Hello, and welcome to Using Project
Management Techniques in your VISTA Assignment.
I'm Andy King with the Corporation for National and
Community Service coming to you from VISTA Headquarters
in Washington, D.C.
I'll be your host for today's session.
Also joining us is Sam Grazziani from JBS.
She'll be managing our WebEx technology along with
Joanne Lau from Education Northwest.
You'll see all of us in the chat and the Q&A during
the session to help address your questions and solve
any technical problems that you might have.
And now it's my pleasure to introduce to you
our main speakers for today.
We're delighted to have with us Dr. Erin Barnhart.
Dr. Barnhart is the Founder and President of
Effective Altruism, LLC, as well as a Service Corps
Program Director with Neighborworks Umpqua.
Erin serves on the Board of Directors for the Council for
Certification and Volunteer Administration,
on the Oregon Committee on Volunteerism,
and is an online instructor for the AmeriCorps VISTA
Blend courses.
She teaches a section on volunteer mobilization.
And Erin is an Adjunct Professor at the University
of Oregon.
Best of all, Erin is an AmeriCorps and Triple C alumna.
Our second speaker today is Bethany Dusablon.
Bethany administers the VISTA Blend online course program,
and she coordinates a series of webinars for VISTA members
in her role at Education Northwest, where she has managed
several other projects mainly through agreements with
the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Best thing about Bethany, well out of the many great things
I'll add that Bethany is a former AmeriCorps State Member,
and she's currently based in Portland, Oregon.
Later on in today's session you're gonna get to hear from
one of your peers.
Dakota Riehl is a AmeriCorps VISTA member serving with
Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Dakota has graciously joined us today to talk a little bit
about her experience and how she is applying project
management principles in her service as a VISTA.
So we'll hear from Dakota in just a bit.
Let's see, in today's session we hope that you'll be
able to first of all, identify key terminology, phrases
and tools that are part of a traditional project
management model.
We also hope that you'll know how to access project
management tools, resources and websites that can support
your own project management needs.
And third, that you'll apply project management techniques
to your VISTA activities, so it's not just something
that you're learning but that you'll actually put it
to use in your VISTA service.
So those are three goals for today's session.
So now I'm gonna ask that we turn our chat conversation
back to the session at hand here.
And you'll see on the screen there's a question for you.
We'd love to hear from you what are some examples of
projects that you are either currently overseeing,
or that you soon will oversee within your VISTA role?
It could be a long-term project or a short-term project.
So use the chat.
Again, if you don't see the chat window, look in the upper
right and click on that speech bubble.
The chat will open.
Make sure that you send your chat response to all
participants so that all your colleagues will be able
to see it.
And we've got a great number of responses coming in.
We've got a lot of people on today's session,
so thank you all for joining.
So I see a few things here around strategic planning
and overall project planning.
Some other specifics about the individual VISTA project
that you're serving with, whether it's events or
services to clients.
Let's see, grant writing.
A number of you of course are doing resource
development work, and so grant writing or fund raising
event planning is part of that, and certainly project
management can be useful for that.
Some of you are just looking for overall management of
your whole year, your whole service year,
viewing that as a project.
So a lot of great responses here.
So it looks like all of you came with a very clear idea
of what it is that you're trying to do, and how you think
that this webinar will be able to support you in that.
So thank you for all of your responses.
Looks like we've got a great and really receptive
audience for this session.
So now I'm gonna turn things over our main speakers,
and we'll kick it off with Dr. Erin Barnhardt.
Erin.
Thank you so much, Andy.
I'm enjoying reading the chats and seeing the sheer breadth
and depth of projects that folks are gonna be working on
teaching the classes for VISTA Blend.
I'm definitely seeing that you guys are very busy folks,
so we hope that the webinar today is gonna give you
some great tools and strategies to manage the many
spinning plates that you all have.
I also enjoyed your commentary on our smooth jazz
that we offered during the intro.
We only pick the best for VISTA.
So before we dive in too deep today I want to acknowledge
that project management as a topic is very vast.
There are entire institutes and certifications dedicated
to this field, so we're going to spend today's call
focused on some of the foundational basics.
We'll give you an overview of tools and strategies
that we think should be immediately useful as you
work on your VAD.
Since we will be just scratching the surface though,
we're also going to give you some links to explore
at the end to learn more.
So hopefully you'll walk away from today with a good
foundational understanding of project management
and how you might use it at your site.
OK, so let's get started.
Per the Project Management Institute, projects are defined
as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product, service or result.
Further they define project management as the application
of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project
activities to meet the project requirements.
Historically project management grew from the fields of
construction, engineering and defense,
and the founding fathers are considered to be Henry Gantt,
who is inventor of the Gantt Chart, which we'll talk about
in a little bit,
as well as Henri Fayol, which my French is terrible,
so I apologize to Henri if I got his name wrong,
but he defined the five areas of project management
that we're going to also discuss on this webinar.
Multiple models of project management do exist,
but today we're going to focus specifically on what is
called the traditional model.
And though each model uses different strategies for
managing projects, many core components are shared
throughout, including a focus on key goals and a vision
for success, a timeline that determines and drives
each step of the process, and the importance of determining
roles and responsibilities for the actors in the process,
as well as the assignment of resources to each step
of the process.
So my partner in crime Bethany is now going to discuss
some of the potential constraints of project management.
So I'll pass the mic to her.
- [Bethany] Thanks so much, Erin.
I'm also really happy to be here, and I'm hopefully that
you can get some good information out of this webinar today,
at least to start the process.
I noticed as well that a lot of you have some really,
pretty large detailed projects that you have in front
of you this year, and so if we can just even provide you
with some foundational stuff I feel really good about that.
So before we go into the discussion of the phases that
Erin mentioned that I think can be applied to any project,
I wanted to touch on one important consideration.
So you'll see on the screen is what we call the triple
constraint triangle.
And basically it tells us that projects are carried out
under certain constraints, and those are projects must be
delivered within cost, projects must be delivered on time,
and projects must meet the agreed scope, no more, no less.
So (mumbling) is interesting and something that project
managers often keep in mind because it's a pictorial
representation of the key attributes, and that essentially
if the project manager, if any one of these things changes,
then if there's a change in any one of these three items,
then you effectively have to change one of the other,
altering the other side of it.
So in effect you're trying to keep these
three things in balance.
And just to kind of walk in here with some basic
understanding of those three things, even though they may
seem quite, very basic definitions.
But the times refer to actual time required to produce
a deliverable or to meet your end goal
or the end result of the project.
You'll find that a particular activity requires more time
to complete, you'll have to adjust the other components
to meet that.
The costs is the estimation of the amount of time that
it will be required to complete the project,
and so costs encompass, as you can imagine, various things.
So resources, labor rates, this if it takes more time
to do something it's gonna cost more.
You may be hiring contractors.
You may have to have some risks that come up that
you need to deal with, and the costs, materials, and etc.
So all aspects of the project that have a monetary component
are a part of this cost structure.
Then the third one is the scope, and that's the functional
elements that when completed make up the end deliverable
for the project.
So that's really where your, what you're trying to do,
and again, no more, no less.
You're just trying to accomplish what you've set out to do.
Thank you, Bethany.
So for the purposes of today's webinar we're focusing again
on the traditional project management model.
Specifically we're going to look at each of the five
stages of this model, and explore some of the tools and
practices you might be able to use to apply this to
your VISTA work.
And the five stages of traditional project management are
initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling,
and then lastly closing.
So we're gonna start off with that first phase,
which is initiating.
Now during the initiating phase you are determining
the nature, scope and scale of your project.
