A short project coordinator guide

This page is supposed to give people who are not overly familiar with Data4Good project coordination at CorrelAid a starting point.

Scoping - defining your project

A project - by definition - is ...

a temporary effort with a specific start and end date, designed to create a unique outcome.

(source)

It's important to define what your project is about and what it isn't - the process of finding this out is called scoping. Partially, this can also be part of the project itself, e.g. finding out technical solutions or defining problems more clearly. But as a project coordinator, you should ...

• ... set rough time boundaries on the project before the project start (expected end of the project)

• ... define project areas - what should be worked on in the project (data collection? data visualization?)

• ... identify some initial tasks and team roles

• ... clearly identify the logic of problem -> solution -> impact

To discuss this with the NPO, you can use parts of this Mural template (German only) that you deem helpful. We can set a Mural from this template up for you.

After you have discussed the scope and content of the project, it's a good idea to write this down in a project description. For this, we have the Google Docs project home template (German, English). You can make your own copy and fill in the parts that are relevant for you.

Ethical concerns?

If you have any ethical concerns regarding your project (idea), the ethics committee is there to help. You can find more information about the processes and tools here.

Team selection - finding volunteers

coming soon.

Onboarding & Kickoff

Once you have found volunteers to work on your project, you need to get them ready for the project. Your team is ready to work if:

• everyone joined the Slack channel

• everyone has access to data (depends on the project, see Q&A below)

• you had a kickoff meeting

• you have established some sort of project management and everyone has access to it

• everyone has access to a tool to work on code (depends on project, GitHub for code projects)

• everyone has read and signed the data protection and confidentiality agreement if necessary

❓Do volunteers need to sign anything before they start the project?

It depends:

• if you are not working with a partner organization and are solely working with open data, then you are good to go.

• if you are working with data of a NPO, volunteers should sign the "Data protection and confidentiality agreement" (English, German). Please ask in #core-general for support with set up of this document and the process.

❓Can I open a Slack channel?

yes, please do. Please invite @Leo Preu so that he can keep track of the project for the purposes of our internal reporting.

❓How do I invite new people to the CorrelAid Slack workspace?

• use /invite in a slack channel, then select "invite someone new to join this workspace".

❓Where should we put the code?

• best practice is to work in GitHub repositories

  • ask in #core-general for GitHub repositories to be opened in the CorrelAid organization. please specify if it should be public or private.

❓Where should we put the data?

• GDPR relevant data (see here) must not be uploaded to GitHub or CorrelAid's Google Workspace. Ask in Slack #core-general for help with initial data transfer.

  • if you are working with GitHub, you can use .gitignore to avoid data being accidentally uploaded to GitHub (see this folder and the .gitignore in the same repo for an example).

• if you are working with data that is freely available and openly licensed, it is fine to upload it to GitHub. Please add license information in the README.

• if you have questions, ask in #core-general.

❓Where should I put meeting minutes etc.?

• ideally, you should keep project documentation in a place where CorrelAid (employees) have access to so that it won't be "lost" if you ever leave the organization.

• Tools we have:

  • Google Drive/Google Docs in CorrelAid Google Workspace. Fill in this form if you don't have an account yet.

    • if you need access to folders to store your project's content (e.g. local chapter folders, general CorrelAid folders), please ask in #core-general.

  • Slack Canvas: Slack's channel canvas feature is quite useful for organizing links, project documentation and even meeting minutes.

❓How can we organize tasks / do project management?

we can offer two solutions for task management:

• GitHub projects

• Slack lists