How and why to use the MOCHA project management method

Blog: Monday Project Management Blog

Project management is a complex process that involves managing people, roles, goals, timelines, and more. That’s why in addition to having a great project management tool like monday.com, it’s essential to have a method for managing projects in an organization.

The MOCHA method is a method that helps establish clear and defined roles within a project.

In this piece, we’ll look at what the MOCHA method is, how and why to use it, and how to use monday.com

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What is the MOCHA project management method?

To put it shortly, MOCHA is a project management framework that helps teams understand and define the different people involved in a given project – manager, owner, consultant, helper, and approver.

This method helps avoid confusion, overlap, and even chaos and anger due to people stepping on one another’s toes when working on a project together.

Here are the five roles in the MOCHA project management method:

Manager: The manager is the one running the day-to-day operations of the project, assigns responsibilities and makes sure that each person is fulfilling his/her role. This includes asking questions when necessary, reviewing progress, assisting when there is an issue, and more.
Owner: The owner is the person who is responsible for the total success or failure of a project. Think of him/her as the big boss of the project. Each project should have only one owner.
Consultant: Advises regarding aspects of the project and is brought in to work if necessary.
Helper: Helps with aspects of the project as needed
Approver: This is the person that signs off on parts of the projects or decisions in the project. This can be a manager or a higher-up in the company such as a board chair, director, etc.

The benefits of using MOCHA project management

The clearest benefit of using MOCHA project management is that each person on the team has a clear and defined role when it comes to working on a project. This can avoid clashes between team members who are uncertain about what role they should actively be taking in completing a project. Not only that, there is a central point of contact (the manager) that is the address for issues that arise throughout the project.

MOCHA project management also helps teams boost their communications. Each person knows who to communicate with and also which information to share regarding their progress. This can help projects be completed on time.

Lastly, MOCHA can help people stay accountable and committed to projects. For example, a manager who wants to hold an employee accountable to a project may assign him/her as the Owner of a project, arguably the most important role in the project.

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Examples of how to use MOCHA in the workplace

The MOCHA project management method can be used in a wide range of projects and fields. Here are some examples:

Marketing campaign
- Manager: Project lead
- Owner: Marketing director
- Consultant: Social media manager
- Helper: Content writer/graphic designer
- Approver: Creative director
Software development
- Manager: The person overseeing the project
- Owner: The client
- Consultant: Software architect
- Helper: Technical support team
- Approver: The QA team

The MOCHA method can be applied to any type of project in a wide range of fields. It simply helps teams remain organized, not step on each other’s toes while working, and makes sure that each team member knows what he/she is responsible for throughout the project lifecycle.

Best practices for implementing MOCHA effectively

Make sure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined from the get-go. Every person involved should understand where they stand on the MOCHA scale and what their role involves.
Set clear goals and objectives. Everyone should understand what they are working on and which goals they are working towards.
Adopt technology to keep you on track. Project management tools such as monday.com can keep everyone coordinated and in sync throughout the project.
Give people an easy way to give feedback and communicate. Everyone should feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas through open and honest communication. This goes for feedback as well.
Hold meetings on a regular basis to check-in. While we don’t promote meeting too much, it’s important to check in regularly to make sure everyone is on track and on the same page.
Note and celebrate successes. Finished with a big part of the project or tackled an obstacle along the way? Celebrate the accomplishment to keep everyone motivated and engaged.

How to use monday.com to implement MOCHA project management

monday.com’s project management tool is the perfect way to implement the MOCHA project management method.

monday.com gives you the chance to plan projects from start to finish and to assign team members to specific tasks, workflows, elements of a project, etc. With our automation features, you’ll be able to alert certain members of your team after parts of a project have been completed, or (gasp!) if things are running behind. This means that the project manager will always be on top of things as well as have an overview of what’s going on.

With our guest view, consultants and helpers are able to view boards and tasks that are relevant to them and not the entire project. This is critical when there is sensitive information included in a project that you don’t want non-team members to have access to.

When assigning team members different roles in the MOCHA scheme, you can create boards or dashboards to focus on certain areas of the project, keeping everyone hyper-focused on what’s important to them.

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FAQs

Take your project management to the next level with MOCHA

Planning projects and assigning responsibilities to different team members can be tricky in many cases. This is where MOCHA project management combined with monday.com come in to play. By creating clear roles for each team member and building your task management system on monday.com’s work OS in coordination with the MOCHA system, teams are prepared for success and to complete projects in-sync and on time.

The post How and why to use the MOCHA project management method appeared first on monday.com Blog.