How small or big will it be?
How long will it take?
When does it need to be completed?
This is where you're going to determine your timeline.
You're also determining the goals of your project,
including crafting a vision of what a successful project
might look like.
What in your mind's eye would success look like?
How would you know if you succeeded?
Literally describe the vision of what that would mean.
And in addition you're brainstorming the needs of
the project, as well as your available resources.
And those resources could be human resources,
financial tools, etc., whatever you have at your disposal.
What is your budget?
What do you need to meet this budget?
Who is on your team?
What skills do they bring?
And what other kinds of assets do you have and need?
For example, tools, space, etc.
- [Bethany] So what we're gonna do here just to sort of
set this up a little bit is that there are a number of
tools that you could employ during the various stages
and phases of project management.
I'm just highlighting a few that I think are pretty
accessible, and we're giving you some links throughout
so that you can actually use some of the templates
that I've come across.
So just to start out in the initiating phase,
stakeholder analysis is an important phase.
And that's, Erin's kind of summarizing this,
but for instance, stakeholders are the people who are
affected by or have an interest in the project.
So this includes clients, management at all levels,
project team members, budget people, users of the project,
volunteers and so on, so anybody who's really gonna
kind of experience the outcome of your project.
And within the stakeholder analysis you really identify
the people, and then sort of analyze what their needs,
wants, concerns and interests are.
And most importantly you try to figure out how each one
defines success.
So this can obviously be a very involved process,
but you even just kind of taking an initial stab at this
can really help in the end.
And so having a chance to talk to the stakeholders
or interview them is definitely a great idea
if you can do that.
And it's a great way to surface the assumptions
from stakeholders.
I mean, the point here is to really get a good sense of
what people want, and what's the definition of success
so that you can really get there, so setting the stage.
Additionally you'll wanna go through a process where you
try to define the project, provide rationale at a
high level view.
So this will be something you'll use to gain agreement
from the deciders so that everyone's on the same page.
This is called the project charter, and it acknowledges
the existence of the project, and essentially lists the
high level project info like the purpose, the justification,
the objectives, high level requirements, summary roles
and responsibilities for each member of the team.
Next there's a scope statement which essentially
drills down a little bit more.
By the way, the project charter is usually sort of
only one page long and contains basic rationale,
and then again you're gonna drill down with
the scope statement.
And it really defines the major objectives of the project,
what will be delivered, and it's a closer look at these,
we're gonna take a closer look at these too on
the next slide so you can kind of do a little comparison
between the two.
I mean, sort of the overall idea here is that you're really
coming up with getting something in writing,
everybody can see it, and you know where you're going.
The project charter again is very high level with
an initial description.
It's pretty early in the scheme of things,
and provides a snapshot of the major aspects of the project.
So for instance, there's a summary of the schedule,
some major milestones, but not every single date that
you would get down to a little later.
And then there's also a place on this one where the
decider is named, and the people who make the decisions
and have the final approval is in the charter.
The project scope statement is again diving down deeper.
How far are you going to go?
What deliverables at the end and along the way
are we gonna be creating?
You're also gonna start listing things like project
assumptions or things you know to be true about the project
that you'll have to take into account when planning.
Then you'll start to flesh out restrictions related to the
triple constraints we talked about in the previous slide.
Depending on your needs and how much you already know
about the project, it might be more practical just to
merge the components of these two and set one document
for this initiating step.
So Sam's gonna paste in a link to some of the
templates that I'm talking about here so you can
kind of download them.
They're from from an organization that another
colleague of mine did a couple day.
I think it might be financially out of reach for people
but they do have their resources available that you can
take and use for free.
So OK.
So I think what Erin and I thought might be helpful is
for this presentation we wanted to kind of walk through
a case study, and introduce the project and then talk
through a few of the steps and tools we might use
to help us out.
So we've come up with a project.
It's sort of a very basic obviously.
Many of you are handling stuff at a higher,
higher level projects.
But a colleague of mine recently had a situation where
he was building a fence between him and the other neighbor,
and it was amazing how many aspects of it went crazy.
So anyway, great place to start is the description,
so we wanna get a 20 x 20-foot wood fence to keep
the dog in the yard.
This dog is a new dog that we've gotten,
and needs an enclosed space.
So the requirements or the features and deliverables
are that we want the fence to be a certain height,
six foot high.
It needs to be structurally sound, so a certain number
of posts need to be put in place to support the fence size.
And so this is a physical job, and it requires effective
use of tools and supplies.
The object or criteria for success if a finished
sturdy fence with a gate to the front yard.
The constraints or restrictions of time, resources and scope
would include that we'll need to get this fence done before
winter weather comes, before the ground freezes and
within a certain budget.
So because our fence will also run along property lines,
it has an impact to the two neighbors on each side
and behind, and they'll need to be involved in the process.
So you can see as the stakeholders kind of grow,
and there are stakeholders in each situation,
and it kind of changes throughout.
And then the assumptions and the truth.
The assumptions is that the fence will meet the needs
and keep the dog from running away.
So that's kind of an example for us to work through,
and Erin's gonna pick up the next phase.
Great, and just a quick meta-comment.
I was watching the chat while Bethany was talking,
and I know that folks have some specific questions.
We are providing a pretty broad overview from start
to finish, and then we have a big chunk of time at the end
for questions.
So please hold onto those because we will come back to them.
OK, so let's talk about planning.
Once you have a clear idea of your goals, necessary timeline
and your available resources, it is time to create a plan
for your project.
First step is to craft a specific timeline for meeting
your goals, and here don't forget to build in more time
than you think you will need.
Everything, and I do mean everything, takes longer than
you think it will, and you will need to make sure that
there is time for such things as for you guys,
supervisor review and approval before you can move forward
with various steps.
And actually that's not specific just to you guys,
but you might not need to do that with building a fence,
but you will with planning an event,
launching a volunteer program, any of the many things that
folks do at VISTA sites.
Your next step is to identify your team.
Who is going to do this work?
What skills and talents are necessary?
Who is available?
And who will lead the effort?
Based on your goals you then want to think about key tasks
and deliverables.
Think of these as your signposts on the road on your way
to project success.
What needs to happen and in what order?
How can you confirm progress as you go?
For example, tasks and deliverables for developing a
volunteer program for your organization might include
meeting with staff to identify volunteer needs,
designing a volunteer application form,
writing a volunteer handbook,
identifying potential recruitment partners.
You get the idea.
What you wanna do here is be very thorough.
You want to plan and be as prepared as possible for
every single thing that needs to happen in order for you
to have a successful project.
During this planning phase, identifying risks and then
planning to mitigate those risk through contingency planning
is also important.
Here you should be asking yourself what is
likely to go wrong?
What things might be out of your control?
Assuming something will go wrong for each element
in the plan, develop then what you will do if that
element gets off track.
And what to do if several things get off track.
And then next your gonna take a look at your
resources and needs.
What are your costs?
What assets do you have available?
Again, this can be human resources like team member time
and skills, as well as financial resources like cash
and assets like computers, transportation, etc.
And once you have your timeline, your team and your
deliverables, you can start to assign them
A, to specific dates, and B, to specific partners.
Who needs to do this work?
When does it need to be completed?
Again, build in that extra time all around for unexpected
complications and delays.
Next develop your schedule.
There are many great tools that you can use to track
progress towards your projects.
One of my favorite free and easy tools is Google Docs,
and we're gonna show you an example of this later
in the webinar.
You can actually customize a Google spreadsheet using
columns, rows and colors to track who is doing what by when.
There are also many different project management tools
designed specifically for tracking progress, and again
we're gonna discuss some of these later in the webinar.
