Purposefully managing projects: using project management principles to manage volunteers and expectations.

SINCE I CAME TO WORK AT THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE TWO YEARS AGO, I'VE been impressed with the level of rigor my peers apply to managing programs and services. With 150,000 members in 150 countries, PMI, headquartered in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, is a global advocacy group that sets project management standards; provides access to a wealth of research, training, and information; and advances the profession. As you might guess, PMI doesn't just promote its standards to its members. It also uses them to manage many of its own projects and long-term programs.

During my time here, I've learned that a standardized approach can be particularly beneficial to an association--especially when we're tapping the expertise of volunteers who may be from far-flung geographic areas and who use differing specific business processes to get things done in their daily business lives. The power of project management lies in working in a systematic, consistent, and predictable way. At PMI, we generally break a project down into five activities: initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control, and close. (See sidebar, "Five Essential Elements of Project Management," for further information.)

While entire books, including the one from which the sidebar material has been adapted, have been written about project management processes, the emphasis of this article is on the all-important initiation stage. In this phase, the association commits to the project and establishes its objectives, including defining the project's scope (or content), responsible parties, and deliverables. These objectives are then communicated to--and must be understood by--all stakeholders, including the staff and volunteers on the project team.

David Hillson, a …