How do I manage my project?
How you plan the project management depends very much on size and type of project. It is useful to see management in relation to the work that you will do and assign management roles thereafter. Ask research support for help. We will have some standard text you may use. But it must be adapted to your project!
Roles:
These are typical roles that you may want in your project:
- Coordinator/project leader (scientific or non-scientific leader)
- Scientific or work manager (typically manager of the Work Package leaders)
- Work Package leaders
- Project administrator (non-scientific) (this may be a helper or secretary to the coordinator)
- IPR manager
- Dissemination manager
- Innovation manager
- ++
It is important that the roles are assigned to named persons (get theses person and their names as early as possible in the writing process) and that you prove that they have the skills to fill their roles. Refer to earlier experience and track record of the individual persons. Roles may be combined and one person may have more than one role.
If you have a scientist leading the project it is advisable to add a role of a non-scientific administrator to support the scientist. If the coordinator is a scientist you may consider combining the role with the scientific manager. For administration of bigger project you may also mention that you are heavily supported by the organisations research support team. It is important to show that your project has the sufficient management capacity. Do not underestimate the importance of this.
You add the roles of IPR, dissemination and innovation managers to strongly point out that you take these activities seriously. This is also important for strengthening your impact section. These persons may also be WP leaders. To further strengthen the work on these activities and the roles mention that these managers will cooperate with the organisations legal department/advisers, the commercialisation unit (e.g. Inven2), TTO and the press/publication/web responsible in the organisation.
In H2020 innovation is a key issue. Be sure to assign a role as innovation manager to thematic program projects.
Structure:
You must also outline a structure for the management of the project. It may look like the figure below. But you must adapt this to your specific project. Smaller projects will have a much simpler structure. It is also advisable to check the text in the consortium agreement you will use because there will be a description of your management in the CA.
Decision processes and voting:
Ask for input to this part and make it in line with the consortium agreement. It is important that rules for decisions, how conflicts are handled and the voting mechanisms are clearly described.
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