Category: Project Management

April 10, 2017

The 3 Invaluable Documents to Improve Your Research Assistant’s Productivity

You just hired a new research assistant to participate in your research project. They will help you with a literature review. They’re also probably motivated to use some of the results for school work or a thesis.

Now, can you trust them to do the work? Do they see it as a learning experience? Are your expectations clear?

Here we’ll go over three resource documents you can use to define and track the progress on the project with your RA. By using these documents as templates at the start of your research project, you will improve your research assistant’s productivity and ensure a more successful project.

These documents will help you do the following:

Setting clear expectations for you and your RA
Engaging them in the planning process
Reporting progress and providing feedback formally

1. A background document

See this as the project’s syllabus. It covers the basics of the project, including its objectives and timeline, and acts as a first line resource for a new research assistant. It should be much shorter than the background document or the scope of work provided to the project’s sponsor and other stakeholders.

What should be in the background document for your research assistant:

1. A summary paragraph of the project

First, the gap or issue the project responds to: Why are we doing this?

Next, the context in which it takes place: Where in the world / in this field of study? Who else works on this issue?

Then, the overall objectives and the researchers’ approach: How do we tackle this gap / issue?

2. Overall and specific objectives

The overall objectives can simply repeat, in point form, how the project will respond to a gap in the scientific knowledge or to a real-world issue. Under that, there should be a few specific objectives with concrete (measurable) outputs.

 Specific objectives must be SMART:

Specific: they don’t overlap
Measurable: they yield concrete outputs
Achievable: they can realistically be done with the defined timeline and resources
Results-focused: you can evaluate progress made and how well it was accomplished
Time-bound: they have an end time

Leave some space for additional specific objectives for the RA to suggest. They may want to use some of the data for their own school work or thesis, or get trained on a specific type of analysis while working for you. This is the best way to engage them and for you to know that they’ll gain something concrete out of it.

3. You and your RA’s expectations

You and your research assistant should discuss two main types of expectations:

First, what needs to be done and when. The document should define what outputs are expected (e.g., 10 pages report, presentation) and what is the timeline. If you would like a first outline a few weeks before the final report, you should mention it here.

Reciprocally, ask your RA if they expect any specific outputs from their contribution to the project. Note if part of the analysis done for the project is the main focus of a capstone or school paper. It would be great to offer your help to review a draft.

Second, in what way and how often you want to communicate. By email? In person? Every two weeks? Discuss with your RA what suits your needs for managing the project and their schedule.

4. Contact information

Provide your office address, your email and a Skype ID / phone number for quick questions (I prefer that – much less hassle than emailing).

2. A project management tool

Now, you’ll need to define the timelines for the project and how to keep track of it.

A project management tool can do the trick with tasks, levels of completion and timelines, while letting its users update it as the project goes on. Just share how you want their updates to be reported.

If you don’t want to learn any new software: have you considered Modus Operandi?

OK, fine. A bit of shameless self promotion here. But your research assistant will find it useful to see and track their overall commitment and contribution to the project. Especially as you arrange timelines around exam periods.

You may also not need anything complicated, you may even build your own tool!

3. Templates for the work they are doing

It’s no short of maddening to be expected to perform any rigorous (or better, “systematic”) academic work without clear templates or laid-out objectives on what data is expected to be ultimately extracted and analyzed.

So, give your research assistant templates to work with: a screening spreadsheet, an example of report, related articles that can serve as reference for developing a manuscript…

If you use EndNote to manage your references, you might find this custom output style, translating a list of EndNote references into Excel, quite useful.

When and how to provide them

When you first bring on a student or research assistant, take an hour to understand the student’s goals and use the background document to structure the meeting. The background document is the first meeting.

I typically leave blank space under “Expectations” to add what the student brings to the table by hand so it’s a living document.

I put these three documents in one Dropbox folder, separately from all the other documents used in the project so my research assistant and I can easily refer to them.

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March 6, 2017

Build Your Own Project Management Tool

I’m passionate about my work as a health economist and researcher. I have the chance to get involved in forward-thinking discussions with skilled and passionate stakeholders to resolve economic issues related to infectious diseases, vaccines and access to care. This interaction gives meaning to our research, and it keeps me on the lookout to keep it relevant.

