This is a great question Phil, and one that all projects grapple with. Questions I would ask myself when planning a project and deciding whether or not to hire an administrator would include things like: How efficient am I at tracking budgets/using our financial system/processing travel claims/etc.? How familiar am I with the administrative networks, systems, and processes at my organization and can I easily navigate these? How much TIME do I think I will end up spending on this type of work as a result of my skills (and how much time do I even want to spend on administrative tasks)? If I think about my time in terms of dollars per hour, will I be spending MORE “money” putting my time towards administrative tasks, or would it actually be less money to hire a project administrator who will complete admin tasks much quicker and more efficiently than me?

I also think complexity is a big factor too (less so than how much money you have). Being the Project Manager of CFICE, I can say that it gets pretty complicated processing transactions (payroll/travel/invoices/etc.) and tracking budgets for the various funds/working groups/hubs associated with our project. Over our grant term, we have involved over 60 different partners, plus countless students, and a handful of contractors, which has meant that tracking where our grant money goes, how it’s used, and how its reported on is a lot of work. We wouldn’t be nearly as productive research-wise if we had to spend our time overseeing all the minute details of administration that our Project Administrator currently oversees. And I don’t think it has to do with the amount of money either, unless your initial project budget was pretty complicated. I think it has to do with project size and the number of partners involved because if your project is smaller, and more straight forward (e.g. partner A gets X amount for Y single project), then you will see far fewer transactions taking place and far less complexity when it comes to reporting on those transactions.

Overall, I truly believe CFICE wouldn’t be as efficient or productive in terms of our on-the-ground work and knowledge mobilization without the help of our Project Administrator, because we’d be spending a whole lot more time just tracking the money. So I believe that hiring a project administrator is almost always worth it, even if you’re hiring the person part time, because then you can focus on the parts of the project that you’re best at, and that matter most–doing the work, sharing the results, helping the people you most want to help, and ultimately, creating the change you want to see!