The six external components every project needs

Every community project worth running has the same six external components. Name them at the start; you will not have to fight for them at the end.

In order to manage effectively, a project needs six things visible to the whole team from day one. They are external, meaning everyone — not just the PM — should be able to point to them. If any one of them is fuzzy, that is where the project will break.

The six are: (1) a shared vision or goal everyone can name in one sentence, (2) roles defined so people know what they own, (3) deadlines discussed by working backwards from the end date, (4) a meeting schedule the team has agreed to, (5) chosen communication platforms so people know where decisions live, and (6) community agreements that hold under pressure.

Most community projects skip steps 5 and 6. We are quick to send a Slack message at midnight; we are slow to ask each other what hours we are actually willing to be online. We assume everyone agrees we will respect each other; we never write down what that means. Both are recoverable. Both are easier to set at the start than to fix in week six.

Coming modules walk through each of these in turn. Module 3 covers shared vision and scoping. Module 4 covers roles, deadlines, meetings, and community agreements. Modules 5 and 6 cover decisions and tools. For now, the move is: notice when one of the six is missing on a project you are already on.