Project Management & Evaluation

One strategy that has worked well for me in the past has been to identify the different skill sets within the team and try assign tasks that make best use of those skills. Periodically asking what tasks interest members, in addition to their skill set,  and aligning those when possible encourages commitment vs. compliance. By soliciting input, even if requests can't always be met, team members feel they have a "seat at the table."

I don't think I have enough experience with project management and evaluation to provide tips. But I can say one of my challenges with project management is breaking down a project into tangible deliverables, estimating the amount of work, and finding the right staff to implement the project. Would love to learn from others

We have been using Smartsheet at CSTE for a while and it is great for dashboarding, building Gantt charts, adding dependencies for your timeline, and including notification emails.  You can also manage permissions between internal teams and/or external partners.
https://www.smartsheet.com/ 

I am new to project management so I do not have much experience in this area, however our office as a whole has been moving to using Microsoft Teams for a lot of our needs. For my work thus far on my CSTE project, we have been able to establish a channel that allows us to share files which is very useful as we can then work on the same documents together in real time. Additionally, there is application in the Teams system called Planner that allows us to map out all the elements of the project. It functions like a Kanban board and allows team members to stay updated with where various elements of the project are at, to establish steps and deadlines, and to sort pieces of the project by a variety of methods (who they are assigned to, when they are due, the topic area they cover, etc.). These tools have been working well for us because as we are not on site together it is harder to have casual check-ins with people on the project. Instead this provides an area we can all reference and keep up-to-date with our current progress.

I am also very new to project management.  Most of my project management experience has been through (trial and error) while coordinating/managing the ELC grant. We have used TEAMS a bit for managing the ELC grant workplans and budgets and it has worked okay- I do not love it though.  One of the things I find really helpful is to have a timeline with important milestones/achieve-by dates/due dates, etc.  I also think it helpful to identify specific leads for different aspects of the project and team members the leads can lean on/delegate to.  Pairing the above two (identifying a point person responsible for each aspect and setting a series of deadlines) helps everyone to manage time and structure the activities. However, I have also found that it is necessary to check in with team members prior to due dates to identify and mitigate pitfalls.  One of the downfalls from my personal experience has been learning too late that something or someone is delayed/behind.

Last year, I was fortunate to receive a scholarship from the Public Health Informatics Institute to attend a course, 8 Steps to Success: Designing and Managing Public Health Information Systems. This course walked us through 8 phases that every information system follows, from conception to deployment and to disposal. A summary of the 8 phases is available here:  https://journals.lww.com/jphmp/fulltext/2019/11000/building_informatics_savvy_health_departments__the.17.aspx
This course not only gave me brand new ideas about public health informatics, but also provided a lot of resources on project design and management in general. I keep referring back to the 8 phases in my actual work. I think many of us tend to skip some phases, which almost always result in suboptimal outcomes. I also learned from this course that communications and partnerships are key components of success. (Do we want to go fast, go alone; or we want to go together, and go far?)
You can already tell that I would highly recommend this course. It definitely has wide applications in my work.   

Thanks for sharing that resource Ying! I've found that Microsoft Teams has good applications for keeping track of projects, including "Lists" and "Planner" (we've moved to Teams during remote work of pandemic). We also use Teams to have team chats where we can all update our progress on a group project, including reacting to team members' posts with encouragement or praise-- which goes a long way in keeping up team morale.