At RITMO retreats we often use case studies to discuss relevant topics. I have blogged about some of these before: the Coauthorship Case and Confession Case. This semester’s retreat focused on project development and management. I developed a new case study that was successfully used for group work and plenary discussion.
A challenging project
Consider the following scenario:
Professor Penelope has received external funding to start a new interdisciplinary research project. Three recruits have been employed and will begin on 1 September:
- Siri (PhD fellow in Musicology) on a 3+1 year contract
- Sofie (PhD fellow in Informatics) on a 3.5-year contract (including 10% teaching duty)
- Palle (Postdoc in Psychology) on a 4-year contract (including 1 year teaching duty)
Planning: Siri’s research involves extensive fieldwork and data collection from live music performances, while Sofie’s work heavily relies on developing and testing algorithms in a lab setting. Palle’s research involves conducting psychological experiments with human subjects, which requires ethical approvals and participant recruitment.
Can you help Professor Penelope with making a GANTT chart for the whole project?
Can you suggest a weekly/monthly schedule for how to move the project forward?
Communication/meetings/team building: During the start-up seminar, Professor Penelope brings up how to communicate and possible meeting places for the team. It turns out that Siri prefers having many meetings to discuss the process. Sofie does not like meetings but would like to use Slack for efficient communication. Palle prefers to communicate through e-mail and file sharing.
- How should Professor Penelope plan communication and meetings within the team?
Budgeting: Penelope got less funding than she applied for and therefore has to prioritize the budget. In addition, Siri’s fieldwork is becoming more expensive than planned and the university has started requiring payment for the high-performance computing resources for Sofie’s development. Palle needs to compensate participants for their time. Penelope sees that he would also need support from a research assistant to avoid spending all his time on data collection. There is not enough funding for everything.
- How should Professor Penelope prioritize her project budget? Is there anything else she can do?
Expectations: One year has passed. The project team is working well together and the project is progressing according to the plan. One day, Palle announces that he has accepted a tenured position at a different university and will leave in three months. Sofie reveals that she is pregnant and will go on maternity leave for a year in six months from now. At the same time, Siri asks if she can have an unpaid leave for half a year to go on tour with her band from next month. Professor Penelope was just informed that the university will evaluate her research portfolio a year from now and expects to see concrete results from the project.
- What should Professor Penelope do?
Results: Two years have passed. Sofie is back from maternity leave and is on the right track. Palle has left a lot of data from the experiment he never completed before moving to another university. Siri has been on fieldwork and has collected lots of audio recordings and field notes but is stuck when it comes to analyzing everything. Professor Penelope has had to take over as Head of Education in her department and has very little time to follow up the project. The research funder is pressing for the project to end and for results to appear.
- How should Professor Penelope complete the project and maximize project results?