Last but certainly not least, make sure you get approval
from your supervisor before you get started.
Go over your entire plan with them, from goals and vision
to the tools you'll use to manage progress,
and make sure you're on the same page.
Once you have approval to get started, you'll be ready to
move on to the next phase.
- [Bethany] So as Erin really emphasized here,
you'll wanna try to get those tasks identified early on
so that you don't miss anything and that you can
get them assigned.
So one possible tool that may or may not work for you,
it just kind of depends on what you like, is a mind map.
And many of you are familiar with this, but it helps you
identify the many tasks associated with the project.
It's very visual, and it's used to visually organize
information.
So the project name is put in the middle,
and each branch is a main piece of the project.
And it helps to get out all of the things that
need to be done.
And there could be an entire webinar on mindmapping,
of course, but just to get your mind thinking about that,
and there's lots of mindmapping tools out there.
I'm simplifying it very much right here, but definitely
if that sounds like something you'd wanna do the right way
to do it for you, then definitely check that out.
You'll also, as Erin mentioned, you'll wanna complete
a risk analysis asking yourself what's like to go wrong,
what's out of your control, and consider the probability
of things happening and the impact it could have
on the project.
So you'll wanna consider risks associated with requirements,
team interactions, stakeholders and assumptions.
We just wanna plant the seed to direct you to some
resources so you can bone up on the process.
And then earlier Erin mentioned the Gantt chart.
So Gantt charts are graphical representations of the
duration, the tasks against the progression of time,
and we're gonna just take a quick look at one.
And you guys may also be familiar with this.
You maybe have been part of a Gantt chart
or put in a Gantt chart.
So these are useful for planning and scheduling
in projects, and are used throughout the monitoring phase
of a project's progress.
So they do double duty I've found as a communication tool
with team members.
It's an important thing that gets surfaced on a Gantt chart
are dependencies.
This is when one task is dependent upon being completed
after another task.
So in other words, a dependent task is one that cannot
begin until it's predecessor tasks are completed.
In our fencing example one dependency is that the posts
need to go in first before you can build the fence part
that goes up and down and (mumbling).
And if we were replacing the fence, for instance,
the old one would need to be removed before we could
put in a new one.
So you get the idea.
That's a very simple version of a dependency,
but every project has those, and often in case of you're
building a training or you're building an online module,
there's the role that the developer plays,
there's the role that the curriculum folks play,
and you have to have the curriculum done before you can
put it in the system.
So just a couple of examples there.
And Gantts are really helpful if you have multiple projects,
which I know several people noted in the thing that
they have several projects going on at the same time.
So this is if you can get comfortable with using technology,
it's a good way to highlight some of the stuff that you
need to do each week and that other folks need to do to
keep on top of things.
OK, so let's take a look again at our case study
of building a fence.
Here's an example of how you would identify and analyze
the risks associated with the fence project.
So the two columns on the right are where you'd assign
a rating, in this case one being low and five being high
to each risk.
The value assignment gives these risks credibility
and visibility.
And often it's a good idea to get your team together
to discuss the risks collectively and make decisions
about how to proceed.
As a project manager your key role is to identify,
track and communicate these issues throughout the life
of the project.
Now there are many other tools that project managers use
to track these risks, but for the purposes of this webinar
we want you to begin thinking about how this step could be
part of your project management work at VISTA.
So in this case we've gone ahead and brainstormed
a few risks and plotted them in this chart,
and started to think about ways to respond to the risks.
So difficulty reaching agreement on the fence with
the neighbors.
There's a probability of two, fairly low, but the impact
could be really high.
If we can't come to an agreement, we can't build a fence.
So the description is we have several neighbors sharing
a fence line, so getting agreements from all of them on
the size, materials, yard access, etc., is critical.
And the response is to discuss with all parties and
gain agreement before starting.
Similarly there is a risk that someone might get hurt
building the fence.
Hopefully a low probability, but the impact would be high.
Someone could hurt themselves falling off a ladder
or pounding nails, lifting heavy materials, other injuries.
So our response to that risk is to create a safety plan
or hire someone to build the fence who has insurance.
So again, thinking these through helps us to identify
additional steps we might need to take to make our
project happen.
Additional risks that we didn't list here could be
finding out if property lines are correct or dealing with
bad weather that could put off the project steps that are
dependent on previous steps, slowing down the whole process.
So once we have a plan in place we are ready for the
execution phase.
We have approval from our supervisor, the plan looks good,
we're ready to go.
So here we're gonna use our timeline and our tools to
complete our tasks by the dates identified.
And as we do this we're gonna simultaneously go into
the next phase in a moment, but first we're gonna evaluate
as we go, which means what is working?
What isn't?
We're gonna need to adjust our plan as needed as new
inevitable complications and issues arise.
As you're going through this be sure to communicate with
your supervisor, your partners and with other stakeholders
so that there is transparency to your process.
Keep everyone informed of how things are going,
both successes and challenges so that's it's truly
a team effort.
So as I mentioned, while you're executing your plan
you are also monitoring and controlling,
and this means managing your timelines, your budget,
your relationship with your partners, etc.
You're assessing and addressing any risks and challenges
that arise, and you're communicating with everyone
involved from active partners, to funders, to stakeholders
like board members and your supervisor,
and evaluating your results as you go.
Are you still on track to meet your goal?
If not, what do you need to do to get back on track?
Use your milestones and calendar checkpoints to evaluate
and take stock as you go, and be sure to keep measuring
your success against your original goals.
Are we still on track?
This is also the place where you're going to make
adjustments to your timeline should one of your
planning elements get behind schedule.
Take a look at your sequencing and your dependencies,
as well as that overall timeline,
and assess how best to respond.
Can you potentially speed up in another area?
Will you need more time overall?
Again, hopefully you've built in extra time,
so this is where you'll put it to good use.
Don't forget to also think about how these changes in
timing and tasks might affect your resources.
You may need to go back to your supervisor to discuss
the need for additional time or other assets,
so do keep this in mind.
- [Bethany] I would imagine that you're starting to see
that there is sort of just a balancing process here.
Things are changing, things are moving.
So similarly to what Erin was talking about,
there's this communication plan.
So some highly structured workplaces use risk logging,
change request forms and those kind of things.
But I'm gonna really highlight here that the communication,
setting up a communication plan is pretty important.
And this is really kind of the meat of, this is related to
the monitoring and executing part of the plan.
So a communication plan is a written document defining
who needs to know what, what information, how often
and by what means.
So each stakeholder may have a different need to know
and preferences for how that communications
needs to take place.
You'll wanna make sure that your communication plan is
understood to be a living document.
We know that, people in curriculum know that a living
document is just often what's happening.
And it'll most likely be altered and adjusted to suit the
changing needs of the stakeholders at various times
in the project cycle.
So your plan may be to meet more during on phase of
the plan and less frequently during another phase.
It may have different players in one phase than
the next phase.
Also your communication plan should involve each person
or party in its creation.
So similarly to sort of the setting things up at
the beginning, you want people to have involvement,
and they wanna know where they fit in this piece.
And you know, you'll be asking questions like what will be
the best way for us to work together?
What information do you need from me?
What's your preferred mode of communication?
What kind of reminders, if any, do you need?
Or does the meeting invite on your calendar suffice?
Or can they just look at the Gantt chart and identify
for themselves what their tasks are?
You'll notice that people have different styles and
different sorts of responses to deadlines.
Some people wait to last minute.
Is that gonna be OK?
And if so, do you need to maybe add a little bit more time
into the timeline to accomplish what you need to accomplish?
