Written in collaboration with David Bowers.
One of the most important – and most overlooked – factors in timely submission is project management. For many students, the PhD is their first multi-year project, and it feels like an unstructured, open-ended trek into the unknown. So, it’s often up to the supervisors to introduce them to the importance (and often the skills) of project management in doctoral research.
John Wakeford of the Missenden Centre uses a spreadsheet that deducts holidays, sick leave, training courses, and other contingencies and interruptions from the total days available for the PhD. It’s a telling exercise for supervisors and students alike to watch the number of ‘available days’ dwindle. And a good way to introduce the need for project management.
The essence of project management is regular review of key questions essential to planning and prioritisation:
- Where are you heading?
- What do you (really) need to do to get there?
- What has to be done first?
- How long will it all take?
- Where are the failure opportunities?
- How much is still unknown?
- Do you have time for diversions?
Once those questions have been address, the actions are straightforward:
Establish a timeline
Identify key milestones – both procedural and technical.
Identify known or likely interruptions (such as training or personal leave).
Skills planning & development plan
Include both formal training and informal expectations
(e.g., writing regularly).
Establish a project plan
Work back from the ‘destination’ – scope the research.
Include contingency planning.
Include training, conferences, etc.
Include university procedures and reporting
(e.g., development plans, upgrade, progress)
Review the project plan regularly (e.g., for progress monitoring)
Manage the ‘sidetracks’.
Manage the obstacles.
Record-keeping
Agree what records to maintain (research diary, lab notebooks, blog, etc.).
Agree where to store them, so that they are accessible to the whole team.
It’s worth considering how these actions align with university procedures and reporting; often reporting requirements provide a useful framework of prompts for project management reviews. And good project management can make it easier to understand the intention of university procedures – and bring value to them by making them work for the good of the student.
Dangers – Many factors can threaten progress:
- undefined success criteria: failure to understand ‘what matters’ and what the standards are
- undefined scope: lack of planning at the outset, lack of clarity about the ‘destination’, failure to identify the goals and objectives along the way
- scope creep: too many uncontrolled changes
- schedule creep: not enough contingency, not enough management, ‘elastic scheduling’
- distraction and digression
- minimizing complexity – leaving underlying problems unresolved
- failure to anticipate problems
- assumed skills – that take time to acquire
- unrealistic assumptions – ‘we’ll take as long as it takes’
- over-optimism about time
Beware of the dangers; your student will meet some of them. If you’re alert, you can help manage them enough for the student to reach the destination.