When does an NFT project need a project manager?
I wanted to delve deeper into the topic of NFT. Having fast glanced at the landing page, I became interested in the offer and realized that I wanted to become a member of a Hatathon. Fortunately, it was possible to fill out the form without having a team and a creative that would have to be worked on further. And since I can generate ideas and implement them on my own, I knew that I would definitely come up with something along the way.
“I’m going there; I don’t know where.” This phrase could become the slogan of 2022 because, since the end of February, my geographical location and direction in life have changed frequently. It turned out that you can adapt to this, although not immediately. After several months of rapid change happening to me, the question “Do you know what change management is?” brings a smile.
Unsurprisingly, I decided to register for the Ukrainian online Khataton 3.0 NFT Edition almost instantly. And yes, I write the word “haTaton” correctly, as the organizers put deep meaning into this name, but more on that read below.
I went to the hatathon “for fun,” without the goal of creating a masterpiece, although such a possibility is acceptable. And even more — without expecting to win a prize of €5,000. I wanted to get deeper into the topic of NFT, and the program included 2 days of training separately for beginners and advanced users of NFT platforms.
Where can you find your team? First of all, it is worth looking around and understanding what is happening everywhere. And after registering for the hatathon, the participant connects to the event via Slack. There, on the intro channel, I posted a short self-presentation with a hashtag that I am looking for a team with which we will create an NFT project. But I didn’t want to wait for something unknown passively, and, as a project manager, I decided to act.
Among messages of new members, my attention attracted a text from a girl who was a marketer with a similar experience. She accepted my proposal to become a new team.
After seeing a message from an artist she suggested, I invited him to join us.
Having gathered the three of us for the first discussion of our future project, we realized that we had “reached a dead end.” Having different life and professional experience, we could well become a team, complementing each other. But, according to the conditions of participation, it was necessary to create a concept for the project and understand what to build it on. And with this we had difficulties.
The next day, when I saw a post by a designer among the new self-presentations, who also came without a team, I invited him to join us. Later, I was surprised that by simply “pointing my finger” at the designer’s text, among the latest self-presentations, I intuitively chose someone who had also studied at Beetroot Academy a little earlier than me and with whom I had already established contact on Linkedin.
So we became a team in which I took over the function of the project manager, and for the rest of us, the roles were evident, and we had to create a creative project on the topic of hatathon.
How to start a project from nothing? To begin with, we audited the talents and other resources available to the team. Our artist painted several paintings from a series that coincided with the theme of the khataton. And we might take photographs of these works as a basis, but what to do with them next?
Our project could be based on a visual object: painting, drawing, illustrations, graphics, design, prints, memes, etc. The space for creativity is almost limitless. And here, many questions have appeared, the answers to which must be had in a strictly stipulated time frame.
To understand how we want to see our future product (a creative submitted for consideration by the jury), we spent a lot of hours in discussions. From time to time, they were “politely persuasive” since our artist’s painting had visual elements that did not allow us to fully present it as an art object on this hatathon and build a marketing strategy to promote the future NFT object.
And besides that, it was necessary to register the name of the project with its description and an indication of the category of the creative, which cannot be changed. It is not easy for people of creative professions to switch to the “rails of commerce,” especially since we did not know each other. The process of discussion and formation of the concept of the project was intense. Delay increased the risk of the team being excluded from the list of participants. However, I was able to steer the discussion towards the intended goal, and we were able to complete this phase on time.
The team plan, timeline, and milestones. As I said above, participation in the hatathon included 2 days of training with lectures by experts from different areas of the NFT field. For our team, the beginner level was more useful, but it was also interesting to listen to lectures for advanced participants in the recording. And yet, being present online, there is a chance to get answers to your questions immediately. Therefore, in the first days, I made a schedule of events, meetings, and critical points (milestones), as well as determined the communication channels of the team and the fact that all information on working on a creative is contained in one place, that is accessible to everyone.
Each team on the hatathon had a pair of team mentors, with whom the dates of checkpoints were pre-assigned — mandatory 5-minute phone calls with the team lead (manager). Missing a checkpoint meant that the team was excluded from the list of participants. My team always came together for such calls, and we talked about the current results and difficulties in the process of working on the project.
The team mentors’ comments indicated that they had no idea that our team members had only met each other a few days ago. It was very nice to hear that for me as a project manager.
In addition, each team had the opportunity to get advice from a group of expert mentors. And here it is for me, as a manager. It was necessary to be active in order to have time to grab a 30-minute slot in the expert calendar for our team. And then coordinate the processes in the team and communication with the expert so that the consultation is productive for us.
