Project Management

You need a project manager

This is a person whose responsibility it is to make sure everything gets done, and gets done at the right time. This person's job is to

* control the budget
* write and control the project plan
* keep an eye on the "big picture"
* assess the various risks to the project and take mitigating action
* recruit team members
* chair meetings and ensure they are minuted properly
* facilitate communication between team members
* answer questions that team members have
* contact team members regularly to check on progress
* resolve disputes between team members
* find ways to overcome problems team members have in achieving their objectives
* reassign work if team members are not able to do it in a timely or appropriate manner.

It's very very difficult to project manage properly if you're also doing a lot of the monkey work yourself. It's tough to think about fine detail and "big picture" at the same time. Therefore, (in my opinion), the project manager should have NOTHING else to do during the runup to the convention but project manage.

This means the project manager would not:

* run pre-reg
* recruit volunteers
* book bands and evening shows
* work on the public show
* print out road signs
* etc.

You need a project plan

Can you answer questions like:

Our venue keeps putting us off for a week at a time about signing a contract. When is the last date when we NEED to cut them off and find a new venue?

When do we need to have the t-shirt graphics finalised by to get them ordered in time?

Do we have enough people to do everything that needs doing in time for the event?

What are the most urgent tasks right now?

Working with volunteers

Things will go right

Jugglers are lovely and helpful and have all manner of unexpected skills that you don't. Take advantage of them!

Things will go wrong

Just because someone is a lovely person does not mean they are reliable.

Just because someone is your friend does not mean you can work with them effectively.

Just because someone sounds good and says "Yes I can do that" a lot does not mean that they can or will do those things. Perfectly reasonable and pleasant people are often very bad at predicting what they will be able and willing to do.

Being able to talk up a storm about a given subject does not always mean real expertise.

All manner of personal problems can crop up at the worst of times and prevent people from being able to do what they promised.

Make sure you can fix things when they go wrong

Keep all the paperwork in one place.

Get people to submit receipts and invoices promptly and store them somewhere safe.

Get everyone using official email addresses and find a way to store ALL email traffic somewhere safe. This way, when someone goes AWOL you will be able to refer to all past correspondence.

Keep all electronic documents in one place. Organise backups.

Minute ALL meetings and copy the minutes to your official document location. Take the minutes of one meeting to the next meeting, and double check that all the things you agreed to do were really done.

When anyone conducts business by phone (with suppliers, venues, bands, or even each other) make sure you have a record of what was agreed. One way to do this is to follow up each call with an email summarising the conversation.

Make sure you are in regular contact with people and are aware of how they are doing. If someone's lagging behind, get on top of it sooner rather than later.