Organizing, keeping track and making sure things get done

[joelg236]

I am going to be taking a bigger role in our team next year, and currently I am struggling with how to effectively organize, keep track of people and get projects done. Thankfully, I am starting now (For post-season projects), which has given me some insights as to the difficulties of organizing a team.

A few things that I have tried :

• Google calendars
• Facebook private group
• Google groups
• Dropbox
• Email
• Skype meetings
• Google hangout meetings
• Meetings 3 times per week
• Meetings once every 2 weeks and weekly project recaps (With me and the project leader)

So far, these have not worked nearly as effectively as I would have hoped.

Basically, we have a team that had 17 members last year, 7-12 of which are still going to participate next year. Of those 7-12, I have only managed to contact 5 (By contact, I mean talk to more than once). Of those 5, I have been able to consistently (a few times per week) contact about 3 of them. OF THOSE, I have been able to get a real amount of work done with 2 (1.5 maybe) of them.

Basically, we can't actually handle that little participation and reaction to our post-season activity. A good example of how little interest I am getting is our google group. After 3 days of uptime, one person has joined.

So CD, I am looking for your help. Feel free to leave constructive criticism on how I have been doing my job, as I clearly am doing something wrong.

How does your team do this? Is texting the entire team really necessary to get people's attention (Every time) ? Is there a better way to find a "gathering space" for the team? How do I effectively manage meetings to make them effective, quick and make sure people actually attend? How do I make sure projects get done?

I am open to suggestions, answers to my questions, answers to questions I didn't necessarily ask and questions about our team.

Thanks,
Joel from Alberta Tech Alliance