Project management within volunteering organisations

Something about the structure of the article

Within volunteering organizations, leading of projects is being done without the classic authority, as seen in companies. This means that all volunteers have to be motivated by other factors, such as the feeling of purpose or the process of the project. To create a motivational atmosphere it is also important to focus on communication and on involving the volunteers. The Danish scouting and guiding organization, Det Danske Spejderkorps, was drawn upon for references and case examples. The objective of this organization is to create an inspirational environment with possibilities for development of the members. All in all, this article strives to explain some of the learnings about project management that can be drawn from a volunteering organization.

Project management without classic authority

Other models could have been chosen so why did i choose this one? (I like that it is simple, very few factors) mention some other models from articles A study were done in 2006 on what makes a scout group attractive to be in. A scout group typically consist of 5 branches, each branch spanding between specific ages, e.g. scouts from 6-8 years old or 12-16 years old. For each branch there will be one or more leaders. There will also typically be a group leader, a treasurer and a board. Though the study were done specifically on groups, some of the findings are also true for project groups within scouting. The relevant findings are discussed below.

From the study we know that four factors are especially important for groups of volunteers, these are Team Spirit, Ambition, Simplicity and Management. The study has shown that non of these factors can be replaced by the others and that leadership is the adhesive binding the others together.

The four factors that are shared among most attractive groups within Det Danske Spejderkorps.

Team Spirit

It is important that the project group see themselves as a team and try to solve their challenges together in stead of separately. The project group has to meet on a regular basis, both in professional (here: scouting) and social context. The meetings has to be carried out in a professional and result-oriented way. It is often an advantage if the project group consists of members with different backgrounds, this being different geographical locations, different educations, different working experience and different scouting experiences.

Team spirit can backfire if the team spirit turns in to tribalism. If tribalism occurs the project group is likely to die out, since no new members are taken in when old members leave the group. Tribalism itself might also dissolve the group quicker because the projects are less likely to be innovatiove and challenging, when no new ideas are brought in to the group from the outside.

Ambition

The good project groups accomplish challenging activities with high standards. Most importantly the project group has to have ambitions and a purpose. The purpose of the project group has to be visible and specific, so the volunteers are striving towards the same goal. Therefore it is also important for the project group members to be able to formulate the purpose of the group. Both to be certain everyone knows what they are working for but also to be certain that everyone is able to question and debate the purpose of the project group. Giving the project group a common language to communicate about the purpose ensures that the purpose can be reconsidered and renewed if needed.

Remembering to commend the volunteers and celebrate the victories of the project group is also important. The volunteers need to feel like their effort makes a difference.

If the projects become too complicated, they might become more fatiguing than motivating.

Importance of vision Susan J. Ellis

Simplicity

The best project groups manage to minimize the fundamental conflict all volunteers will have between the time they need to spend on family, work and their volunteering organisation. It helps to have simple routines and standard procedures when possible. Describing the tasks may also help spread them more among the project team members. If the tasks are transparent and clearly demarcated it makes it easier for volunteers to offer their help or to ask others for help.

The danger of simplicity is when routines are chosen over potential new ways of doing the work. If no new ideas get tested anymore the project group might miss out on ways to improve the work. This could mean the group will miss out on opportunities to higher the ambitions.

Management

As seen in the figure, mangement is the adhesive, that binds the other factors together. Good management is both organisational and visionary. On the organisational side the management has to make certain that tasks are carried out and the meetings are planned and executed in a good way. The visionary part is to help the group see the bigger picture and think further ahead. Good management will make it possible to maintain the good team spirit, to carry out the big ambitions and to create the simplicity to make it easy for the volunteers to contribute.

Pitfalls of management within in volunteering project groups is lack of communication. If the volunteers feel that they do not understand the reasons for a specific decision, or that they have not had the chance to be heard in the decision process, they are not always likely to follow their leaders. Another risk is burnouts within management, when the leaders do not manage to ask for help in time. In general it is better if the leader(s) only have the management task, since it is a demanding task. The task of leading is sometimes underestimated among volunteers.

The patrol system; pros and cons

Not obvious to all what the patrol system is - could this be illustrated? Within the scouting organisation, a main principle is the principle of the patrol system. The patrol system is used to teach the scouts to work together when solving problems. Most of the challenges the scouts will be faced with are designed so it takes most of the patrol to solve the tasks. Also the challenges will usually be rather diverse so the different members of the patrol will have the chance to excel. In scout competition it is not unusual that there, besides the 1st til 3rd prize, will be a so-called Turn out prize, which is the prize for the best collaboration. This illustrates that there is a great focus on welcoming everybody in the fellowship and utilise the diversity of the different scouts in the patrol.

