What is MOCHA Project Management Method: Tips and Tools to Utilize It

A project involves a lot of people. As a project manager, your goal is not only to monitor the progress and process. You must look to the people responsible for those tasks and accomplishments.

To define or clarify various roles in your project, MOCHA is a well-known method and popular amongst project managers.

In this article, we will show you what is MOCHA project management, how it works, and how to implement it in your project with the help of a tool like WP Project Manager.

What is MOCHA Project Management

MOCHA is a project management method that is used to identify or clarify the roles of different people working on a given project.

MOCHA project management template consists of 5 parts – Manager, Owner, Consultant, Helper, and Approver.

Manager: The person responsible for a project's day-to-day operations. Simply put, he runs the project. Assigns tasks and manages all the team members.

Owner: Every project needs an owner, a person who has the liability for the failure or success of a project.

Consultant: A person who is responsible for giving opinions on different aspects of a project. Can see the smallest part and the big picture, and provide needful advice and suggestions to improve the project's progress.

Helper: The team members assigned to accomplish necessary tasks to fulfill the project goal. They are the engine of a given project.

Approver: An approver approves the project like whether everything is OK. Usually, an approver could be a board member/ chair or project manager himself who can sign on/off parts of the project and make decisions.

What are the Benefits You Get Using MOCHA Method

Is MOCHA relevant to this day in managing your project? How it's going to help your project to achieve more? Well, here are some key things you may love to consider regarding the aforementioned questions –

1. A Comprehensive View of Your Project

MOCHA method helps you to streamline different aspects of a project. If you are a project manager and want to assign predefined roles, you must gather all of your resources in one place, and see through the elements like mission, agility, company culture, goals, etc.

When you keep all these things in line, then your effectiveness may well have a good impact on your project management.

2. Tailored Approach

Each project could be different and may have different constraints and team dynamics.

The MOCHA method can provide a structured approach, and it will help you to tailor the unique needs of a project, propelling the possibility of a better outcome.

3. Establish Clarity in the Process

As you assign the pre-defined role to your team and stakeholders, the course of liability would be well-set.

Each responsible person on a given project knows and understands what should they accomplish. Hence, you can follow up with them with more clarity, and solve any ongoing issues faster than usual.

4. Consistency to Reach the Goal

The MOCHA method usually provides a set of best practices, templates, and guidelines for your project management. This consistency of data can lead to more predictable outcomes, reduced risks, and better control over project variables.

5. Improve Adaptability

Adaptability is a key factor in project management. An open and well-defined PM culture emphasizes everyone knows their job and you have a proper way to monitor their progress.

This led to a process where you can easily address the ongoing issues and problems, and make better solutions faster than ever. This also helps your team members and stakeholders to adapt to the ever-changing situation in an ongoing project.

How to Use MOCHA in a Real Project

Scenario 1. For Marketing Campaign

For example, you are the project manager for the upcoming September Sell campaign. How to define various roles while you are implementing mocha? Here's how it goes –

You: Project Manager (M)

Head of Marketing: Owner of the Project (O)

Paid Ad Manager, Marketing Strategist, and Social Media Manager: Consultant (C)

Copywriter, Graphic Designer, and Marketing Executive: Helper (H)

Creative Director/ Growth Manager: Approver

Scenario 2. For Software Developer

Well, in a software development project, the implementation of MOCHA could be different than running a marketing campaign. If you are a software developer and a project manager, you can define your team players' roles like the following –

You: Overseer of a project

The Client: Owner

Software designer/ Architect: Consultant

Technical Support Team, Software Engineer: Helper

Q/A (Quality Assurance) Team: Approver

Now, you can see, if you distribute the tasks to different individuals to accomplish a single project, the tasks will be well-defined, streamlined, and more achievable at the same time.

When to Implement MOCHA Project Management – Use Cases

This might be a common question around the corner. You like the way MOCHA work, but when to implement it to accomplish a project goal? We've found out situations any project manager may have faced regularly –

1. Team members are out of focus, and losing details in the process

It's a common thing in a running project. Team members are running out of fuel and creative energy and feel the pressure of the deadline. Hence, they copy each other to join the dots, and eventually, your project gets delayed.

For example, you are a PM of a market research brand and on a field trip to survey a super shop. You have told your team member to run the survey with a particular question set to different customers and finally talk to the manager of the shop.

All of the team members did good with the survey, but they couldn't decide whom to send to talk with the manager of the super shop. Also, they forgot to send the daily report because they couldn't agree on the process of the reporting.

If you apply the MOCHA method, you can easily define roles to accomplish this project. If you have a team of five members, easily break down the roles and send two people to go with the question set, assign one of them to take the interview of the shop manager, and another one to create a report. Also, if you have Approver, they could easily draw out a concrete plan to reach your desired goal.

2. The Project Got Bigger and Your Helpers Need More Help

Suppose, you assigned two Jr. executives to collect local data in a specific area. But the area is too big and has a diverse locality. They just don't understand where to get started. And keep delaying the project, and the progression is stuck.

When a project becomes complicated, and the team has no guidelines to tackle the complexities, MOCHA could be very effective. Because you will have a roadmap for your team members to accomplish the job strategically.

There is a load of different scenarios where you may see fit MOCHA would be a very dependable project management method.

The Management Center showcased the following table on how a fundraising project is handled by using this method –

MOCHA Method Best Practices Project Managers Should Know

Are you ready to go for MOCHA in project management now? If so, you should take a look at the following best practices before that –

1. Set Goals and Objectives: The first job is to set the project goal and objectives. The rest of the task would follow suit.

2. Defining the roles: As a project manager, your goal is to clarify the roles to the team members. It depends on your skillset to find the best ones to handle a specific role in a project.

3. Implement/Adopt tools to empower your project: As a modern-day project manager, you should be a step ahead by adopting new technology. Software like WP Project Manager Pro can simply uplift your project process, handle multiple tasks and team members, and monitor the progress.

4. Feedback and communication: MOCHA needs stable communication and synch among the team members, and you can achieve that with WP Project Manager Pro. It has an in-built messaging system, and comments option to keep updated and let others know anything you want in an ongoing project.

5. Short status meetings to evaluate the progress: There's a debate over the impact of meetings. Though, you should join pre-planned meetings to see progress and check all the agendas are met. A meeting without proper agenda isn't viable in any way.

6. Keep up the little celebration flying: If a little part is accomplished, don't forget to appreciate your team members and stakeholders. Also, success or failures both are the way you can re-evaluate your management process.

7. Backup Plan: Keep a backup plan. It includes alternative project management methods and resources to propel your project.

How to Use WP Project Manager Pro for MOCHA Method

If you are a WordPress user, WP Project Manager can help you to implement MOCHA project management with ease.

To implement a successful project management method, you need a tracking dashboard where you can see the progress of the project among the team members. WP Project Manager comes with features like Gantt Chart, Kanban Board, and an Interactive task calendar to manage all those aforementioned tasks you need for MOCHA.

Also, it comes with a time tracker to estimate and track the time to the friction of any tasks. You can control team capacities and define/redefine the roles of the team members at any time.

Also, you can create a database in the ‘File Manager' section with relevant project resources like Excel sheets, documents, images, and other files, etc.

Overall, the smart dashboard and in-project discussion feature let your project run smoothly until the accomplishment.

FAQs on MOCHA Project Management Method

Final Thoughts

Managing a project needs focus, strategy, and better execution. MOCHA is one of the well-practiced project management methods to keep things straight, clear the complexities, and make everyone accountable.

Tell us what you think of it in the comments section.