Graduate Project Management Fellowship

Serving as a Project Manager for a digital humanities project (DH PM) is a unique professional development opportunity. The PM helps manage the planning, implementation and conclusion phases of the project, and coordinates the work of the project team. The PM is key to the success of any DH project.

The CDH runs a semester-long fellowship to help onboard new PMs and provide them a firm basis in the methods of project management for the digital humanities.

The PM for a digital humanities project is usually a graduate student or postdoc. In general, the PM is not required to have specialized content or technology expertise. Excellent organization, communication and time-management skills are essential for this job. Graduate student PMs must always receive compensation for their work.

For CDH projects, the PM is expected to devote approximately 5-10 hours a week throughout the grant cycle to managing their project. They are assigned a CDH mentor, and should join the CDH PM Fellowship during the first fall of the academic year in which the collaboration takes place.

DH PM responsibilities typically include:

• Maintaining regular communication with team members, partners, and groups engaged in project work
• Preparing and updating project documentation
• Scheduling and facilitating project check-in meetings, capturing meeting notes
• Tracking progress on project goals and outcomes
• Helping to manage project scope and change
• User experience, design, and acceptance testing
• Monitoring budget
• Managing undergraduate research assistants (if applicable)
• Communicating project progress and issues to the CDH
• Project publicity (updating project page, blogging) and contributing to the project launch

The PM can have other roles on the project as well, such as research, encoding, programming, creating visualizations, etc.

Managing a DH project advances knowledge in subject fields, builds technological skills, and provides a deeper understanding of digital humanities theory, practice and community. The experience builds useful professional skills rarely taught in the humanities context.

The skills a DH PM develops:

• Organizational, analytical, time management and communication skills
• Ability to conceptualize, and succinctly articulate, complex research plans
• Ability to model work: to translate ideas, concepts and “vision” into concrete activities, tasks, and outcomes
• Ability to estimate time and resources needed to complete goals
• Ability to develop a plan: tasks, schedules, and cost estimates for personal and team work
• Ability to choose and implement appropriate project management methodologies and tools
• Ability to track and analyze progress (planned vs. actual)
• Ability to identify risks and problems, and to propose and select solutions
• Change management: anticipate and manage unexpected changes in all aspects of project lifecycle
• Coordinating and supervising effective team-driven work
• Motivating people and keeping teams working effectively together
• Conflict resolution

The CDH Project Management Fellowship runs every fall term, meeting once a month (total 4 meetings), and covers topics such as project management theory, an overview of tools, methods, and templates, and special topics such as team management, conflict resolution and time management. The PM Fellows cohort is usually made up of 3-6 graduate students, and provides a helpful and supportive community to share ideas and experiences.

Meetings are 75 minutes long, held in-person at the CDH, and led by CDH Project Manager Mary Naydan.

All directors of CDH collaborations should nominate a project manager to join the PM Fellowship cohort during the first fall of the academic year in which the collaboration takes place.

Members of the Princeton community not currently collaborating with the CDH may express interest in joining the cohort. All applicants must be current Princeton affiliates.

Student applicants must be enrolled at Princeton during the term of their fellowship. The candidate is responsible for confirming their eligibility with their department DGS, and assuring compliance with the Graduate School Employment Policy, before the interview.

Graduate student fellows receive $500 for the term, upon successful completion and attendance of all four meetings. Faculty, staff and postdocs are not eligible for the financial award.

Openings for the fall PM cohort close on August 1.

Candidates and/or project directors should email Mary Naydan to express their interest in the program. The candidate will be interviewed before acceptance into the program.