MAINTAIN AND STABILISE YOUR PROJECT - Create and maintain a project timeline
Our experience: our project timeline was originally put together by one of the team members to try to make sense of the multiple and various strands of activity taking place in our project. Its value was seen by the other project members and they began to add to it too. Thus, it evolved to become a team document which attempted to depict the very ‘mess’ of our project – not just the research elements, but all of the others things taking place in and around the project: from team meetings to meetings with potentially interested parties, to conferences and away days, to project paths that came to a dead end. It provides an enduring and creative narrative of our project trajectory and its particular interdisciplinarity.
Why?
A project timeline is a particularly useful tool not only for identifying how far the project has travelled but also to assess how your project’s particular interdisciplinarity has been shaped. It is invaluable when evaluating and taking stock of a project. The timelines can be about anything to do with the project (both output and process) and should be accessible to all involved to be able to add to in whatever way they see fit.
More often project timelines are typically represented in a linear fashion – with a start, middle and end. Often projects depend upon a Gantt chart approach with key milestones that need to be met throughout the life course of the project. Whilst both are very useful and valuable tools they are often restrictive in terms of what they contain and who has the right to add to them.
How?
Rather try thinking about your project’s timeline as a way of representing the project and all of its entities in a much more creative and holistic fashion. For example, rather than just containing key milestones, what about representing points in the project where things have gone wrong, unsuccessful elements and perceived ‘failings’ (see Appreciate and account for failures). Or maybe items which are non-work related – an evening out, the birth of a team member’s child; the ‘excess’ of the project (see also Time out from work matters).
Think about the timeline as being more than just the typical linear list of project targets, but instead as a representation of everything and everyone involved in the work to date.
Example
Here is part of our project timeline to give you an example. This particular snap shot represents a period of approximately four months in our project. It contains key project elements including the various strands of research, but also around it are various symbols and events which took place during this time – including reflective workshops amongst the team, attendance at conferences, and the influence of materials and meetings with particular stakeholders.