for team members to submit receipts via photo in a text message or the PM may require the actual receipt or a photocopy. The PM should review the project spending during each project status meeting to keep all members in the loop about how much funding remains.
Conclusion
Your project skills will grow with each project you undertake. Remember no project is perfect. Communication, transparency, and honesty will keep everyone out of the dark. Don’t forget to download and use our project planner. Good luck and enjoy your next project.
