Project Management resource for PhD students and supervisors

by Stanley E. Portny and Jim Austin in 2002 on the Sciencemag website

meant toward supervisors

This article tries to define what project management is, argues that it can be applied to research and introduce the principles for how to do so:

“Projects can be large or small, planned and tracked formally or informally, and defined by a legal contract or an informal agreement.”

“Project management allows–indeed, insists–that the components of a project be constantly revised as new information arises.”

“The greatest chances for project success are realized when PIs, acting as managers, embrace the following premises. Project management is a way of thinking and behaving, rather than just a way of analyzing and presenting data.”

by Donna Kridelbaugh in 2017 on the website labmanager.com

meant toward supervisors

“research project management as a subdiscipline that can provide the tools and resources for researchers to better organize projects, but with flexibility in the planning process to evolve with the project as needed”

“Creating a road map to guide successful project implementation create a culture of shared ownership toward research goals and open communication throughout the project life cycle.”

There is a recommended reading list at the article’s end.

from Fiona Saunders on her website and on the Thesis Whisperer website in 2013

meant toward PhD students

Introduction from the Thesis Whisperer: “Fiona Saunders is a Senior Lecturer in the Management of Engineering Projects at The University of Manchester and a part-time PhD student. Her research interests are in the management of projects in safety-critical industries. Prior to academia, Fiona enjoyed a successful 15 year industry career in project management.”

In the article first part:

“It strikes me that, at least in the early days, most PhDs are akin to “Lost in the Fog” projects.”

She recommends to “Have a plan – even it only stretches out over the next six months and changes frequently”

In the second part:

“Having a documented PhD scope can help guard against a loss of focus, or drift in what the aims and objectives of the PhD are.”

“The third and final lesson from project management that is highly relevant to a PhD is the importance of communication.”

“One of the hardest lessons for new PhD students to learn is that the PhD is your project as such you are the project manager and you must take responsibility for managing the various communication channels on the project.”

by Eva Lantsoght in 2013 on the nextscientist website

meant toward PhD students

Tips on project management and also to manage data and files. Plus the article acts as a resource with an extensive list of tools to help you get organized.

“Planning consists of the following subtasks:

• Identifying the tasks that need to be carried out.
• Splitting the main tasks into their respective subtasks.
• Considering how much time each task takes.
• Determining which tasks run simultaneously.
• Assess the consequences if a task takes more time.
• Allow some air to breathe

Continuing the ideas to manage a large research project, regular checkpoints are an important aspect of a successful planning.”

the book subtitle is: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty

meant toward postdocs and new faculty as the subtitle says

“Based on workshops co-sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and HHMI, this book is a collection of practical advice and experiences from seasoned biomedical investigators and includes chapters on laboratory leadership, getting funded, project management, and teaching and course design.”

You can download each chapter as a PDF for free. Chapter 7 is about project management while Chapter 6 is about time management.

With my complete unbiased objectivity, I think that my 2 articles about Gantt charts with a free downloadable template are the best ones to explain how to use these charts for a PhD project =)

In the first article, Are Gantt charts useful for PhD students?, I introduce what Gantt charts are and what are the drawbacks to keep in mind (i.e. lack of flexibility).

In the second article, Guidelines to draw a timeline of your PhD, I provide guidelines to use Gantt charts specifically to draw a PhD timeline and to use it throughout the PhD. In this article one can also download for free the Excel file I used to create the timeline.

on the website ithinkwell.com.au by Maria Gardiner and Hugh Kearns

Different templates and ready-to-use tools both for PhD students and for supervisors. For PhD students they have thesis planners and forms for different time scales, from a 3-year PhD to 6 months to a week to a one day plan.

I highly recommend supervisors and students to look at other materials which are available on their website like:

• YourSupervisoryPracticeSelfAssessment.pdf
• CareerPlanningDiscussion.pdf
• ExpectationsOfResearchSupervision.pdf

By Jeanine de Bruin and Brigitte Hertz

This is a tool where you can drag and drop pictograms onto a 4-year calendar to create a road map for your PhD. They have signs for things like writing, conferences, meeting, holidays, risk analysis, etc.

The display is quite old fashion, but I like the idea of cards which one can drag and drop on the calendar. In a way it allows to create a simplified Gantt chart with the PhD main steps.