Growing up with the patrol system provides a very safe learning environment where it is possible to make mistakes and learn for your self after the Learning by doing and Children leading children principles. For a lot of scouts the principles of the patrol system follow them in their adult life. They wish to make room for diversity and be able to keep learning by doing even though it will lead to a mistake once in a while. Most adult scouts are also very aware of their own flaws due to countless self evaluations and evaluations of the patrol effort. They will also be taught to evaluate others in a good way, but there is far more emphasis on recieving the evaluation for the sake of personal improvement. Importance of evaluations Steve McCurley and Rick Lynch

A problem with the principle of having room for everyone is that the tools for moving or removing people from specific posts are underdeveloped. Tim Collins uses the metaphor of getting people on and off the bus. Here it would also be relevant to look at, if the people on the bus are in the right seats. A big problem for project groups within volunteering organisations can be the wrong people on the bus and no one knowing, how to tell them it is time to get off. It happens that other volunteers will get off the bus, sometimes even a lot, before the person that should leave will be leaving. Likewise people who are in a post or seat that does not fit them will often be unhappy and troublesome to deal with for other volunteers. And yet, it is often difficult for volunteers to touch upon the subject of moving the person to a different position.

Discussion part To be truly ambitious the volunteering organisations will have to realise that there can not be room for everyone everywhere in the organisation. It will be possible to fit most volunteers somewhere, especially when the organisation is big enough, but is important to actively adress the question, if people are in the right place and if they could do even better somewhere else in the organisation.

Communication

More structure What do you want to get from the figure

It is important to establish a common language for the members of the project group.

Establishing a common language within the project team is especially important when working with volunteers. Volunteer work is value based and values are more often felt than thought. It can therefore be difficult for a lot of people to express the values they feel are central to the organisation they are part of. If a common language is not established it can be very difficult to agree on a shared purpose of the project. There is also the risk of the project group thinking they agreed on a shared purpose, that turns out not to be so common once the actual work gets started. This can lead to great frustrations within the project team. Communication covers both the top down communication from management and the communication between the project leaders and the project team members about the tasks of the team member. A way to motivate the team members is for the project leader to ask how the team members are doing with the tasks. It will provide information about how the tasks are coming along. It will also make it easier for the team member to ask for help if needed and it can provide the feeling of efforts being noticed.

Involvement

More structure

Many volunteers prefer to be involved in the decision making concerning their projects. When you are part of making the decisions you also understand the reasons behind the goals and strategy. When you understand the goal and the strategy of the project you can feel certain that you are contributing the right way. It therefore provides a better working environment for the volunteers if they take an active part in the decision making concerning the project.

When the volunteers are involved actively in the decision processes, it is possible to demand both seriousness and ambitiousness about the task. Once the project group manages to establish an ambitious and professional team, it will provide a feeling of pride to be part of the team. Team members will therefore strive even harder to deliver well done tasks for the team. When the team feels good about themselves there will also be more room for fun activities in between the more serious activities. This will further support the team spirit of the team.

How is this subject relevant

Why is this relevant to APPPM ; Because many of the same tools apply. Because this is taking the usual tools and applying them to another field where they fit perfectly even though it is not the main target of the class. Volunteering organisations is a perfect place to develop and practice new project management tools with less risk involved.

The Company aspect

A company culture that focuses on the employees’ development provides value to knowledge based companies, because the employees are the most important resource of the company. Furthermore the resistance to change within the company can be minimized by focusing actively on communication and on involving their employees. This will help the company adapt more to a quickly changing market. Additionally, volunteering organizations provide insights into different motivational factors that drive its members to actively engage in projects, knowledge that can also be used in companies.

Possible to use many of the same tools for project management in volunteering projects.

If the drivers that drive volunteers can be used to drive paid employees you will have employees that do their jobs, not for the money, but because they love doing what they do. This will make them give their fullest. Google use this for new inventions. Wiki has used this to make the biggest world wide knowledge sharing site.

It is interesting to know what works for volunteers since some of the same elements might be possible to use for paid motivating employees.

The Societal aspect

If we can prepare our citizens at an early age to be ready for their working life it will make it easier for Denmark to be ahead of other countries

Why the scouting organisation; Because it makes sense to look at an organisation who are part of developing and preparing children and young adults for their future life. Therefore it also makes sense to introduce good project management models to them that they will be able to try out, work with and get to know in an environment where there is room for learning by doing and learning from your mistakes before it is used in the projects they will encounter in their adult years. Both to produce future leaders, but also to produce future team players who knows how to be lead by others and how to run both projects, portfolios and programs. Means they have been introduced to these tools. Know how to use them and are aware that you might get better results by using them - unlike all the project leaders who decide not to use tools because they've personally concluded that they don't need those theoretic tools in their real life problems.