Project Planning#
Project Laboratory#
We are going to work out the process for designing your digital research project in this session.
Good – or shall we say effective – projects begin with a plan. It’s true those plans may change over the life cycle of the project. Your questions may change. Your funding may change. Even the shape your “final” research project takes may change.
What separates projects that turn into something from those that stall out and go nowhere is the formulation of a reasonable, informed, and purposeful plan.
Why?#
Most workshops teach you something: a skill, a method, a practice. But what are you going to do next? Sure, you’ve learned how to start to use Python. You might have done some text analysis or written your first webpage, but the real trick is figuring out how to take what you’ve learned, plan for what comes next, and make your project come to fruition.
None of those things can happen without a plan. If you walk out those doors today without a plan for what your next steps will be, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to make much progress. There is no possible way for us to teach you everything you need to know, and there’s no way for you to learn anything well enough in one week that you can walk out those doors and do everything you want to do.
This session will help you#
Identify existing resources (and maybe even a few you haven’t thought of yet)
Identify your needs
Create a workplan
Find new resources
Communicate your plan
Project Planning is a skill#
There may be workshops available, or they may be those in your community or at your institution who have project management experience or are Project Management Professionals (PMP).
Remember your goal, and account for the time, labor (expertise), and money you have available for your project.
There is a maxim that a project can be 2 of the 3 following things (but not all 3): fast, cheap or good.
You need both a long term view of your project as well as a short term view. Good project planning helps you keep these views in balance. This will help you avoid both and irrational belief that things will just work out magical thinking) as well as increase you ability to adapt to changing circumstance without being overwhelmed by “failure.”
Brief project plan#
You can have something very lightweight like a Project charter.
Template: List the following.
Project title:
2-sentence abstract:
What resources do you have now?
What have you learned this week that will help you?
What additional support will you need as you take your next steps?
Short project proposal (2-3 pages)#
If you are planning a long-term project at scale, or across multiple departments, something more robust like a MOU would be recommended.
Template: What follows is a template for writing a short project proposal that, once developed, will position you to move forward with building partnerships with other institutions or for pursuing funding opportunities. Though this template does not directly reflect a specific grant narrative format, the short project proposal includes important project-development steps that can later form the basis for a wide variety of grant narratives.
Project Details#
Title:
Lead Applicant/PI:
Funding Opportunity:
Proposal Deadline
Abstract#
150-word summary of project (1 short paragraph)
The Need#
Statement of the conditions that make the project necessary and beneficial for your key audiences (2-3 paragraphs).
Impact and Intended Results#
A brief explanation that combines your environmental scan and your research goals. Why is what you are doing necessary and different in your field – and maybe to more than just scholars in your field. (4-5 paragraphs)
The Plan#
Rough outline and project calendar that includes project design and evaluation, and possibly a communications plan, depending on the grant with major deliverables (bullet-pointed list of phases and duration).
Phase 1 (month/year - month/year):
Phase 2 (month/year - month/year):
Phase 3 (month/year - month/year):
Project Resources: Personnel and Management#
Description of why the cooperating institutions and key personnel are well-suited to undertake this work (list of experience and responsibilities of each staff member, and institutional description).
Sustainability#
If applicable, describe how this project will live beyond the grant period. Will it continue to be accessible? How so? A data management plan might need to be specified here.
“Failure” as learning#
“I’m pretty comfortable with failure because the path to learning runs through failure. It’s not something that we think about a lot in the humanities, though in the digital humanities we’re getting to a point where I think this is is becoming more obvious. In other disciplines it’s much more evident that failure and learning are so closely tied.” - Towards a Taxonomy of Failure
Respond to the following in the thread in Slack:
Do you have an example where you experienced the types of failure described here?
Which types of failure are most affected by Project Planning? Personnel? Resources? Time?
Are there types of failure that are more permanent than others?
Reflection Prompts:#
How do you think about failure and learning in regards to DH projects?
Good project planning does not guarantee success, but it gives you the best chance of success, or for a ‘failure’ you can still build upon.
Rafia says: Project planning is as much about managing expectations as it it about successfully completing a project.
