Doctoral Training Workshops Project Planning Sue Oreszczyn, Dave Scott, Julius Mugwagwa October 2014

Planning the whole of your research period and updating this plan regularly is the key to success SESSION AIMS To start identifying key tasks for your project To start scheduling these tasks To start to identify what you will need to support your research

Any research project proposal has to have a timetable, constructing a realistic timetable for a research project is a skill you need to have Defra WRT049: project Gantt chart See also VRE

Example of a project diagram

Doctoral Training Workshops What does a thesis look like? Have you looked at a thesis yet? British library online thesis: Search EThOS -Searches across 300,000+ theses for free and order full text quickly and easily. http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do;jsessionid=E4AEC9489FD7D888B553A76719842864 For OU Thesis search ORO: http://oro.open.ac.uk/view/thesis/

Doctoral Training Workshops Project Organisation How should a PhD or Masters dissertation be organised? What stages/activities/tasks involved? With the person sitting next to you: First, make a list of all the key tasks/activities you will need to do in order to complete your thesis/dissertation Second, decide what year (MRes, what month) you think you will be carrying them out

There are lots of feedback loops Subject Area Topic Review Year 1 Is it this simple? Project Aim Core Question There are lots of feedback loops Keeping on schedule can be hard but success depends on it Data needed Year 2 Method Data gathering Analysis Year 3 Conclusions Write up Party

Doctoral Training Workshops Your biggest enemy is TIME “Good intentions get delayed by weeks/months/years one day at a time!” With the person next to you decide how long you think each task/activity will take

Doctoral Training Workshops WHAT WOULD BE YOUR NIGHTMARE SCENARIO? Doctoral Training Workshops In larger groups around your table think about what your worst nightmares are. Take a sheet of flip chart paper and write down 2-3 of the worst nightmares in your group.

Here’s one I made earlier…   Data Collection Data Synthesis Data Analysis Writing up Supervision University/Career Development Conferences October Discourse analysis of website Discourse analysis of websites Meeting for data site 2 (8th) Supervision meeting MK (9th) Doctoral training workshop (9th) SLUK meeting MK (16th) Pre-data collection meeting at data site 1 (26th) Data site 1: Observation 1 Write up field notes and transcribe interviews November Initial analysis/reflections of data site 1 observation 1 Revision of sport for development chapter Supervision meeting MK (6th) Submit abstract for Sport and Society Conference (5th) Data site 1: Observation 2 Data site 1: Observation 3 Initial analysis/reflections of data site 1 observation 2 December Initial analysis/reflections of data site 1 observation 3 Supervision meeting MK (4th) Getting published for students (4th) Doctoral training workshop (4th) Initial analysis of data site 1 Revision of methodology chapter Follow up interviews from data site 1 observation 1 Transcribe interviews

Doctoral Training Workshops If you had to eat an elephant you could not eat it in one go For your first year make a detailed plan for what you will do in your 1st year, for PhD students – the 1st 3 months, for MRes students