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Hi, Just a quick update on our idea of having a Project Managers' Forum. Thank you to all the people who got back to us. We received over 30 positive responses, so clearly, there *is* interest, and it is worth pursuing this further. Thank you also to the people who have expressed interest in helping out with the organization of the session: we will certainly take you up on that! We now need to work out some of the practical details, and we will post an announcement to this list as soon as we have more specific information. Delphine & Jennifer -------- Original Message -------- Subject: DLF Project Managers' Forum Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:03:15 -0400 From: Vinopal Jennifer <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: Vinopal Jennifer <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Hi, At the DLF Forum in April, a few of us started having corridor conversations about the idea of holding a DLF “Project Managers’ Forum” pre-conference, mirroring the “Developers’ Forum” that has existed for many years (and that mostly targets programmers). The idea would be to have a half day session (probably on Monday morning) where DL project managers could share their experiences, strategies, challenges, etc. It would be open to anyone who manages DL projects (large or small), and more generally to anyone interested in the topic of DL project management. Here are some examples of issues we could talk about: * How do you manage cultural differences among the project participants (IT staff vs. catalogers vs. content specialists)? Acting as a translator. * How do you come up with a realistic time line? * How do you control the “feature creep” in a project? * Staffing: how do you ensure continuity despite grant-funded short- term positions and natural staff turnover? * Managing a portfolio of projects: how do you prioritize? how do you control the impact of the projects on each other in terms of resource allocation? * Managing expectations: how do you communicate about time lines and other issues with the various stake-holders of a projects (including top library managers) * Which software management tools have you found useful and not too much of an overhead? * How do you find project management training that relates to the (non corporate) Digital Library environment. * How do long-term maintenance issues and legacy projects affect your operations? * Are there specific initiatives that DLF could take to help DL project managers? So we would like to gage interest here. Who among you would potentially consider attending such a session? (You can just reply to [log in to unmask] with a quick "yes I would be interested". Of course if you have more elaborate suggestions or comments, we would love to hear about them.) Thanks, Delphine Khanna (U. of Pennsylvania) and Jennifer Vinopal (NYU) -- Delphine Khanna, Digital Projects Librarian University of Pennsylvania Library (http://www.library.upenn.edu) ITaDD Department, Room 335W, 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 Tel:215.573.9086 | Fax:215.898.0559 | Email:[log in to unmask]