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The Art of Crushing Deadlines

Managing Church Communication projects is madness and insanity. You are constantly bombarded with new projects from ministry leaders, and at the same time you are working on large church-wide communication campaigns. The deadlines mount and mount.  If you let them, the madness, the insanity . . . the deadlines will control you.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  You have the power to crush deadlines and balance your ministry life.

Here are 5 ways you can crush project deadlines every time:

1. Create Project Management Systems

    a. Develop a Project Management Guide

        1. Communicates what, when, how and where events will be communicated.

        2. It includes how projects will be managed between the communications and ministry leaders.

        3. Distribute and discuss project managements systems with each ministry leader.

        4. Make sure the document is included in every new hire package and review with new hires accordingly.

2. Design Project Request Form

    a. Create a Web Form or Google Doc accessible to ministry leaders.

        1. Be as detailed as possible including event name, contact person, description, event date, etc.

3. Utilize a Task Management Software 

    a. Create a Web Form or Google Doc accessible to ministry leaders.

        1. Use one of the following resources to schedule deadlines, assign tasks and manage projects – http://basecamp.com/https://www.activecollab.com/https://workflowy.com/

4. Schedule Project Kick-Off Meetings

    a. Meet with ministry leader(s) responsible for event.

    b. In your meetings, always under-promise and over-deliver your execution.

    c. Within the kickoff meetings, spend time gathering every piece of project information and schedule deadlines and expectations.

5. Leverage Team Members, Volunteers, and Contractors

   a. Utilize your staff and volunteer team to execute projects.

   b. Read this post  about recruiting, training and managing volunteer teams.

These 5 action steps will help you crush deadlines and create margin for creativity, something your team needs and should highly value. Reducing the stress that is inherent with deadlines and giving your team creative margin will allow you to become a great asset to your ministry leaders and your church as well as keeping you from burning out.

How do you manage projects and meet deadlines?