Good failure: Research is complicated! You may not answer your question or meet the criteria you set for success as originally envisioned, but the ‘failed’ project is still generative. Think of it as a learning experience and a foundation that you can build upon.
Bad failure: failure of communication or planning, does not generate alternate options or possibilities.
If failure is a part of the process, what does that change about how you might approach projects?
Large Scale Project#
Scoping#
How does this project charter handout apply to your project?
How does this apply to a project you have in mind or have worked on in the past?
Can you fill out any of these sections for your project? or Thinking of some of the projects we have looked at, how would you answer these questions for those projects (ex. Viral Texts).
How would using this tool for project planing help you in your process?
Begin by thinking about the end#
What does “done” look like?#
Most digital projects come to an end at some point, in one way or another. We either simply stop working on them, or we forget about them, or we move on to something else. Few digital projects have an end “form” in the way that we think of a monograph. We rarely think of digital scholarship in its “done” form, but sooner or later even if they’re not “finished” – so to speak – at some point, these projects end.
Done can take many different shapes:
It can morph into something new;
It can be retired;
It can be archived in a repository;
It can be saved on some form of storage media;
It can run out of funding;
And sometimes you are done with it!
So it’s helpful to think about what you want “done” to look like before you begin, because then you always have a sense of what will make a satisfactory ending to the work you’re about to embark on.
Activity#
Imagine what your project is like when it’s over. Imagine what it means to you to set it down and walk away.
What will you do with it?
How will you know if it succeeded?
Who was the last person to care about it?
Why?
Now, in 2-3 sentences, describe the purpose of your project to a non-expert audience.
Does it solve a problem?
Meet an institutional need?
Put an existing resource to new use?
Serve a pedagogical goal?
Identifying audiences, constituencies, & collaborators..#
Who will participate in, use, and/or benefit from the project?
Is there a specific group already asking for this new resource? Who?
The “general public” is too general an audience. The more specific your audience is, the more likely you are to meet their needs.
Is there anything that my audience can bring to my project?
Your project always has an audience.#
You are an audience
Your dissertation advisor
Your dissertation committee
Researchers interested in your subject area
Researchers working on related questions
Projects typically satisfy more than one audience’s need. The key to identifying a well-defined audience is research and creating several narrow profiles.
Sample 1:#
Needs/Interest: Faculty who teach undergraduate linguistics classes are looking for an engaging way to teach fundamental linguistics concepts through guided practice and repetition.
Resources: They have access to Chrome books, laptops, and tablets in the classroom with limited Wi-Fi. They are unable to update software frequently, but they can use web applications.
Limitations: This audience needs clear and specific documentation and has a low threshold for errors.
Sample 2:#
Needs/Interest: My dissertation committee is interested in hearing how my model of financial data offers a new approach to predicting corporate fraud.
Resources/Relationship: The committee is familiar with some of the models that already exist. They have deep familiarity with the qualitative indicators for corporate fraud. They can connect my data and my research to a wider community of scholars who have the datasets that I need to finish my work. My advisor wants me to succeed.
Limitations: My committee is skeptical about technology and feels uncertain about how they will evaluate my work. They have expressed concern about not knowing how to “check” if the model is accurate.
If you are working on a project that is institutionally based (such as creating a platform, creating a resource, or building a teaching tool), you may have institutional partners who have a stake in your project’s success. It’s a good idea to identify these folks and consider their interests and needs as well.
Possible stakeholders include: your library, colleagues, OIT division, academic program, a center, or institute who shares your mission and/or goals.
Activity:#
Audience 1:#
Needs/Interest:
Resources/Relationship:
Limitations/Concessions:
Audience 2:#
Needs/Interest:
Resources/Relationship:
Limitations/Concessions:
Audience 3:#
Needs/Interest:
Resources/Relationship:
Limitations/Concessions:
Audience 4:#
Needs/Interest:
Resources/Relationship:
Limitations/Concessions:
Internal Stakeholder:#
Needs/Interest:
Resources/Relationship:
Limitations/Concessions:
Environmental scan (literature and technology review)#
Conducting an in-depth environmental scan and literature review early in the planning process is a critical step to see if there are existing projects that are similar to your own or that may accomplish similar goals to your potential project. Sometimes, the planning process stops after the scan – because you find that someone has already done it! Typically, a scan is useful in articulating and justifying the “need” for your research OR to justify your choice of one technology in lieu of others. Performing an environmental scan early and reviewing and revising it periodically will go a long way to help you prove that your project fills a current need for an actual audience.
