Template planning

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Coco Gubbels

Part of the projectplan is the planning. This may be one of the most boring and time killing tasks to do, but it will give you and your team major insights!!

Start with these five fases:
– Preparation
– Research
– Writing
– Editing
– Publication
– Postmortem or evaluation

Per fase you will need to gather all the tasks to be done, by everyone in the team. If you know who is going to be in your team, you can ask them to fill in this template to give input to you as coordinator.

Tip: by letting them fill in the timing and duration they will become true owners of that task in stead of you giving them something to do. They need to think about when they can start and when they will be finished doing the task. It is also a commitment to the team to execute this task as filled in by themselves.

If you have many people in your team, this may become a pretty large file, but you can keep it as simple or as complex as you want or need it to be.

Tasks in phase 1 (examples):

  • Kick off meeting: planned
  • Kick off meeting: agenda shared
  • Periodic meetings: sending invitation to teammembers
  • MoU: signed by all teammembers
  • Folders for documents in place
  • Communication channels in place

Tasks in phase 2 (examples):

  • Research in country A
  • Research in country B
  • Research in country C
  • Compare findings
  • Resume research in country A on topic X
  • Resume research in country A on topic Y
  • Resume research in country B on topic Y
  • Compare findings
  • Final checks

Tasks in phase 3 (examples):

  • Writing first part for country A, B and C to share as first publication on date D
  • Writing / preparing publication for country A (follow up)
  • Writing / preparing publication for country B (follow up)
  • Writing / preparing publication for country C (follow up)
  • Writing / preparing publication or podcast serie
  • Writing / preparing video including filming
  • Writing marketing texts and pre-publication texts

Tasks in phase 4 (examples):

  • Editing video for first publication (including voice overs)
  • Editing podcast part 1
  • Editing podcast part 2
  • Editing tekst first publication
  • Editing tekst for country A
  • Editing tekst for country B
  • Editing tekst for country C

Tasks in phase 5 (examples):

  • Publication of first article and video
  • Pre publication (marketing) of podcast
  • Publication of podcast part 1
  • Publication of podcast part 2
  • Publication of tekst for country A (follow up)
  • Publication of tekst for country B (follow up)
  • Publication of tekst for country C (follow up)

Tasks in phase 5 (examples):

In the final phase you just need to agree on how and how many times you will get back together for a review and evaluation. It also depends on how publication is planned: with just one big bang or a shared first publication with follow ups per country or topic.

“If you don’t know where you are going. How can you expect to get there?”

Basil S. Walsh

Working (together) online

We are all working from home these days. Want to have some tips and tricks on how to work together online efficiently and produtively?

Since I had a great time talking about our experiences with video calling among colleagues, I decided I’d share some tips and tricks with you. Even though it is, of course, serious business, you need to have a laugh every once in a while… so I put together a bingo card that you can use at the next conference call or webinar.

In the second document you will find lot’s of do’s and dont’s about how to preprare your video calls, what mistakes to avoid and how to keep your energy up during the day.

For example, try to mix your day with videocalls, one on one telephonecalls that allow to take a walk outside and some time off the phone or laptop. And put everything on mute.

Another example is to plan short calls with people that are not in you regular meetings to stay informed as you would have been walking down the hall or standing at the coffeemachine. It is important to keep having these informal and in-between-conversations to be informed about things you are now missing out on.

And set up a calendar with your housemates to make sure you have enough time for home, house, kids, animals and or work. Secondly it creates an overview of who needs a quiet corner or room to work without being disturbed.

Interested in more tips on project management, investigative journalism or working in teams? Follow my weekly newsletter on Linkedin!