Let’s face it. No one creates a Digital Humanities project all on his or her own. And personally, I like it that way. DH is at its best when people from different backgrounds come together to solve problems, share research, create new knowledge, and improve teaching. This exciting mix, however, leads to a particular set of challenges. How do we keep inter-disciplinary, inter-generational teams working together in a reasonably harmonious fashion while also meeting the deadlines set by funding institutions?
To help answer (or at least start talking about) this question, I would like to propose a session on Project Management. Some of us at THATCamp have served as official project managers, many more have been been unofficial managers, and almost everyone leaves a THATCamp with at least one idea for a new DH project they want to implement at their home institution. I realize that there is a BootCamp already in the works on this topic. But I think it could also work as a session with people of differing levels of experience with DH projects all pooling their knowledge. So here are some questions we could discuss:
- What do people wish they had known before starting a DH project?
- For those contemplating their first DH project, are there pitfalls that can be easily avoided?
- What parts of a DH project end up taking the most time/using the most resources?
- How can projects scale up from a pilot project (often with only two or three people) to something longer term?
There is, of course, a large body of literature on Project Management, typically aimed at corporate managers and software development teams. I wonder how useful those concepts would be in Higher Education. If they are helpful, is there a way to make them more palatable to academics and alt-acs?
These are just some preliminary thoughts. I look forward to discussing them (and so much more) come the weekend.
2 comments
Tad Suiter
June 1, 2011 at 4:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Don’t forget the people who will be coming to THATCamp who may have never been project managers. Many of us have nevertheless been managed on projects, and would likely have an opinion or two on what went well and what did not– and why. Often, I’d argue, the people who are being “managed” can answer these questions as well, if not better, than their supervisors.
Amanda French
June 1, 2011 at 5:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Definitely a good idea. Tom Scheinfeldt is sharing his wisdom about how to manage projects in one of the workshops on Friday (see chnm2011.thatcamp.org ), but a more free-ranging discussion would be good too.