Successful project proposals demonstrate knowledge of the ecosystem of existing projects in your field, and the field’s response to those projects. Scans often help organizations identify potential collaborators, national initiatives, publications, articles, or professional organizations, which in turn can demonstrate a wider exigency for your project. Following a preliminary scan, you should be able to explain why your project is important to the field, what it provides that does not currently exist, and how your project can serve as a leader or example to other organizations in such a way that they can put your findings to new issue.
Below are suggestions for finding similar projects and initiatives in and outside of your field:
Federal grant agencies maintain repositories with white papers from previously funded grant projects:#
Search and browse through literature in the field and resources for digital tools and innovations.#
Some examples of places to look include:
DH
GLAMS
Science & Social Science
Other places to check:#
Search preprint repositories, academic repositories, and data warehouses for similar datasets.
Check conference programs and gray literature from your field and related materials.
Discuss your project idea with your colleagues inside and outside of your own department at your institution, at conferences, and even with peers in different fields.
Activity#
The key to the environmental scan is to see what a wider community is already up to. How does your project fit into the ongoing work of others in your field? What about in a related field that addresses a similar question from another perspective? Is someone already working on a similar question?
Brainstorm where you might go to look for digital projects in your field that use emerging or new forms of technology. Try to list 3 places you might look to see how others in your field are adapting their methods to use new digital tools.
What technologies/methods do most people use in your field, if any, for capturing, storing, exploring/analyzing, or displaying their data? Why do they tend to use it? Is there a reason why you want to use the same technologies as your colleagues? What are the benefits of doing things differently?
Does your project fill a need or stake new methodological ground? How do you know?
If there aren’t any technologies that do exactly what you were hoping for, has anyone else run into this problem? How did they solve it? Will you need to create a new tools or make significant changes to an existing one to accomplish your goal?
Once you have gathered information about what is “out there,” what are the limits of what you are willing to change about your own project in response? How will you know if you have stretched beyond the core objectives of your own research project?
Resource assessment#
The next step in our process is figuring out what resources you have available to you, and what you still need in order to accomplish your project’s objectives.
Types of resources#
Data
Technology
Human
Institution
Financial
Data, digital assets, collections#
Do you have the dataset you need to do your project? Finding, cleaning, storing, managing changes in, and sharing your data is an often overlooked but extremely important part of designing your project. Successfully finding a good dataset means that you should keep in mind: Is the dataset the appropriate size and complexity to help address your project’s goals? Finding, using, or creating a good dataset is a core part of your project’s long-term success.
Activity#
Resources#
What data resources do you have at your disposal? What do you still need? What steps do you need to take during the course of your project in order to work with the dataset now that you have a general sense of what the data needs to look like if you are working with either textual or numeric data?
No?#
If not, do you know where to go to find it?
Is it digitized?
Do you need to create it yourself?
Is it under copyright?
Is it free to your institution? Over the web?
Who could you talk to about finding, accessing, or digitizing what you need?
Yes?#
What format does your data need to be in so that you can begin working with it?
Is the data in a format that you can use?
If not, how will you get it into that format? How long will it take? Are you unsure?
What is the biggest challenge that your dataset presents?
What should go well?
What makes your dataset interesting?
Do you plan to make your dataset open? If yes, how will you do that? (GitHub?)
If you do not plan to make your dataset open, where will you store it? Will you make it available to fellow researchers upon request? How will you communicate that?
If you do not know what format your data needs to be in, whom will you ask for more information?
Will your efforts and cleaning and preparing data be useful to anyone else? Would you be willing to share your methods? How would you do so?