So just like anything it involves people in its creation.
It builds ownership and commitment.
So again everybody, we wanna be involved in the discussion,
and we wanna know how we're part of this process.
And to be respected, communication is really way to
respect people in that process.
So also another tool.
So during this phase you're gonna wanna have
status meetings.
And so you know we, these go by basic names,
but these take on different forms, and they basically
keep the work moving.
There could be days where the webinar's on running
meetings well and best practices guidelines and roles, etc.,
but for this brief introduction it's important to know that
the different purposes of the meeting you hold during
this execution and monitoring phase might involve you
trying to solve a problem that's come up,
or maybe you need to gather together to agree on
a decision.
Maybe you wanna brainstorm with the whole group,
or maybe you're just aiming to meet to communicate
with each other and report on how things are going
or to get feedback.
So some meetings may be done via conference call,
just with people being located at a distance often,
this can be accomplished quite easily, and definitely people
start to become more familiar with using WebEx for a
conference call to accomplish those meetings.
And then a third chore or task, which is something that I
use on a daily basis almost anymore is weekly planning.
So it's sort of setting aside an hour to an hour and a half,
or maybe you'll get more efficient at it depending on
the number of projects that you have.
It's a time to check your Gantt chart, your calendar,
other tools that you use to track tasks.
So you'll have to constantly review the responsibilities
and then reprioritize them.
You know, I often move things from a list that say this is
stuff I have to get done today, or these are the things
I need to get done this week.
I need to check in with these people to make sure
they're on task.
So it is, it's a little bit of a kind of a hovering role
where you're checking in on people and making sure
things are moving.
And then sort of scheduling the blocks of time in your
schedule to actually accomplish the things that you have
on your list.
So the next one back to our case study, here's an example
of a communication planning tool.
So you do spend some time identifying the role each
stakeholder plays and what they need to be informed about
or to give input on.
This will change, but as we look at this in the beginning
phases of things we have the spouse who is involved
in this process, and they are deciding, they're sharing
the role and the process.
They may be covering for you because you have to go to work,
and they'll meet the contractor.
They may be gathering bids.
They're involved in decisions about financial decisions.
Then you kind of plot out what they need to know,
what they need to be apprised of.
In this case the spouse I think is giving a lot of
information throughout.
And then you know, there's frequency, that we can
accomplish this by texting or using the phone to keep
this person apprised because there may be some last minute
stuff this person has to do.
And similarly we only have one neighbor here,
but essentially you'd have listing out all the neighbors,
and they wanna be involved in knowing that the properly line
is assessed properly.
Are they gonna pay part of the costs?
If they are, they're gonna probably have higher
level involvement.
They'll need to know about any kind of time delays.
They need access to, if the builder needs access to
their property, and when they're gonna be in and if that's
gonna be available to them.
So you kind of get the gist here.
OK, so the next phase is closing.
While your project may be complete,
that doesn't mean that your work is done.
First you need to do a thorough evaluation of the project,
not only of its success on its own merits,
but also the planning and executive process overall.
What went well, what was challenging and what might you
do differently were you to do it again?
Determine your lessons learned and report them,
as well as your successes of course, to both your supervisor
and your partners.
Be sure to celebrate those successes and discuss strategies
for managing challenges the next time around.
Be sure that you also create some kind of file system
that captures all of your information.
Make it clear and easy to use so that someone down
the road could easily access and understand your work.
And don't forget to plan for sustainability.
When you are done with your VISTA service,
how is the organization going to know what to do
if they want to do this project again?
So leave detailed instructions for the next person
who might take on this type of project.
- [Bethany] So we've reached the end of the project.
This is a really important step, and I think sometimes,
I know this happens with us in my work is that we feel
so tired from the other phases, and we've done it,
we're done, and we just wanna move on.
But power through, and here's a couple tools you can use
to make sure that you've not only completed everything
that you're supposed to, but that your records are
left behind and organized, the sustainability piece
that Erin mentioned, and that the contributions of the team
are acknowledged and that they're given the OK to work
on other projects, that they're served release from this,
their obligations related to this project.
The lessons learned is, you know, and I think it's
essentially a reflection piece.
And this can be done in a lot of different ways,
but essentially the lessons learned gathers and documents
what went well with the project, what didn't go so well
and what needs to change.
It has the goal of ultimately improving the project
management process the next time around, so it's a constant
iterative process where you're learning things that you can
employ later on.
And I think that as you're moving through your VISTA year
and then onto your career you'll be gathering pieces of
knowledge throughout that you can apply later,
and it's just a process of improvement because it's not
gonna be perfect the first time.
It can really, especially when it's fresh in people's minds
you can capture the valuable information that we're still
so fresh before they're off to the next thing.
So you can surface lessons learned in a meeting by inviting
everyone who worked on the project.
They can take many forms, but maybe share some questions
ahead of time of the meeting that people can reflect on
and then come prepared to talk about.
Each person can, you can give each person a chance to speak
without interruption.
You'll wanna make sure you have a note taker to take down
like for that documentation process.
And then obviously build in some implementation before
your next project so that you can make sure that you
include the things that you learned the next time around.
And Erin touched on this a little bit, but sort of a closure
checklist, and one of the closure checklist ideas is
a list of administrative, deliverable and financial
and project documents.
Archiving activities you'll make sure you have done
in order to complete the process.
So document archiving, there are checklists that include
all the documents used in this project.
Several of the tools we talked about should be saved
and placed somewhere that's accessible,
so you'll most likely have electronic files.
You may have some hard copy files, but make sure that
they're able to be accessed by other people.
And then you know another option is team acknowledgement
and celebration, so this is important to give people
their props for what they've done,
and can be done publicly or privately,
and there's many ways to do that.
We sometimes at my work we post on the organization's
intranet site to just acknowledge what people have done
and how they've really made a difference in the work.
And just thanking and appreciating our donors and our
volunteers is something that we do often, but that we should
make it a practice to acknowledge our team members as well
and the good work they do.
In the case of this fence, making sure everything is
cleaned up, payments taken care of and all the documents
are filed in a place where you can access if needed.
You can gather the group in your yard with a newly
built fence, talk about how it went, have some iced tea,
just kind of a closure to the end if you're somebody
who's really ambitious with this project and wanna kinda
close it out right.
OK, so thanks for listening to the main phases.
We're gonna turn it over to our guest speaker.
Dakota is in her second year of VISTA as a Social Enterprise
Developer, and has been serving with Bethany Christian
Services in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
While serving she's also working toward her Master's Degree
in Public Administration and will be completing her
final semester this fall.
So we're gonna hear from Dakota about her project
and some tips she has, so take it away.
- [Dakota] Thank you, Bethany, for the introduction.
I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of
the work my department has been doing in and with
our community.
For my VISTA year I was assigned a lofty goal of
starting and building the capacity for a new social
enterprise business.
The center I work for wanted to create more meaningful
ways to develop both the professional and personal skills
of local youths, specifically youth in our community who
currently are or have experienced homelessness,
and youth who are aging out of the foster care system.
Many of our youths have limited access to meaningful
employment, and even more limited are employment
opportunities within their own communities.
Our social enterprise, Rising Grinds Cafes©,
employs, trains and develops local youths,
affirming their abilities and dignity through work.
Locally our cafes© is a community-driven coffee shop
and deli with visual and performance art spaces.
Globally we focus on ethically sourcing all of our products
from farms and organizations who love their communities
and environments just as much as we do.
In May of 2015 the department brought me and Jamila,
the young woman you see pictured in the slide,
to the project, and Jamila had graduated from many of
the center's programs and having lived in the community
all her life had invaluable knowledge of what our youth
and neighbors wanted to see out of this project.
