Project Management

Makerspaces are magical places of infinite possibility, but not places of infinite time or resources. In order to keep our eyes from being bigger than our stomachs, we have adopted this set of procedures for managing community projects. 

We do this with the following principles in mind:

• We will not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
• We recognize that everybody has a life outside the makerspace, and therefore our only expectations will be honesty and good-faith effort.
• Slow progress is still progress.

How we run community projects

1. Whenever the board votes to adopt a project, we list in the meeting minutes which makerspace member is leading that project. We will also assign a board member to act as liaison to that project (unless the member leading the project is on the board).
2. The project leaderis expected to provide a progress report at every board meeting, either in writing or in person, until the project is complete.
3. The board is expected to provide the necessary resources to complete the project, either directly or through delegation.
4. If the project involves multiple people, it is given a “swim lane” on the task board and a channel in Slack. So that everybody remains on the same page, coordination for the project must happen in that Slack channel, not in direct messages.
5. If sensitive information is needed to complete the project, then it is requested (but not provided) in Slack. Once received, the information is stored in either Bitwarden or in private Google Docs on the shared admin drive.
6. If the project involves multiple steps, then the date and time of that project’s next meeting is either listed in the progress report, or scheduled during the board meeting before moving on to the next item of business.
7. Projects remain in the “Old Business” section of the board's agenda until the board votes to declare the project completed or cancelled.

Celebrating our victories

We celebrate completed tasks and projects at every member potluck/show and tell, and then remove those tasks from the task board so they do not accumulate forever. We also celebrate completed projects by posting about them in Slack and on social media.