Project Managements

Defining the Project:

- I have yet to be assigned anything very specific, but I am on the fundraising team, so I will answer the following questions accordingly.

What is the project supposed to achieve?

- We want to raise enough money to put on a successful film festival and conference, bringing in as many people as we can showcasing ourselves in accordance with our mission statement (to come).

Are the results straight forward?

- I'd say that the results are pretty straight forward. We either make money, or we don't.

Are the deliverables easily measured?

- For the most part yes. Using the example of our Halloween party; they give us their support, and we give them a rockin' good time.

How much effort is required?

- The amount of effort greatly depends on the caliber of the event. It will take considerably more man-power to put on the Halloween party than the Orange Leaf event. The Halloween party has several different elements involved (the drinks, the music, the venue, the BYOFilm..), whereas Orange Leaf has the elements in one convenient package. All it needed was the handiwork of Jillian and some good PR.

How many people or skills are needed? 

- This, once again depends on the size and complexity of the event. Some events will take a hand full of people, and some may take the whole class.

How complex is this project? 

- Ditto the last two questions. I think that finding the balance of all of these things is an important topic for discussion in the next week or so while we decided the events we're going to put on. We only need to be putting out big effort for big bucks, but too many small fundraisers might exhaust our supporters.


One thing that I got from the readings this week was to have a clear idea of what the goal is. I think this step gets taken too lightly because of the fact that it's a no-brainer. The important part of that statement is not just that we HAVE the goal but that we don't lose sight of it. Over the next few months it's going to be really easy to focus on these small projects to the point that we lose sight of what we're doing and why. If we always have the goal at the front of our minds then all the little things will fall into place, because if it doesn't make sense for what we're aiming to achieve then it has no place in what we do. I guess it's sort of like a Prezi. There are a ton of opportunities to zoom in on subtopics, which is a really cool part of the presentation software, but eventually we'll have to zoom back out to see how it all makes sense.