Project management

Cluster

Career management

Target group

Members of the Doctoral Schools

Level

All PhD students

Teacher

Tom Jacobs

Objectives

The course overlooks the full life cycle of a project, from the initiation (project proposal) till the hand-over of the project result (close out report). It implies both the structural and methodological aspects of project management (the so called ‘hard skills’) and an introduction to the soft skills such as leadership, meeting skills or conflict handling. For a more profound course on these soft skills we refer to separate, dedicated course modules. Our proposal contains three days:
a)    Day 1: Understanding the structure and methodological approach of projects
b)    Day 2: Project planning & progress reporting
c)    Day 3: Principles of modern organisation and management

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

- Identify typical structural elements, proper to working in projects
- Apply a process based approach of running projects (methodology)
- Establish clear goals and milestones
- Schedule projects so that it is easier to follow them up
- Communicate more efficiently and transparently
- Reflect more on collaboration and focus on teamwork
- Recognise pitfalls in working by projects

Method

The course is conceived as an interactive, practice oriented workshop based upon experiences and cases from both the trainer and the participants. Concepts and techniques dealt with will be explained and applied to their proper professional situation by means of examples, short discussions and practical exercises as well as a short demonstration of the MS Project software.
The course material consists of a workbook wherein participants can take notes as they see fit, including a list of reading material referring to interesting books and websites and an explanatory vocabulary list as well as a number of templates & checklists that help them to get started right away. Participants will also establish their own list of tips & tricks and exchange ideas with the other participants. This list is designed to become an instrument for self-evaluation to be used and consulted even long after the class is ended.
Finally there are these memo cards: pdf documents with all the schemes and checklists from the PowerPoint presentation that are send by e-mail after class and can be printed selectively in the desired format too keep the learning points ‘in view’ (e.g. by means of bookmarker or poster).
At the end of each day, participants will fill out their personal action plan to remind them of things they learned in class and wish to put into practice. Participants can always consult the trainer by e-mail for further advice, discussion and coaching.

Format

Time schedule & Venue

Registration fee

Registration

Teaching and learning material

Syllabus

Teaching methods

Seminar; assignments

Number of participants

12

Language

English

Evaluation methods and criteria (doctoral training programme)