Although we are currently training youth in a small cafes©
within our center, we are set to open a separate more
permanent site in the spring of 2017.
This project has a capital startup budget of over $450,000,
most of which has already been raised through grants,
and we will continue grant writing in order to sustain
the operating expenses for the first three years
the cafes© is in business.
So as Bethany talked about earlier, stakeholders are key
to project management.
For this project in particular it was essential that
we started by understanding the type of social enterprise
our community actually wanted there.
Starting a business in a vulnerable community
can be difficult, and we knew that if we did not listen
closely to the needs and wants of our neighbors,
we could inadvertently gentrify the neighborhood
we love so much.
So working with local non-profits we were able to collect
data on what enterprises community members were looking for,
along with responses like affordable childcare and
a laundromat, community members also expressed a need for
more local food or restaurant options.
From this data we were better able to develop a full vision
for Rising Grinds Cafes©.
A little bit of the conversation that's been happening
in the chat is how to balance in cultural things,
and I think that this is a really good instance of that.
Once we had established an idea for the project,
we started building our plans slowly.
I don't think we realized that this small idea for a quaint
coffee shop would become such a huge project,
but as more and more people came to our center expressing
their interest in the cafes© we realized that our plan needed
more structure and more people if we’re going to grow
with intention.
We knew that we needed to step up our process and
initiate some structure.
After establishing an advisory board for the cafes© during
the first of this year, we kicked off our strategic
planning period.
Now that we had individuals within and without the
organization who were committed to the cafes’ s success,
we needed to make sure that everyone was being utilized
in the best way.
During the first portion of the planning period
we broke down objectives and goals into manageable
project activities.
After placing these activities on a larger timeline
we delegated each to the best team member with the most
applicable knowledge and resources.
This delegation showed the team where we may have had
staffing, knowledge or even resource gaps
that would prevent us from accomplishing certain project
activities on time.
It was made clear after defining some of these gaps that
we would need to hire an expert in restaurant management
and a vocational youth trainer if we wanted to make sure
our youth training, cafes© set up and partner development
activities would be done both successfully and on time.
For our entire planning process we used a living Excel
document that was eventually also placed on a timeline
for all staff members to visualize where they fit in.
Now in all honesty, our tools for project management have
changed about a million times.
It takes time to know your team members
and how they learn or work best.
We have worked with to-do lists as well as a Gantt chart.
Now we have molded a living Excel form into a Gantt chart
for all strategic timelines, and then encouraged other
team members to use to-do lists for their individual
task-oriented timelines.
Next slide please, thanks.
As Erin stated earlier, there is a constant connection
between planning, executing and monitoring a project.
As your project evolves it is imperative that you are
open to change.
When you are open to the idea of growing and changing,
your project can be more meaningful to those
you are serving, more focused on the needs and wants
of the people involved.
When we started the planning process for our cafes©
we were unaware of many of the barriers our youth
experienced when entering the workforce.
We were unaware of many elements necessary to starting
a specialty coffee shop.
As these things came to the surface it was important that
we go back to the drawing board and hash out
the facts again.
Now that we are in the process of going through the program
activities we established check-in meetings with a variety
of team members throughout each month.
One useful tool our center and our team have embraced
are Kanban Boards.
These boards, as you see on the slide, are organized into
sections titled To Do, Doing, Blocked and Done.
They can be used by individuals and/or groups to chart
tasks and timelines.
Our group used these to visualize the process and allow
all team members to update their progress on all tasks.
As an AmeriCorps VISTA member the monitoring and
controlling has looked somewhat differently.
Besides the normal amount of monitoring the timeline,
action steps and making sure the project is on target,
there is an added level of monitoring applicable
projects in order to create that capacity.
It has been critical that I track basically everything I do,
and keep a detailed log of the process so that in the future
the center does not have recreate these tools, resources
or knowledge I have gained through doing the project and
assisting in the project management.
Already I have been able to see the benefits of this
process as I have been able to walk new staff members
through the history of the project.
This allows new staff members to skip much of the beginning
barriers and work to accomplish project goals.
Since we are still in the process of managing the project,
there is still much to learn, and I look forward to
carrying much of what Bethany and Erin have discussed
to further the success of my project.
Thank you so much, Dakota.
We really appreciate you sharing your insights as well as
demonstrating what it looks like when it's applied to
VISTA work, so thank you so much for that.
We have a few more slides and a few more things to show you,
and then we'll have a question and answer period,
so stay with us.
Overall we also wanted to point out that there a few things
overall to keep in mind.
First, be sure to communicate openly and often.
Talk to your supervisor frequently, before you get started,
at regular intervals during each phase of the project,
and when you finish.
Make sure that you have that agreement on the timeline,
the budget, key deliverables, everything.
You're going to experience enough surprises and unexpected
challenges while managing a project as it is without them
being potentially avoidable from the start.
Planning and being prepared for inevitable surprises
can make or break your project,
so make sure spend that time there.
Also talk to others who have done similar projects.
They might be at your organization.
They might a fellow VISTAs somewhere else in the country.
They might be another organization in your community.
Ask them about their lessons learned and what you might
expect as you get started.
And lastly again, I can't say this enough,
always build in extra time.
Everything, and I do mean everything, will take longer
than you think it will, so be prepared.
But thinking about tailoring project management for
VISTA service, project management strategies like the ones
we've discussed on this call can be used for both
short-term and long-term types of projects.
I wanted to offer some examples here of the kinds of
projects for which you might use these ideas.
So for long-term projects you might create and execute
a plan to fund raise.
You might build a volunteer program from scratch,
or you might launch and lead an outreach
effort of some kind.
On a shorter term timeline you might plan an event,
you might design a website, or you might just write one
specific grant proposal as part of a larger resource
development plan.
In each of these scenarios you can use the five phases
of traditional project management to prepare for, plan,
execute, monitor and conclude a successful project.
So we have time for another chat question.
What are some examples of short-term or long-term projects
that you currently, oh sorry, I'm reading the wrong thing.
What tools or techniques do you currently use
to manage projects?
So I've seen a couple of people respond
I saw someone uses MindNode as a particular mindmapping
tool that they've used.
Someone said I love Kanban Boards.
Those are great thing to use.
I'm seeing MS Project.
MindMeister, that one I've not heard of.
Evernote, Excel.
So in the chat window here please do give us some
examples of what you're using.
Lots of Google Drives, Google Sheets.
(crosstalk)
- [Bethany] Outlook, Salesforce.
So Procrastination not recommended.
That is not a great tool, I agree.
I've tried that one, it's not effective.
America Learns, WebEx.
So the reason we want you to list these here is
other folks on the call, and I know they're moving quickly
because we've got lots of folks here,
jot down the ones that sound interesting to you
and check them out.
There are so many different tools, and we are gonna show you
a few more in just a moment.
But go ahead and jot down some that you might want to
check out because these are all things that you might try.
And as Dakota mentioned, you're gonna try one and maybe
it works for you, maybe it doesn't, you may try another.
So let's show you a couple of examples now.
- [Bethany] Yeah, and additionally each tool sort of has
pros and cons.
And so you may find one thing works for one kind of project,
and another thing where you're maybe working with a bunch
of different people you might switch to another tool
that might work better.
Yeah, absolutely.
So just a quick caveat, we're just showing you a couple
examples of tools.
This isn't an endorsement from me as an individual or from
the Corporation for National and Community Service for
any one of these projects.
We need to make that clear, but these are a couple of
examples of things that you might check out.
The first one is called Trello.
If folks aren't familiar with Trello, Trello is free.
