Category: Tool Setup

Setting up a project management tool – best practices, tips and tricks to get it going faster.

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 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.