Project Management – a Toolbox for Scientists

Aims

Projects are all around us. Specifically, in science the planning and management of projects is highly complex and requires a set of tools and techniques to perform successfully. Project management includes excellent techniques to allocate, use, and monitor resources to achieve a goal in a desired time frame. In a scientific setting, goals may include the set-up of experiments, the allocation of grants, publishing a paper, or even achieving tenure.
In order to develop a common language, this comprehensive workshop imparts a toolbox of project management skills for doctoral candidates and/or postdocs from various disciplines. It provides basic project management concepts and principles based on international standards (PMI). An important part of this training includes a session on agile project management and how to apply the SCRUM framework in a research environment. During the workshop scientists will go through the full project life cycle to develop highly valued transferable competencies to enhance their professional portfolio.

Content

Participants who complete this comprehensive workshop will learn how to initiate, plan, and execute a project that meets objectives on time and within the budget. In addition, the workshop addresses different techniques for a flexible approach to project management.

Day 1

Define and prepare:
- Understand what a project is and what is not
- Learn what`s project management in academia vs. industry
- Get an introduction into the project life cycle

Develop plans:
- Make a work breakdown structure (WBS)
- Define dependencies and relations
- Schedule and estimate project plan durations
- Do cost estimations

Day 2

• Introduction to Agile Project Management:
• Consider agile and iterative approaches
• Introduction to SCRUM for researchers

Identify risks:
- Consider changes, project crashing and common mistakes
- Develop a risk management plan

Execution of projects:
- Monitoring of progress including an overview of available online tools
- Project communication
- and Project closing

What we DON`T DO: Learn PM software in detail. This workshop gives an overview on available PM software tools, only.

Methods

This highly interactive workshop is organized over two days, during which participants will develop their individual project life cycle. With a focus on real project cases, participants will immediately apply common techniques and tools in project management during interactive group exercises. The exercises are the heart of the workshop and offer participants the opportunity to work in project teams and reflect available tools on existing projects.
Ahead of the workshop participants are asked to return a short feedback about their expectation for the workshop and to submit their individual project (optional). The submission is required two weeks before the first day of the workshop.
The course material and a project management handbook will be distributed as PDF files to all participants.
After the end of the workshop, participants have the opportunity to work on their own projects and submit their individual project planning to the trainer to receive detailed feedback.

Target Group

All Doctoral Candidates & Postdocs

About the Trainer

Sina Saladin has broad professional experience in implementation and development of project outlines in the academic environment. She holds a doctorate in Molecular Biology from the University of Zurich as well as an MBA in Academic Management form the University of Basel. Sina Saladin combines her extensive research experience in the life sciences and in-depth understanding of process development and project management to provide interactive and professional training experiences. She worked in the field of doctoral and postdoctoral education for many years and is founder of ManageScience.
Sina worked as Project Manager in different organization. Since May 2021 she is working as a Project Manager at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos.

Workload

Total of 17 hours (Preliminary work: between 30 minutes and 1 hour; Workshop: 2 x 8 hours)

Optional: additional follow-up assignment (13h) to receive 1 ECTS credit

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.