It's web-based.
Rather there's a basic version for free,
but I have used it myself, and the free version offers
quite a bit of functionality.
Some project management software sites do require some kind
of payment or membership, but we're gonna try to show you
ones that are free.
So Trello, effectively what you have here is
drag and drop cards.
You create columns, you create cards, and on each card
you can set a due date.
You can assign it to a team member, and you can drag
and drop each one and archive them as you go, as well as use
attachments and all other sorts of functionality.
So if you're a visual person like I am,
something like Trello can be very useful because you can
physically see all of the tasks.
And they look very similar to what Dakota was talking about
earlier with the boards.
- [Bethany] OK, so this is one that I noticed at least
one person in the chat has used Asana.
At first I thought it was like a sauna, you know,
where you go and it's really hot, but it's not that.
So it's another site that has the ability to create
and assign tasks to team members, you know,
such as notifications, when things are done,
or when you're assigned to something.
You can attach files.
You can have team conversations in the system.
One of my colleagues uses this one more than I do,
and when I asked him what he really thought was great
about it, he says this is a great one for collaborating
on shared tasks.
So when you have a bunch of folks that are working on
one project, and there's several dependencies,
it really makes it easy to assign things to people and
keep track of when those things are done.
So that was his feedback on that.
There is a free version of this that allows access to
15 team members and supposedly an unlimited number of tasks,
projects and conversations.
So this one might be worth looking into
if you're interested.
You can actually use the conversation function
or the instant messaging function within the program,
or you can also have it send you emails to notify you
when things are happening.
So it's kind of a good way to electronicize some of those
things we talked about earlier related to checking with
people, finding out where people are, giving people nudges.
So that's one option.
And another one here is Google Docs.
We mentioned this one earlier, and I noticed a lot of folks
in the chat did talk about Google.
Google Docs is free, of course.
It's all under Google Drive.
You can use spreadsheets.
You can something akin to a word doc, and you can customize
it to become your own project management software.
So this is an example we found on Google images where
they've created a column for their dependent components,
for the status, the date it started, the date it was
complete, who owns it, the difficulty, notes.
And you can color code it, you can drag and drop
the things around.
Overall as a note, each of these tools can
be used effectively.
It really does just come down to your personal preference.
Some people want something very visual.
Some people want something that's much more of a list,
so it just comes down to what you want to do.
So again, we found these examples on line.
For this particular Google one I might also add a column
for target completion date and actual completion date
so that you can actually track your goals versus what
actually happens to help you adjust on the fly.
But again, just a few to try.
So here are some resources overall for you to check out.
I don't typically recommend Wikipedia as a source,
but they have an excellent section on project management
that's really well worth checking out.
It talks about everything from the history
to the five steps.
There's some fantastic data there.
You might also check out the resources at the Project
Management Institute, although many of them do require
a fee to get started, so just keep that in mind.
I also found a great article called 51 Training Resources
for Project Managers that includes a wealth of links to
resources and how to's on project management.
So you wanna take a look at that and see if there's some
great tips and tools that might work for you as well.
I do see that Sam just put all of these links in
the chat window, so you can click on those.
But again, there will also be a recording of
this webinar in just a couple weeks if you wanna
come back to these links.
We also mentioned some tools and templates,
so we've listed those here as well.
Some of the ones mentioned by Bethany can be downloaded
from the Corporate Education Group.
That can help you get started planning.
And then we also have some links and information
on Trello, Asana, Google Docs and Kanban Boards,
so you'll be able to see those links as well.
We'll make sure that those are live for you.
And at this point we're gonna pass it back to
Andy and Sam because we're gonna take a moment to do
evaluation before we shift into questions and answers.
So Andy?
Alright, thank you, Erin.
So we're gonna get to your questions in just a minute.
Also before we dive into that, want to hear what you
thought about today's presentation.
So on the right you now see our evaluation poll is open.
There are 10 questions, so you'll need to use the
scroll bar to scroll down and see all questions.
And be sure to click the submit button so that your
responses actually get registered with us.
So while you're working on that let's take a look at
how you can submit your questions.
So you probably noticed just now that the poll is open
the Q&A panel is just above the evaluation poll.
You'll need to click the little triangle next to Q&A
in order to open it.
So you can submit your question there,
if you haven't already.
And I'm gonna invite our operator to come back on
and give us instructions for asking a question by phone.
- [Sam] Thank you.
If you would like to ask a question by phone,
press star and then one and record your name when prompted.
Again, if you would like to ask a question by phone,
please press star, then one.
All right, and while we wait for questions
on the phone we've got a couple of them queued up here
from the Q&A.
So first off, Mia asks what is the best way to engage
your supervisor in project planning when the supervisor is
pulled in a million different directions?
So I'm gonna put that out both to Erin, Emily and Dakota,
I should say all three of you since you may have different
perspectives or different ideas around that.
So let's see, Erin, maybe we'll start with you.
Sure.
So that's a great question.
All of us have supervisors who are extremely busy.
I would say if you know them well, if you know what they're
particular learning style is, for example,
maybe they prefer email, maybe they prefer a piece of paper
in their hand, follow that path.
If you don't know them well enough, just literally ask.
Say hey, I'm putting together a plan for our project.
I really want your approval and your buy in as well as
your thoughts on the process.
What's the best way to share it with you?
So making sure that it aligns with their particular
learning and check in style.
And let's say for example they say, you know what?
I really need a piece of paper in my hand.
So what you can do is plot everything out on a piece
of paper, bring it to them and say as part of our regular
check in meeting, this is where I'm at.
Can you read this through and give me your
off the cuff thoughts?
Plan in advance for how they want to be updated.
Make sure that they will be updated, but again recognizing
what is their preferred style.
Is it email?
Is it poking your head in their door?
Is it wait for your check in meeting each week,
and then just give them an update.
But I think the key to it here is acknowledging that
because they're very busy and they're pulled in many
different directions you need to fit it into their
already very busy agenda.
So as much as you can tailor your reporting to them
to their style, I think the more success you're gonna have
with them being an active participant.
- [Bethany] Yeah, and I think the only thing that I
would add, this is Bethany, is that you wanna involve them
very early on in the initiating and planning phases
because you do wanna get their buy in because you don't want
this to be something that you work really hard on,
and then it doesn't meet the expectations that's there
set up at the beginning.
So I mean, that's the only thing I would add,
and I don't know if Dakota has anything to add from
her experience that she's really probably had involvement
from her supervisor with her current project.
- [Dakota] Yeah, no.
I think that you both hit it on the head when you said,
you know, getting involvement early, defining communication
styles that work best with each supervisor.
For my particular project there were a ton of people
involved, and so it really became important for me to
be clear and intentional when I asked individuals
how exactly they wanted to be involved, how they wanted to
be communicated with, and just being very transparent about
that process, and especially transparent when I was having
issues with maybe a project activity or keeping other
team members accountable.
I think as I said that sometimes the hard part is
stepping into that role, and so just making sure that
your supervisor is being clear with you on how
they want to be involved with that process, so yeah.
Great, thanks.
Next up Samuel says I've heard of the critical path method,
and he's curious has anyone used it in project management.
If so, how did it work?
So any of you familiar with critical path method of
project management?
I think it's a particular model within many different
models of project management out there.
Yeah unfortunately, this is Erin, I am not
familiar with it myself.
I primarily use traditional method as my path.
Having said that, I would check out the Project
Management Institute site to see if they have anything
explicitly on that.
And I've also opened it up for the folks in the chat
if anyone has used it to please feel free to share
your experiences, but unfortunately it's not one that
I've used myself.
