Five Nonprofit Technology Project Management Hacks to Stay On Time and On Budget

We’ve discussed the four most important tips for planning ahead to create a smooth ride for nonprofit project management. Your implementation team has the roadmap in their head, knows the general path, and guides the experience, but there are so many ways to get to your destination. It’s important that you, as the Project Manager, take an active role in navigating as you go, by providing feedback, looking things up in the guidebook, and keeping an eye out for obstacles ahead. To help you out, we’ve given you five hacks for staying on time and on budget with your next technology project.

BONUS: Each nonprofit technology project management hack below is likely to spur questions you want to ask the implementation team. Don’t be shy! Ask! It will help keep you on track for a smooth and enjoyable ride.

1. Understand the Scope Up Front
   To avoid going over budget, it’s important that you fully understand the scope of the project. What exactly is being implemented? What features will be included? Who’s in charge of cleaning up historical data or content? Will the implementation team create a style guide or is that up to you? What kinds of automation will be set up? All of this is important to understand so that when someone asks “Why didn’t this happen?” you can explain the project scope, and have new ideas added to the backlog. (This means that if you as the Project Manager weren’t part of the original project approval, you might need to grab a meeting with the person who did to get clarity!)
2. Create Content / Clean Data ASAP
   Whatever your project, you know that a tech tool is only as good as the “stuff” you put in it. Your new website will need content; your new database will need clean data to import. Once you have a design container and know what data you’re going to migrate, start getting it ready. Waiting until the day you can start entering the information into your new system is a surefire way to delay your launch date.
3. Invite Your Backseat Expert(s) to Join You
   You know that one person (or 3 people) in your organization who are already bombarding you with questions about what the finished system will look like? They’re one of your best resources on this project! Rather than remaining “backseat drivers” and voicing anxiety and opinions from afar, consider bringing them in sooner. They are usually someone with influence in your organization – a Marketing Director, a board member, a high level donor, or your Executive Director – and their input can help avoid mistakes before they happen. The more you get their feedback along the way, the more time and money you’ll save from backtracking later.
4. Get It On the Calendar
   Your implementation team is likely to provide you with certain tasks to complete (beyond cleaning data or writing content). At the beginning of your project you should have a kickoff call that will give you an overview of timing, roles and responsibilities, and relative effort level required by your team at different phases of the project (ask for this, if you don’t get it). Generally, the bulk of your team’s time work will happen at the very beginning (the first month or two) and at the very end (testing and training). Identify your helpers ahead of time as much as possible and make sure they know they need to have time available (several weeks to a couple months, depending on the size of the project) for project tasks. As you proceed, you should have regular check-ins with the implementation team to stay on top of what’s coming up over the next week or two. The sooner you book time on calendars, the easier it will be to get what you need so the project can keep moving forward on schedule.
5. Be Willing to Speak Up
   Every organization encounters risks and issues during a project. If there are questions or concerns that come up through the process, we implore you to please speak up and let the implementation team know. The sooner a problem is raised, the easier it is to handle. Save yourself costly changes after the fact by speaking up and sharing as soon as you have concerns, no matter how small.
   
   Speaking up is a critical part of the testing and training phase as well. Empower your testers and trainees to share their challenges. You’ll be able to address them up front or make changes before it’s too late. It will give them confidence to use the system once the training wheels are off and you’ll get the changes you need to make the system work for your team. Win-win. We cover more on this in our previous blog post.

Partnership Is Key

When you are the Project Manager of a technology project, communicating, coordinating staff schedules, understanding what the agreement is, and keeping your eye out for any potential issues are integral parts of your role. You’ll want to make sure your driver knows exactly what you need along the way, so they can accurately navigate the trip while monitoring your time and budget appropriately. Of course, we would love to be the driver to guide your next project. Email support or contact us to get started.