Will your data be standardized so that it can be combined with other datasets? What standards will you use?
How will you fill gaps?
How long will it take for you to be able to answer all of these questions? (You are unlikely to be able to do it all today.)
Technology#
Name all the types of technology that you will need to go from “raw data” to “final project.” If you don’t know the name of the technology, you can just describe it.
Example: “First I will scrape texts from poetry websites like poets.org from the internet using a Python library called Beautiful Soup. Next, I will clean my data using Python, explore the data in NLTK to look for co-ocurrances of the words “painting” and “sea.” I will store my results using GitHub, and visualize the results using the D3.js libraries. I will use these visualizations to write the second half of my article. When the project is done, I will deposit the dataset into the Academic Works repository.”
Do you need a server or other cloud-computing environment?
Do you have someone who can work on the public-facing presence of the project (design skills)?
Where will you host your project?
How much time do you think will need to be dedicated to tech support for the project?
Do you need mobile devices? 3D printers? other hardware or software?
Will you choose open source platforms or proprietary ones?
Example#
Have: I have basic knowledge of Git and Python and some NLTK.
Need: I need a more powerful computer, to learn how to install and use Beautiful Soup, and to get help cleaning the data. I will also need to learn about the D3.js library.
Human resources#
Looking back at the Audiences worksheet, review which of your audiences were invested in your work. Who can you draw on for support? Consider the various roles that might be necessary for the project. Who will fill those roles?
Design
Maintenance and support
Coding/programming
Outreach/documentation
Project management
Locally#
Have you met anyone at this week’s Institute who is working on a similar kind of project that uses similar methods?
Are there other colleagues in your program who are interested in using similar technologies or methods?
Is there a digital scholarship librarian at your college? Have you signed up for the GC Digital Fellows email list?
Who is going to manage the work of the project? Is it you? What if the project grows?
Do you need to bring someone on board who has a more extensive digital skill set? Other content knowledge? Describe what that person would do on the project.
Remote#
Is there an online research community that you could connect to such as an online forum? Blog? Research center?
If you have presented at a conference or are part of a scholarly society or other group, do they have a listserv with people who are interested in the same technologies or research questions?
Do people in your field use Twitter or another social network platform to communicate? Could you create a hashtag for people who share similar research interests and/or technology needs?
Institution#
What resources are available to you through your institution?
What services or support might be available through the your institution? Does your institution have a digital research support network?
Have you applied for internal funding? Where would you look?
Are there resources at your institution for hosting, data sharing, and/or preservation?
Outreach#
Outreach can take many different forms, from presenting your research at conferences and through peer-reviewed scholarly publications, but also through blog posts, Twitter conversations, forums, and/or press releases. The key to a good outreach plan is to being earlier than you think is necessary, and giving your work a public presence (via Tumblr, Twitter, a website, etc.). You can use your outreach contacts to ask for feedback and input as well as share challenges and difficult decisions.
Will you create a website for your project?
How will you share your work?
Will you publish in a traditional paper or in a less-traditional format? Or both?
Whom will you reach out to get the word out about your work?
Is there someone at your college who can help you to publicize your accomplishments?
Will you have a logo? Twitter account? Tumblr page? Why or why not?
Can you draw on your colleagues to help get the word out about your work?
What information could you share about your project at its earliest stages?
Does your project have a title?
Activity#
Is there a project that you know of that seems to have garnered lots of attention either from a broader public or from your own field? What made that project stand out? How did they share their work?
Consider the early, middle, and final stages of your project. What kinds of outreach activities could you fit in at each stage? What audiences would you try to reach? Would they change over time?
Work plans: Scoping and scheduling your work#
Work plans describe the work to be done, the deadlines by which the work will be done, and who will do the work.
What follows are several possible ways to organize your project’s work plan. Project work plans are often organized in one of two ways: By the order of deliverables or tasks OR by calendar year. This may be determined by a grant’s application deadlines, your fellowship timeline, a book or dissertation deadline, or your own arbitrary deadline. If you are applying for funding, you will want to check to see if the grant you are applying for specifies a format for the work plan. You may want to look at examples of previous, successful grants for examples. Most federal grant agencies post vetted copies of previously awarded applications for this purpose.
