Digitising History - Section 2.1

The right of Sean Townsend, Cressida Chappell and Oscar Struijvé to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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	Digitising History CHAPTER 2 : MANAGING DIGITAL RESOURCE CREATION PROJECTS
	2.1 Introduction What justifies yet another introduction to project management? A wealth of literature already describes every imaginable aspect of management, project-related or not. Why re-invent the wheel? The answer is simple: this chapter does not attempt to re-iterate existing literature on project management. Rather it intends to: Make existing literature and good practice accessible. Link some key management issues, concepts and practice to the specific topic of this guide - the creation of digital resources from historical documents. Do so whilst emphasising the value and importance of flexibility and, in particular, re-usability of digital resources, within and beyond the scope of a project. In the context of this guide, good project management does not necessarily imply more management, or the use of formal methods and techniques. The number of people involved in a project, their level of experience and the size and complexity of the tasks at hand will influence, among many other factors, what constitutes the right amount and the right level of formalisation. Examples exist of situations where there is plenty of (perceived) management activity, but very little project indeed. A significant number of projects within the historical disciplines are externally funded. This implies that aims, objectives and project deliverables, as well as the available and required resources and evidence of good project management, have to be made explicit in order to maximise the likelihood of obtaining financial support. In essence, this chapter states a strong case for carefully planning, organising and monitoring the process of creating a digital resource. These activities will be easier and more successful if they are underpinned by clearly defined aims, objectives and deliverables, and an analysis of opportunities and risks. This chapter will not describe specific techniques and tools or formal, structured, methodologies for project management. Day (1995) provides a pragmatic introduction to project management with many examples, using a widely available tool, Microsoft Project^®, to illustrate various planning techniques and concepts. Slightly more daunting, and detailed, but certainly useful for more complex projects is the formal method PRINCE, a 'structured method for effective project management', fully described in CCTA (1997). More closely related to the specific scope of this guide is Harvey and Press (1996), dealing with the subject of databases and research methods aimed at the historical community. In particular chapter 4 (Harvey and Press 1996, 73-97) provides information related to management of resource creation projects. Howard and Sharp (1994) give guidance on project management for those embarking on digital resource creation within the context of a student research project, on all levels up to PhD. Student projects are special in that they often have limited staffing (typically one researcher: the student), limited resources and very tight deadlines. Non-student projects with similar characteristics may also benefit from some of the recommendations in Howard and Sharp (1994, 46-66 and 121-47).
	© Sean Townsend, Cressida Chappell, Oscar Struijvé 1999 The right of Sean Townsend, Cressida Chappell and Oscar Struijvé to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All material supplied via the Arts and Humanities Data Service is protected by copyright, and duplication or sale of all or any part of it is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your personal research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. Permission for any other use must be obtained from the Arts and Humanities Data Service. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise, to any third party.