When starting this project, and having learnt from the last one, I knew it was paramount to set up a structure from the beginning that allowed clear project and time management. The first meeting was important as it required admin tasks and would influence future meetings and tasks. One of the first things we did as a group was assign roles based on the project and what was involved. We did this so we could have a project leader from the beginning that dealt with communications to the client. This made it easy for us to get started with research and I think added an element of professionalism which was important considering we were working with a real client. We also decided to have a different session leader for each meeting. This eased the workload of the project leader and ensured our meetings were coherent. I was responsible for leading the first meeting so I set up an agenda that outlined what needed to be accomplished. This proved to be very effective and was continued for every subsequent meeting.
During the first meeting, one of the first things we did was to set up a Trello board. This gave us a platform to organise, delegate and visualise tasks to do. We adopted the Kanban method to use within Trello because it made it easier to see who was working on a task. This simplified the process of delegating work and minimised the need to waste time sorting out who is working on a task. Trello was very efficient as an organisation tool and I am glad we started using it from the beginning of the project.
As well as Trello, we also made a private Miro board. This was a great collaborative tool that we used regularly to easily share ideas. The first meeting included curating a single project proposal, assigning job roles and establishing some questions to ask our client for the next meeting. These tasks were all carried out in Miro and followed the agenda that was previously created. Moving forward, the Miro board naturally took on a timeline format, where every meeting would be laid out to the right-hand side of the last meeting. This was not decided by anyone in particular, but made it easy to go back and refer to previous meetings. I’m glad the Miro board took this organised format as it saved a lot of time when looking for information.
During the first meeting we made a preliminary Gantt chart. This outlined the key dates of the project and allowed us to visualise the process we had to follow. Although it was basic at first, it was useful during the research stage of the project. A couple of weeks in however, we concluded that a more comprehensive Gantt chart would be useful. The new chart was made roughly half way through the project and not only allowed us to see what had to get done before the final pitch, but also documented who had worked on previous tasks and for how long. This chart was made in Trello due to its task delegation functionality. Due to the use of Gantt charts, we adopted the waterfall approach to project management. We decided to use waterfall methodology because it suited the time frames we were working to as we mostly had a different agenda and set of tasks each week. Working to a deadline meant we had tasks to stick to and needed to ensure they were complete before client meetings.
Our plans did change throughout the process and the meetings with the client were really informative, sometimes changing our weekly tasks. To manage changes and setbacks we had private video calls where we could personally discuss project matters and we also used a private group chat to ask quick questions. If I could do something differently within the project, I would not use the group messaging service and instead use Trello. Group messaging via Teams did not cause any problems but using Trello would have kept all organisational matters in one place.