Creating a plan#
Preliminary questions#
What is the period of performance for the project? (i.e., How long do you have to complete the work?)
Who are the key personnel, and what is their availability?
What are the resources available?
Major areas of project work#
Successful work plans consider the following types of work to be completed during the life-cycle of the project.
Planning and research
Content development (dataset)
Technical development
Design
Evaluation
Outreach and publicity
Advisory committee/consultation with outside specialists
Activity#
Using the outline below or a combination or variation of the two, begin to map out the activities that need to happen (remember to use the worksheets you have already created) in order to complete your project. You may wish to start at the end with your description of the ideal “end” and work backwards.
Major deliverables#
Project plans that foreground the “deliverables” of the project keep the focus on what will be accomplished.
Deliverable 1:
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Deliverable 2:
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Deliverable 3:
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Deliverable 4:
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Component
Staff
Resources
Duration
Calendar driven#
Calendar-based work plans focus on getting the work done by a specific date
Year 1#
Month
Planning and research
Content development
Technical development
Design
Evaluation
Outreach and publicity
Advisory committee / consultation with outside specialists
Year 2#
Month
Planning and research
Content development
Technical development
Design
Evaluation
Outreach and publicity
Advisory committee / consultation with outside specialists
Year 3#
Month
Planning and research
Content development
Technical development
Design
Evaluation
Outreach and publicity
Advisory committee / consultation with outside specialists
Sustainability and data management#
You will need to come up with a plan for how you are going to manage the “data” created by your project. Data management plans, now required by most funders, will ask for you to list all the types of data and metadata created over the duration of the project and then account for the various manners by which you will account for various versions, make the datasets available openly (if possible) and share your data.
Sustainability plans require detailing what format files will be in and accounting for how those files and your data will continue to be accessible to you and/or to your audience or a general public long after the project’s completion.
Librarians are your allies in developing a sound data management and sustainability plan.
Activity#
Very quickly, try to think of all the different types of data your project will involve.
Where will you store your data?
Is your software open source?
What is the likelihood that your files will remain usable?
How will you keep track of your data files?
Where will the data live after the project is over?
Effective partnerships#
After brainstorming your project ideas and assessing your available resources, it is time to scope out potential partners to help fill in gaps and formalize relationships.
Please keep in mind that each project is different. This outline offers suggestions and lessons learned from successful and less successful collaborations. While each project is unique in the way responsibilities are shared, perhaps one universal attribute of successful partnerships is mutual respect. The most successful collaborations are characterized by a demonstrated respect for each partner’s time, work, space, staff, or policies in words and actions.
Identify what you need#
Once you know where you need help, start thinking about who you know who might have those skills, areas of expertise, resources, and interest.
Partnerships should be selected on the basis of specific strengths.
If you don’t know someone who fits the bill, can someone you know introduce you to someone you would like to know? What are some ways of finding someone with skills you don’t have if you don’t know anyone with those skills?
Find collaborators#
Attending conferences and unconferences can be the best way to meet potential collaborators who share similar goals and passions. Informal gatherings are often the best place to chat with folks: “Birds of a Feather” dinners, or affinity group luncheons.
Talk to a grant program office about your project; they may have some great recommendations.
Circulate some ideas on your professional social networks to scope out potential partners.
Identify a good fit#
Talk with a potential collaborator. Introduce yourself by email and schedule a phone call. It’s very important to speak or meet face-to-face with potential collaborators before formalizing partnerships.
Good partners share in the project’s vision and are committed to the project’s success.
Good partners respect one another and appreciate what each one brings to the project.
Formalize partnerships#
Clearly state expectations of work in a written document or contract.
Make sure each partner understands exactly what their contributions will be, when those contributions are due, and who else is responsible for other pieces.
Be sure both/all parties are in agreement on issues such as:
Who takes notes during meetings,
Who manages the budget,
Who is the “decider” on major project decisions.
Determine who the primary contact for inter-institutional communications will be.