This university seems to require doctoral students to draw a thesis road map as a Gantt chart. Nicely they provide templates for different PhD length, from 3-year up to 6-year-long program:

“A Gantt chart helps you plan your activities, communicate with your supervisory team and the University, and helps you keep track of your progress.”

PERT means Program Evaluation Review Technique.

Like a Gantt chart there is the idea to draw a diagram for a project but instead of horizontal bars here it uses boxes and arrows. Again each technique has its pros and cons, have a look at these two articles to try to understand the differences between Gantt charts and PERT charts:

• difference-gantt-chart-pert-chart
• advantages-of-pert-charts-vs-gantt-charts

Here a template to see how to use PERT charts for a PhD thesis.

In this extensive article, they suggest a formula to calculate an estimate of how long a task might take:

• “For each task, give three time estimates in days: the most optimistic completion time (O), the normal/most likely time (M), and the pessimistic time (P).
• Calculate expected time (TE) using the formula (O + 4*M + P) ÷ 6 = TE.”

They also talk about PERT charts in the book Making the Right Moves chapter 7 (see above)

It is often recommended to first break a PhD project into small tasks and make a Work Breakdown Structure before making a Gantt chart or PERT chart.

An introduction and templates for WBS from the University of Washington

“The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) organizes and defines the scope of the project, breaking it into manageable tasks.”

Definition, templates and examples on the website workbreakdownstructure.com.

Plus, see again Making the Right Moves chapter 7 (see above).

A 1 page document subtitled For use with the Doctoral Student Yearly Reviews from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

“SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bounded objectives.”

It provides a quick introduction and some examples.

An article entitled ‘Understanding SMART Objectives’ – for Your Project Proposals

“SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-related.”

In this article, I like the idea that we should “use an action word to describe what you want to achieve. Using an action word makes sure that your goal is clear and measurable.” and that they provide a list of such action verb to use.

by coach Katy Peplin on her website katypeplin.com in 2017

An introduction to Agile and how she implemented the methodology in her PhD studies.

meant toward PhD students

“I’ve isolated a few key concepts that really challenged how I thought about my work and helped me build systems to move quickly and efficiently through the dissertation process.”

“In Agile systems, being adaptive is a core value that underpins so many of the actual day to day practices.”

“Having milestones like sprint goals ensured that I never got too far off track, and checking in every day gave me structure even when things were shifting, but Agile showed me that I could let the project evolve all while staying in control.”

One potential drawback is that it doesn’t force people to look at longer time goals and that consequently one might lose sense of the bigger picture. From a video by Fiona Saunders

In my PhD studies, setting up short time goals like performing experiments x, y and z for the coming month was not the difficult part. What I missed was a sense of longer time goals and the big picture. This is why for me using Gantt charts to create a PhD timeline and promote communication between students and supervisors seems like the most important project management tool to implement.

However, we do need to consider the two scales: the project long-term goals/big picture, and the short-term goals which make the project move forward step by step. Therefore, using Agile and SMART goals in combination with a PhD Gantt chart does sound like a great way to grasp hold on both scale.

Tengberg L.G.W., 2015

I haven’t read it whole but this paper seems interesting. In figure 1, the author suggests a model for the doctoral dissertation:

by a PhD student in 2015

“I’m an academic always looking for ways to manage my work and writing more effectively. I’m also in the thick of my PhD. For both of these I can recommend a very intuitive (and free!) web-based project management tool called Trello.”

“I then invited my supervisors (one of whom insists she is a technophobe) to access the Trello board, and waited to see what would happen next.

My supervisors took to the software like ducks to a pond.”

by Christian Bettstetter in 2016

“I lead a team of 10–15 scientists and a nonprofit company. Over the past 15 years, I used various methods and tools to manage projects, keep track of the scientific work of doctoral students and postdocs, recruit dozens of people, and organize my own tasks in research, teaching, and administration.”

“I use group boards for all research projects and for some other processes with at least two persons involved, such as managing job applications.”

In 2016 a supervisor asked on StackExchange for “Progress tracking tool for managing PhD students”

“I am looking for good options for tools to manage my PhD students, in terms of seeing that they are on track in working out their PhD theses (…) So some basic features would be:

• Collaborative software (preference of hosted on a server)
• Task lists with deadlines
• Timeline progression”

and was recommended to use Kanban boards and Trello.

More ideas of software and project management tools for researchers on StackExchange discussions:

• What are some of the task planning tools people use in academia
• What are some good project management tools for academics
• Project management techniques applied to research
• Project management and research