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Project Management for Scientists - Online Course
TARGET AUDIENCE
FORMAT
The successful management of research projects is key to success in science. Understanding what project management is, when it is helpful and how to apply it in research is an important skill for scientists. This course, developed by CJ Fitzsimons—author of "International Project Management - intercultural cooperation in practice" (German language)—introduces key concepts in project management, both for planning and managing work, and for working effectively with people (including with yourself). The course is in English.
Notes on Timings:
- All timings are approximate, as we will be working in a process-oriented manner. The time spent on a topic will expand or shrink to meet the needs of the course participants.
- We start at 09:00 and work until approximately 17:30 on each day (CET/Berlin).
DAY I 
|
15 mins |
Welcome, Introduction, Warming up Give you time "to arrive" at the workshop and introduce the topics for the course. |
|
20 mins |
Open the Parking Lot Collecting your needs and questions for the course. |
|
45 mins |
Projects and Project Management Look at the basic ideas behind projects and project management and discuss where it makes sense to use project management models and tools. |
|
20 mins |
Project Initiating |
|
80 mins |
Project Goals A clear goal helps greatly in planning and managing the project. We apply some tools to help you sharpen your project's goal(s). In addition, we discuss how to take the uncertainty inherent in research into account. |
|
90 mins |
Project Planning We introduce some simple tools that help you to plan your project in an appropriate level of detail. Key to this is an approach that enables you to 'chunk' your project into manageable work packages. |
|
60 mins |
Self-Management Explore different practical ideas that can help you to organize your work more effectively and reduce stress levels. |
DAY II
|
30 mins |
Motivation You explore the factors that influence your own levels of motivation and those of your people. |
|
90 mins |
Assertiveness Here we explore ways that you can get your point across and defend your position fairly, learn how to set and defend your boundaries and generally work with self-confidence. |
|
90 mins |
Quality Management Principles of quality management in projects and their impact on planning and execution. |
|
90 mins |
Risk Management How to identify risks in the project, formulate clear risk statements and what options you can take to manage them; evaluating probabilities (Gigerenzer); how to recognize and deal with chances that occur. |
DAY III
| 60 mins |
Project Controlling Controlling is simply the phase in the project where you check your progress against the plan and respond quickly when you’re drifting off course. It is also the phase in the project where you decide to refocus the project, if the research results suggest this. We look at: Deming Wheel, Force-field Analysis, OIL, Escalation |
|
90 mins |
Stakeholder Analysis & Management Stakeholders can influence your project – positively or negatively. An important part of project success is to be aware of how they view your project and its importance – and what you can do to influence that. - Who are the stakeholders? - Develop a relationship chart for the stakeholders (sociogram) - Detemine their level of support for the project - Find out their needs and expectations and how to manage them |
|
90 mins |
Managing conflict By working on one or two participant cases, you will learn an approach so that you can analyse and identify solutions to conflicts. In addition, you will learn about: - Common sources of conflict - First signals - The dynamic of how a conflict develops, and - Common strategies for dealing with conflict |
| 60 mins |
Project Marketing Discuss what is involved in project marketing, evaluate experiences and identify other approaches. |
|
30 mins |
Final Questions and Next Steps |