Another aspect that I sincerely love – and others will relate to this in Academia – is the ability to involve students in projects so they:

Learn concrete and valuable skills;
Enter the arena of policy & practice; and
Create outputs relevant to their field of interest.

Through this work, I usually train students to develop simple economic evaluation models and help them interpret the results in the context of the scientific literature in preparation for their capstone.

Still, I have found that project management is one of the most underrated and valuable skills in academia. It’s one of the Top 10 skills that will get you recruited.

This is the skill employers really look for when they say they want someone who is rigorous, attentive to details, who communicates actively and who “walks the talk”. Being proficient at project management is about equipping oneself with the necessary tools to track your project – something that’s relatively easy to build on your own!

Make your own Excel-based project management tool with a built-in Gantt chart with my FREE step-by-step guide. You’ll receive the PDF guide when you register to my quarterly newsletter about project management in research and Academia.

 The newsletter is my way to promote better project management in our academic work. Project management often gets ignored in research and I want to change that. I’m only sending the newsletter quarterly to take the time to do my own research on project management issues (oh, and to do my own academic work) and to discuss with other academics and students responding to it.

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February 12, 2017

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Research Assistant

When I was a student, I was always enthusiastic about assisting professors with their research as a Research Assistant – not just for the learning experience and the money, but also for the extra perks like potentially authoring journal articles and networking with others in my field.

As someone doing the hiring nowadays, I’m excited by the prospect of bringing a student into a new project because I know they will dedicate themselves to the work and help us get things done.

But the balance of this mutually beneficial relationship – between prof and student – is delicate Read more

February 10, 2017

An Academic’s Guide to Defining Roles with RASCI

In project management, it’s key that every team member working on the project has clearly defined roles. RASCI (or RACI) is a responsibility assignment matrix, i.e. a table that combines the roles for a task and the people involved in the project.

RASCI defines who does what, when, where and with whom.

Beyond keeping people accountable, RASCI / RACI also puts the project in perspective and allows team members to engage and consult the right people at the right time.

It helps everyone be a master of their time and feel in control of their share of the project.

Together, let’s see the different RASCI roles and how they apply in academia.

February 8, 2017

How to Collaborate with Your Team Using an Excel-based Project Management Tool

When you’re working within a research team, you want everyone involved to have access to the project management tool. Whether they will be simply viewing the progress as recorded within the tool or making edits themselves, it’s important that everyone is on the same page.

Here are the best practices for naming, protecting, and sharing your Excel-based project management tool:

Create file versions

Before you open Modus Operandi or any other large tool (e.g., a screening workbook, a database) in Excel, make a copy and modify the name to include today’s date and the initials of the person editing. Keep the original file as a backup.

Here’s a good convention for file names (be sure to use hyphen or underscores, not spaces): FILENAME_YEARMONTHDAY_INITIALS.xlsx

E.g., AdminVaccineProject_20170306_GB.xlsx

If you edit someone else’s version on the same day, simply add your initial after theirs.

E.g., AdminVaccineProject_20170306_GB_MV.xlsx

Keep backups

You should keep previous file versions in a separate folder: I call mine “Archives” or “Backup”.

Discard the oldest versions if you lack space in your storage.

Sharing the tool

Before you save and close Modus Operandi, you should “Protect the spreadsheets” in Excel (under the “REVIEW” tab). That way, when one of your teammates updates their progress on the tool, they will only have access to the appropriate cells (task progress, actual start/end dates…)

For a few years now, best practices to share your project management tool recommend using a cloud service. It’s the easiest way to let your teammates see and update the tool routinely.

That you use Dropbox (aff link), OneDrive (Microsoft), iCloud (Apple) or Box, the functions remain the same. Make sure your Cloud system keeps synchronizing, so you can receive an alert if someone else opens the same file at the same time (and eventually makes modifications).

If you use emails or chats to share the tool instead, you should download the updated tool every time. Save it in different versions (as described above).

 Check out what Modus Operandi can do to help you manage your projects.