Designate staff titles and responsibilities, including a description of job responsibilities over the life-cycle of the project.
Communicate effectively#
Early on, establish communication norms, including regular meeting times, means for meeting (conference calls, Skype, Hangouts, et al), and best ways to communicating in between meetings (i.e., email only), and collect all preferred contact information and publish it somewhere accessible to the entire team.
Use project management software for organizing project tasks, deadlines, and deliverable requirements that makes all of this information easily accessible and visible to project collaborators.
If working with geographically-dispersed collaborators, be sure to schedule face-to-face meetings at a reasonable, yet, regular interval.
Generally, treat all project team members with respect and engage in common courtesies.
Stay flexible#
No project is able to anticipate all problems or challenges before they occur, but simply acknowledging that challenges may arise, and allowing time and budget for those challenges is helpful.
Bad marriages#
Not all collaborations work out as planned, even with the best of intentions.
If there is a major breakdown in communications, or if relationships deteriorate, you may need to break apart partnerships.
Asking for letters of support#
When preparing a proposal, you will need mentors, collaborators, or other interested parties to write a strong letter of support for your project that will help your proposal stand out to the reviewers. Some funders want letters from all project participants.
It is important to respect people’s time when asking them for a letter by showing that you’ve done your research and that you have some grant materials to share with them. Good letters demonstrate some knowledge of the project and recognition of its impact if funded.
Follow these steps when asking for a support letter and for specific types of assistance during the life of the grant, and you should receive a good letter in return.
One month before grant deadline, begin brainstorming candidates for letters of support and note which collaborators are required to submit letters of commitment and support.
Start asking supporters at least two weeks in advance of grant deadline, because they will also have deadlines and other work competing for their work hours. You may find some folks are on leave at the time you inquire, be sure to have back-ups on your list.
Email potential supporters, collaborators:
State why, specifically, you are asking Person A for support;
Be specific about what you are asking Person A to do over the scope of the grant, if anything, such as participate in 3 meetings, 2 phone calls over 18 months; or agree to review the project and provide feedback one month before official launch;
Provide any information about compensation, especially when asking someone to participate (i.e., there will be a modest honorarium to recognize the time you give to this project of $xxx);
Tell supporters what exactly you need to complete the grant application, in what format, and by what date (i.e., a 2-page CV in PDF and letter of support on letterhead by next Friday).
Attach materials that will be helpful for them when writing the letter.
Provide a short project summary that includes the project goals, deliverables, and work plan from the grant proposal draft;
Include a starter letter containing sample text that references that person’s or institution’s role and why they are supporting the project.
Finding funding#
Now that you have started to form
A more refined project idea;
A wider awareness of the ecosystem of existing projects in your field;
A sense of the national, local, or institutional demand for your project;
And a clearer sense of the resources at your disposal
… the next step is to find an appropriate funding source. Below you will find some suggestions as to where to begin the search for funding. As you look for possible funders, below are some guidelines for the process:
Check federal, state, and local grant-making agencies, and local foundations for possibility of grants.
Federal agencies
States also have opportunities for grants, such as state humanities councils.
Private foundations are also possible areas to look.
Check your institution’s eligibility for a potential grants before beginning the application process. Eligibility requirements and restrictions are often found in grant guidelines.
Review the types of projects this program funds, and consider how your project fits with the agency or foundation’s mission and strategic goals.
Review a potential grant program’s deadlines and requirements (including proposal requirements and format for submission).
Identify funding levels/maxes, and keep them close at hand as you develop your budget.
Does your institution have an Office of Career Services? Do they have resources for those interested in external fellowships?
Activity#
Find one or two grant opportunities in your subject area. Consider also looking for fellowship opportunities.
Additional references#
Attribution#
Session Leader: Rafia Mirza
Written by Rafia Mirza.
Based on previous work by Lisa Rhody and a WebWise workshop led by Sheila Brennan, Sharon Leon, and Lisa Rhody.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Our curriculum is based on the Digital Research Institute (DHRI) Curriculum by Graduate Center Digital Initiatives.
This repository contains information for using and contributing to the Digital Humanities Research Institute curriculum