New Course Launch: Project Management for Librarians and Archivists

This comprehensive course on project management is tailored explicitly for librarians and archivists seeking to enhance their skills in efficiently managing projects within the dynamic and organized realm of libraries and archives

Reviewers Love Project Management for Information Professionals

"Note is the consummate project manager, and it shows in her handbook of project management for information professionals. This book knows what it is, and what it is not; it remains true to its project scope."

Selecting the Right Project

Records managers deal with projects all the time, such as developing a records retention schedule, converting files, or designing an automatic records retrieval system. Although each project is different, they all benefit from the discipline of project management.

Project Management as Change Management in Heritage Institutions

Adhering to proven project management practices reduces risk, cuts costs, and improves the success rates of projects. Organizations are likely to nurture a project management culture when they understand the value it brings and how projects drive change.

How to Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try

Learn the techniques I used to pass the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.

Controlling Archival Projects to Keep Them on Course

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

Monitoring Archival Project Progress

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

Managing Changes Throughout an Archival Project

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

A Primer on Archival Project Contracts

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

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

Tips for Calculating Archival Project Costs

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

Determining Your Archival Project Budget

An archival project should be completed without exceeding authorized expenditures. Many projects in archives lack a direct profit motive. For these projects, even in the absence of monetary gain, careful attention to financial management is vital.

What Makes a Successful Archival Project?

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

Modifying Schedules for Archival Projects

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

Following the Critical Path for Archival Projects

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

How Procurement Works for Archival Projects

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

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

Archival Project Scheduling Tips

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

Archival Project Planning: The Essentials

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

How to Kick Off Your Archival Project

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

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

Archival Projects: Evaluating and Acknowledging Performance

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

Tracking Progress of Archival Projects

Tracking is the process by which archival project progress is measured to ensure that changes to the schedule are tackled promptly. The starting point for tracking progress in archival projects is the project baseline schedule and other plan documents devised and accepted when key stages are fixed before implementation. The project baseline should remain unchanged throughout the project, and it’s the guide against which variances are identified.

How to Define Archival Project Roles

Projects enable archivists to undertake roles that differ from their usual positions and are training grounds for leadership. Team members likely have other responsibilities in addition to their work on the archival project. Identify gaps in skills or resources, and then begin to locate people to resolve staffing issues. Determining basic team member roles up front allows projects to move forward with vision and vigor.

How to Build a Successful Archival Project Team

Archival project managers can create highly functional teams that embrace change, honor individual diversity and contributions, and demonstrate good faith and goodwill. There are many aspects of team-building to consider, including the fundamentals of team size and composition.

Managing Expectations for Archival Projects

Delivering a project on time, on budget, and with quality doesn’t always mean it’s successful. And even if expectations of cost and speed are met—or were unrealistic—stakeholders are the final judges of the project. In their eyes, the project may be late, over budget, or inferior quality.

Stakeholder Management in Archival Projects

People are fundamental to every aspect of an archival project. They commission projects, provide resources, support (or challenge) projects, and produce results. People deliver projects as managers and team members, and others influence projects as sponsors and archival project stakeholders. How people behave and feel about the project influences its success.

Developing Leadership Skills with Archival Projects

Project managers are expected to be both good managers and leaders. Leadership is one of the most critical competencies a project manager must have. Leadership in archival projects is demonstrated through setting the vision for the project and supporting strategy, and creating a shared vision with the team. Archival leaders create an environment that encourages the best in team members, allowing them to develop and learn.

Characteristics of Effective Archival Project Managers

Project managers for archival projects have a wide variety of responsibilities. They oversee activities, serve as liaisons between departments, and facilitate meetings. They hire staff, attend professional development activities, and review instructional materials. This post covers characteristics of effective archival project managers.

Nuts & Bolts of Scope Statements for Archival Projects

A clear understanding of the scope is the basis on which successful archival projects are built. Without it, archivists will struggle to deliver a project well.

Eliciting Archival Project Requirements

Archivists can use several elicitation techniques to gather requirements for their projects. These methods, ranging from document analysis to in-depth interviews, provide ideas for needed projects.

Gathering Requirements for Archival Projects

Requirements for archival projects are different from goals and objectives. Requirements specify what the deliverables of the completed project must be. Requirements define the final product, service, or result. These are statements of quantitative criteria, each of which provides a measure of one or more of the project’s critical success factors. You can visualize the requirements when you consider the current condition of an organization and then examine its future state once the project is completed.

Developing Goals and Objectives for Archival Projects

Goals and objectives are instrumental in strategic planning for archives because they turn the project’s vision into measurable targets. Goals are the ends towards which a project is directed; objectives are more detailed than goals and explain how goals will be accomplished. With both in hand, archivists build and support the vision for what they wish to achieve with their projects.

Projects should reduce costs, expand services, or increase efficiency—and be linked to these objectives from start to finish. Archivists must change their mindset from simply completing a project to strategically implementing the project with business objectives in mind.