As a result, the work schedule in this project turned out to be very tight. In our team, besides me, there were 3 people who, in addition to their primary work, needed space for creativity in creating creative and related elements for the hackathon. And also — time to discuss the work process, agree on details, and consult with experts. Nevertheless, we managed to meet all the deadlines of this schedule.
The process of creating an NFT object. Question; “What do we want to express, convey through our creativity?” was the hardest for the team. The topic: “Ukraine: past, present, future” is very sensitive, if not painful, for all of us. The event is called haTaton, because the Hata is a symbol of the home we are defending today. For more space for variation in future work, we decided to take all 3 periods of the theme.
There were a lot of objections from all sides regarding the objects and individual elements in the image taken as a basis. This is art kitsch, which in itself is not always and not easily perceived by everyone. And in the context that our artist suggested, and even with the changes made by our team after lengthy discussions, the reaction of the experts was, to put it mildly, “great amazement.”
The marketer and I could not explain to the artist with any arguments that, in such a context, it would be impossible to promote the image on social networks. And also, through other channels, and besides, it will be challenging to sell it as an NFT object.
Fortunately, during the consultations, the experts found weighty arguments that convinced the artist and allowed us to make more suitable versions of the images that became the final creatives for the NFT collection.
Agile and coaching are the power. During the implementation of this project, I was once again convinced of this since they became my main tools for working with the team. Coaching has always helped me; its using in the process of communication with strangers allowed us to move forward without obvious conflicts, although, at times, there was some tension in the dialogue.
Looking back, I see that we used all 4 values and 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto, and this approach helped us move forward effectively. We shared thoughts and task blockers in our chat during the day; every evening, we called the team together, and everyone discussed the project’s current situation.
In addition, we had constant communication on the processes in the project, both with the organizers of the hatathon, and with mentors and experts. From the very beginning, I built my work processes in such a way as to avoid the “key role” of one person, on which everything is closed.
We are all adults and are capable of being responsible for our tasks and actions. I can’t say that the team immediately adopted this approach, but some later, colleagues appreciated its productivity.
By the end of the first week of the hatathon, my personal circumstances went in such a way that I had to focus on solving my issues and stop participating in the hatathon. By this time, I understood that thanks to the already built internal processes and schedules, it would be possible to leave the team without losing performance in progress.
Even at the 2nd checkpoint, I asked the team to insure me because I was on the road, and there was a risk of being left without the Internet. Joining the call 30 seconds later than the others, I heard how confidently my team began a dialogue with the mentors. And after their introduction, I joined the conversation. This situation showed that the team could cope with the project without me.
My colleagues received my message about the change in circumstances without joy but with understanding. For this, I am very grateful to them. The next day of the hatathon was very tense for us, and together we participated in all its events. I warned the organizers and team mentors about the change of the team leader and asked them not to remove me from Slack Hatathon. In the evening, as usual, we discussed the current day and plans for the remaining 3 days before the deadline for submitting our creative, and I transferred the role of the team lead to our marketer.
Results and conclusions. We can leave the project in different ways. Once, in an interview for the vacancy of a project manager, I was asked: “What will you do if the current project does not have any documentation on it and the history of changes/development of the project in online resources too?” Answers may be different, but knowledgeable people can guess why this happens.
With this in mind, I chose a different path. Not being able to be as involved in the process as before, I became just an observer. Or rather, another mentor, the most interested in the project’s development. Periodically looking into the team chat and seeing the possible difficulties, I expressed my opinion. But in general, the team coped well on their own, which was good.
The creative has been completed and uploaded as an NFT object to the platform. A presentation was created for it and submitted to the jury in the semi-finals. This means that everything was done correctly, on time, and properly according to the requirements of the initial conditions of the khataton.
Numbers and outcomes. 1560 people registered for the hatathon; by the first deadline, 226 teams announced the name and description of the creatives (1–5 people per team), and only 108 teams passed all check-points and submitted ready-made projects for the semi-finals. 13 teams were selected to participate in the final, and we did not go there.
The jury evaluated the creatives according to the following criteria:
• TOPICS: Correspondence to the theme of Khataton and involvement in one of the three areas — Ukraine’s past, present, and future.
• ORIGINALITY: How this NFT will be different from other works: artistic, social component, marketing, etc.
• MARKETING AND SOCIETY. Working with the community during the hatathon: how well thought out the marketing strategy is, understanding where to look for potential buyers to promote the created NFT.
• PRESENTATION: How well the work was presented.
• NEXT STEPS: how clear is the future plan for working with NFT after the event.
According to the jury, our project scored 72 points out of 100 possible. And in the overall ranking — it took the 29th position out of 108 submitted finished projects. But being new to the NFT and not knowing each other before the hatathon; eventually, our team did an excellent job.
