{"id":362,"date":"2015-09-01T09:17:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T13:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marialatimore.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2018-06-12T06:14:25","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T10:14:25","slug":"project-management-tips-nonprofit-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marialatimore.com\/project-management\/project-management-tips-nonprofit-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Management Tips for Nonprofit Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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While all of these tips apply to managing projects in both nonprofit and for profit organizations, oftentimes nonprofit projects are about implementing programs to serve a public constituency, and that distinction makes these tips even more necessary and valuable.<\/p>\n

So, here are some of my key tips for project managers in nonprofits to help to make projects more effective, less stressful and deliver the goods.<\/p>\n

Know Your Stakeholders<\/strong><\/p>\n

A stakeholder is anyone who is impacted by your project. Stakeholders include people both inside and outside the organization, such as project sponsors, business users, the IT team, clients, patients, vendors, government agencies, the general public, etc.<\/p>\n

Project managers must understand the needs, interests, concerns, constraints, and roles of each of their stakeholders, and must also know what they need from each stakeholder to deliver a successful project. To understand and leverage stakeholder information, project managers should complete a formal stakeholder analysis early in the project, ideally during project initiation.<\/p>\n

There are \u00a0methods for performing a stakeholder analysis. Beginning with each stakeholder\u2019s name and role, a good analysis will consider the following qualitative information: influence\/power level, interest level, concerns, perceived benefits or disadvantages of the project, perceived support or resistance to the project, and the level of current and required commitment to the project.<\/p>\n

The stakeholder analysis should be the basis for a larger stakeholder management plan which will help the project manager to continuously understand stakeholder interests, align stakeholder goals with project objectives, and effectively manage stakeholder expectations.<\/p>\n

Establish Trust & Credibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

Great project managers work hard to build strong working relationships based on mutual trust and credibility with all stakeholders. They do this by actively listening and reacting to stakeholder\u2019s interests, communicating honestly and consistently, and helping stakeholders to understand what\u2019s in it for them.<\/p>\n

To work effectively with stakeholders, project managers need to uphold their commitments. They must consistently do what they say they\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n

Do Risk Management<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my experience, the risk management discipline is often overlooked or used in only a cursory manner when projects are planned and implemented. This is unfortunate, as spending time on risk management is one of the most important things that a project manager can do to improve success.<\/p>\n

Identifying potential risks\u00a0and solutions<\/b>\u00a0before they actually happen can save lots of pain and anguish in the midst of a busy project. My guess is that many project managers either don\u2019t know about planning for risks, don\u2019t want to think about worst-case scenarios, or just don\u2019t see that value of spending precious time considering the \u201cwhat if\u2019s\u201d of a project. This is too bad, because time spent on risk assessment pays for itself. When problems occur and you need solutions, they\u2019ll be there!<\/p>\n

Business Requirements (and Business Knowledge) Matter<\/strong><\/p>\n

When projects are implemented the project manager gathers detailed information about what the program, service or system is supposed to do from a functional perspective, and this document becomes the business requirements. The program or service is then implemented, based on these requirements and all requested changes are put through a change control process to determine their impact on project scope, time and budget.<\/p>\n

Preparing effective business requirements is more of an art than a science. That\u2019s because one can\u2019t get a complete and accurate assessment of the business requirements until the rubber hits the road and the project gets underway. Knowing and using best practices certainly helps, and I\u2019ve found that high-quality business requirements will have all of these characteristics: Correct, Unambiguous, Feasible, Necessary, Prioritized and Verifiable.<\/p>\n

Having a working knowledge of the business helps, as does having experience in compiling business requirements (or, ahem, calling on the services of an experienced project management consultant!) I have learned that bringing Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) onto the team is an effective way to add beneficial program and business knowledge to the implementation. And, as always, project managers knowing how to ask the right questions at the right time is a valuable skill to have.<\/p>\n

Plan Outcome Measurements Early<\/strong><\/p>\n

Collect data, measure results, test alternatives, question assumptions. In today\u2019s environment successful nonprofits excel at measuring their program outcomes to analyze their impact and help drive improvements. Implementing an outcome measurement strategy will provide learning experiences and enable nonprofits to continuously assess, measure, and improve their programs.<\/p>\n

Some key factors for effective outcome measurements:<\/p>\n