All right, great.
And let's see, Joan says how can you use these techniques
when projects really change?
- [Bethany] Hmmm.
Well you know, earlier on in the slide show (mumbling),
excuse me, the slide deck, there was a slide that showed
the five steps.
And essentially there's, I don't know if I can pull
mine up here.
So there's the initiating, and then it goes to planning,
and then it goes to execution.
And then what you're essentially doing, which I think
Dakota talked about too, is that there's a constant
situation where things are changing and you're needing to
adjust things, and you're needing to adjust (mumbling)
monitoring and control.
Then you go and try to execute that, and then you go back
to planning, and so it's a little bit of a, I mean,
one of my professors once said nothing ever
gets done on time.
I mean, there's always changes, and so it's kind of a matter
of just keeping track of things as they change,
making a plan to mitigate that situation
and communicate that to people because it is gonna be,
there's a lot of things, and there's sometimes where
I have totally forgotten something that I need to add in,
and I have to figure out a way to get it done.
So I mean, I think that some of the tools about,
I think it's important to use a lot of the tools up front,
but also realizing that there's going to be some changes
that happen throughout, and you'll need to revisit
those things, revisit those tools and processes,
and just sort of adjust as you go.
I don't know if that answered the question,
but umm...
One thing I might add is if you think about
the overall project as tree, you're starting on one
particular branch and heading down that path,
and saying OK, this is the path to our particular success,
that we're at the goal, the vision that we have in mind.
And if something shifts, then the project suddenly changes
very significantly, what's happened is you've gone down
a different branch.
So you might revisit, say OK let's go back to the
initiating, let's go back to the planning.
Now that this is something different, what pieces still
make sense to carry over, and what pieces do we need
to start anew.
And if you're using a tool for example like Google Docs,
and you're using a spreadsheet, it might be that you create
a second sheet on that same doc where the first one
was the original plan and the second one is the new plan.
It's important to keep that historical data so you know
how you go to where you are now, but it may very well be
that you need to take a couple steps backwards to reconsider
your overall plan because the project itself has shifted.
Great.
Go ahead, Dakota.
- [Dakota] Oh, I was just gonna jump in and say that
I think it's been critical for me as an AmeriCorps to
create those living documents so that they can
constantly be changing.
Maybe it's not for this project.
Maybe it's for the next VISTA or the next permanent
staff who steps in needing maybe a similar form,
but just being prepared in creating those processes that
change is inevitable, and kind of being intentional about
doing that.
I think that that's something that's been really important
to me as an AmeriCorps, so I know that that might
directly apply.
Great, thank you for all your responses.
Let's turn to the phones now and see if we have
any callers with questions.
- [Sam] Currently there are no questions over
the phone lines.
Again, if you would like to ask a question,
please press star, then one.
All right, well no worries because we've got
a number of other questions lined up here.
So let's see, Kayla says in my project I am a
one-woman show.
So how do I organize myself when I can't delegate
any of the tasks?
Well, that's something I'm very comfortable with.
Prior to joining my current position I just started
a month ago I was a full-time consultant one-woman show
for a couple of years, and have played with many of these
different tools to try to organize my time.
So when you can't delegate tasks, that means of course that
everything is on your plate.
So it's really a matter of figuring out which tools
are gonna work best for you to keep track of
all of those pieces.
And one particular time management strategy that was
very useful for me that was offered by a colleague was
try to schedule things out a little bit so that
you don't have the entire to do list in front of you
every day because that can overwhelm you.
And then you might feel like oh, I never make any progress
because I only got half of one item done today.
Instead if you take your entire list, you plot it out
over a timeline, and then as Bethany was saying earlier,
week by week you say OK, these five things are the things
I need to get done this week.
Then it looks like oh, one thing per day.
I can manage that.
It's a psychological trick, but boy does it make
a difference in terms of not feeling overwhelmed
and like you're drowning in your tasks.
Figure out which tools work best for you.
And keep in mind that even if you are the primary person
doing all of the work, there still are other partners
with whom you need to bounce ideas,
you need to get approval, you need to make sure that
what you're designing works for them.
All of us are serving diverse communities, so we need to
make sure that we aren't operating in a silo in terms of
I'm going to determine everything and do everything
but not get that feedback and not be communicating
with others.
So figure out the tools that work best for you to be able to
keep your head above water and get things done in a
reasonable timeline.
But also make sure that you don't allow yourself to get
too mired up also in your own work so that you don't
connect with others because their feedback is going
to be critical.
Even if they aren't doing the work, they're going to be
able to provide you with context and vision and information
that you need in order to succeed.
So find what works best for you, and try not to look at
the big picture every day.
Do a regular check in on the big picture,
but try to break it down into manageable chunks so that
it doesn't seem so overwhelming is my core advice.
Good advice, thank you.
So we've gotten several questions that are related,
so I'm gonna sort of pull these all into one.
Jamal phrased it this way, what should I do if I'm being
pulled in different directions not directly related to
my project?
And let's see, Janice says if you're working for multiple
departments, what's the most efficient way to organize
the demands without compromising one department's work
over another?
And then finally, let's see here, it was Dalisa who said
do you tips for managing your project when your supervisor's
supervisor gives you many time-consuming smaller projects?
So kind of a related theme there, pulled in many directions,
getting additional responsibilities maybe outside of
the original plan, and then how to balance competing
demands from different departments.
So I'd love to hear from Dakota, but I'm gonna
offer just a quick two cents, which is to me this comes
down to establishing allies,
because many of these examples the directives are coming
down from above.
Like you're getting different tasks from your supervisor
than from your supervisor's supervisor,
or if other departments are trying to pull you in
different directions.
When I've been in a similar situation I went to my direct
supervisor and said here is what I have on my plate,
here what I've been told is the priority,
but I'm getting mixed messaging from here or from here.
And approaching it very open, not approaching it as
a complaint.
So you're not going in to say hey, this sucks.
Why are they doing?
But instead you're going in to say look, I'm learning how to
best manage my own work, and I could use some guidance here
on how to keep all of these plates spinning,
and could use your advice on how to best prioritize.
So in a way you're shifting the responsibility to
your supervisor to give you some guidance and
some directives.
And the reason I say that as an ally is because
if it's coming from other departments or potentially
from their supervisor, it puts them in a position to
be able to lobby on your behalf, and then you're not in
quite such an awkward position that you're the one
saying yes or no to others, but rather they may be able to
go to that other department or to their supervisor
and say ahh, I can see that that's really important,
but right now they need to be working on XYZ,
or they might give you some tips and tools that you could
also do that, but you'd have their support and their buy in.
So you wouldn't be out there on your own.
So I would say in all cases go to your direct supervisor,
have that conversation, and approach it again as I want to
be able to do all this work well, and I wanna be able to
put my best foot forward, but I also recognize that
there are some conflicts in terms of when things are due
and what's prioritized.
I could use your guidance.
That's my advice.
- [Bethany] I agree.
Great, and Dakota, would you add to that?
- [Dakota] Yeah, I really echo a lot of what you just said
about going to your direct supervisor and then going
as an ally.
I would just also recommend going and asking your direct
supervisor to assist you in prioritizing.
Often this calls the direct supervisor in as an advocate
so that they can be at the front lines as well when
those other departments might need help,
and just also echo your needs of time management
and be able to act as a sounding board while you kind of
figure out how to time manage.
I think this has probably been the greatest challenge
for me as a VISTA because I think when we work on complex
projects, then with complex programs, often we feel like
we're being thrown into this crazy frying pan.
And trying to decipher what comes first is
incredibly difficult.
And so it really changed for me when I went to
my direct supervisor and just said hey,
can you help me prioritize this?
And how do I best communicate with these other departments
that these are my priorities?
This is maybe what my VAD says, so of course sometimes
those things needs to happen first.
So definitely using your relationship with your supervisor
or even someone else in the department,
just making sure that you're capitalizing on those
relationships and using them to their full extent so that
you really get as much out of this VISTA time as possible.
Great, thanks for those responses.
We've got a little bit of time left and still a number
of questions here, so we'll try to get to as many
of them as we can.
So Sara says how do you start managing a community-driven
project that was managed by the community,
but then it fizzled out and there's no paper trail?
So any thoughts on that kind of scenario?
Yeah, go ahead, Dakota.
- [Dakota] Oh, I'm so sorry, I would just love to step in.
I think this is something I've been really excited
to witness a part of my community and being what we call
human centered design focused.
You know, a lot of times with community-driven projects
we need to be aware that if they fizzled out,
that might have been for a reason.
And just being open to going back to the community
asking why it didn't work, seeing if that is or was
an actual need or want of the community members,
and just being open to fully changing that pathway.
So if there's no paper trail, that's kind of exciting.
(laughing)
You can really pave the way and go back to the community
members, ask if they wanna continue down that road,
or if they wanna be innovative and try something new
that they really wanna go towards.
So that has really been a process of mine,
and I'd love to talk with the person who asked that more
in the future if they'd be interested.
Great, well thank you for that offer.
Slightly different type of scenario than the ones
we've heard about.
Chelsea says what do you do if your supervisor doesn't
give you enough responsibility in projects,
even though you wanna learn how to effectively plan
and implement one?
Hmmm.
That's a great question.
One thing you can always try is, first of all one thing
you can try is to still put together sort of an overall
plan and present it them and say hey, this is something
I've been doing a lot of thinking on.
I've done this webinar on project management.
It's something I've been putting some extra energy
into learning, and I took a first stab at what I think
we might want to do collectively.
I wanted to share it with you and see what you think.
So bringing it to them not as necessarily a hey,
I'm going to do this, but rather this is my contribution
to the group effort.
Perhaps that will give them some extra confidence
that you can take a shot at it, to get going.
You might also, if there's still resistance,
say I'd love to take on some pieces of this.
Is there a particular area or particular task that
you think I might be able to take on?
Or even suggest and say I've volunteered with this kind
of organization before.
I feel pretty confident that I could reach out
to this organization.
Is that something I can go ahead and do?
So I would say being proactive in terms of asking for it,
which I'm gonna guess that you probably have already done,
but being very specific as well.
Offering them sort of your big larger vision for
the project so that they can see that you understand
all of the pieces, you're demonstrating that to them,
but then also asking for very specific slices of the pie
to take on, and that might help them build that trust
in the relationship so that they can start to let go
of the reigns a little bit and say, ah yeah,
they know what they're doing, I can trust them.
I also just as a general advice I wouldn't
take it personal.
Some people it's just tougher for them to let go
of control.
For some people they just may not know you very well yet,
or know what you're capable of.
So just try to approach it as an opportunity for you to
build trust and a relationship with that person,
and slowly but surely demonstrate what you're capable of.
- [Bethany] And I just wanna add just a little thing.
I think you guys are probably seeing this too that
while we're talking about, while we may understand
the phases of a project, and we may understand how to
use some of the tools, there is a lot of their kind of like
professional skills that you're employing as project
managers or as people who are getting these things
accomplished.
There's conversations, there's negotiations,
there's strategic relationships, so you know,
you're kind of really gonna be pushing yourself in
additional ways when you're working on different projects,
so just something to keep in mind that I think
it's just a lot of learning, and it's great.
All right, thanks to you both.
Let's check the phones one more time and see if
we have any questions there.
- [Sam] There are no questions in queue.
OK, great.
Well, we're just about to wrap up.
We do have a couple of questions.
Let's see if we can squeeze these in.
Siobhan says besides the traditional methods of project
management, are there other methods that we should consider?
Yeah, great question.
There are a couple of other methods that you might consider.
One that's very popular among software developers and
those working in the technology field is called Agile.
I'm not gonna go too in depth on any of these,
but you can do a quick Google search of the Agile method,
A-G-I-L-E.
My partner working in technology uses this tool frequently.
A couple others that we came across in our research
have really whimsical names like the Spiral Method
and the Waterfall Method.
Again, a quick Google search will give you a sense of
what those look like.
They use very similar techniques in that you're still
gonna be thinking about resources and dependencies
and timelines,
but they are different visual representations and
different tools that you might use in order for you to
move through the various steps.
And different fields have different project management tools
that they use more frequently.
So for example, some of those are more common in
the construction field, for example.
But the traditional method seems to be used quite often
in non-profit work, and that's why we chose that one.
So Agile, Waterfall and Spiral are three of the ones that
came up frequently in my research.
Great, and then we've got one more question.
Let's see how much we can provide for Sarah who asks
how do I understand the vision and my community to
successfully manage a project when I am so new to
the organization and new to the community?
I feel like I'm not even ready to being planning
for a project.
Ooh Dakota, I'd love to hear from you.
(laughing)
- [Dakota] Yeah, no Sarah, I think a good thing to know
is that you are not alone.
I think that's the cornerstone of being a VISTA.
You know, I wanna go back to what I spoke about before
that really these projects always need to be community
centered, and I think when you're community centered
that involves a ton, a ton, a ton of just listening.
And acknowledging that you're new to a community
is the first step.
So I think when I first started an important activity
for me was I spent about the first 60 to 90 days
asking who to know, asking where in the community
I could go for answers, who in my organization was
from the community.
That's a great place to start as well.
And a great thing to remember is often we VISTAs are
moving into these communities.
We're starting to rent apartments, and so part of this is
just getting to know where you're living,
and that's a process.
So I think that I would say...
It's important to just step back and listen and know that
although sometimes VISTAs, we have a timeline,
but to know that in this beginning process it's more
important to listen and to learn about that vision
and to learn about that community than jumping into
a project full force,
because I think that that's truly where you're gonna get
your answers, and that's how you project's gonna get done.
All right, thank you for that, Dakota.
And we are at the end of our time together,
so I would like to do a quick wrap up.
And first of all, thank everybody.
We had close to 500 people attending this webinar,
so thank you all for being here and participating.
We really love to see all of your energy and engagement.
Especially I wanna thank our main presenters
Erin Barnhart and Bethany Dusablon for putting together
the content and a presentation.
And of course to Dakota Riehl, who brought her real live
lived VISTA experience of project management and really
a great project that she's got.
Of course we wanna invite you to our next webinar
September eighth on managing student loans.
We know many of you have student loans.
And especially those of you who just started over
the summer may wanna learn more about strategies for
minimizing the burden on you.
Those of you who are later in your VISTA service term
may be interested to know that we will be hosting a
federal jobs expo October 25th here in Washington, D.C.
So if you're in the D.C. area or within driving distance
we invite you to that.
You'll be getting more details,
but we just wanted to put it on your radar for now.
We'll be doing some related events, including a couple
of webinars that you'll be able to participate in
no matter where you are in the country.
If you wanna connect with us or connect with any of
our presenters, particularly I saw a couple of folks
who said oh, I really wanna connect with Dakota,
use the email address you see there,
VISTAwebinars@cns.gov,
VISTAwebinars@cns(Corporation for National Service).gov,
and we will put you in touch.
So thanks again, everyone.
Thanks too to Sam Grazziani, our producer.
Hope you have a great afternoon,
and we'll see you again in the future.
