Agile Project Management for Research (307)

10 and 11 October 2023

Dr Thomas Teichler

As a researcher you may at times face two challenges in your project management (PM): you may have to oversee a variety of projects in parallel and you often may need to respond to requests for change until a rather late stage of each project. Agile project management offers a way to address both issues: it starts with the end-product in mind and breaks the work down into smaller blocks, which are iteratively delivered and tested within short time frames, thereby, ensuring incremental improvements towards the final result. While agile PM might present a challenge for some researchers, given its emphasis on trial-and-error (rather than perfect results) and close interaction with different stakeholders (rather than individual effort), it is also great fun and very motivating for a team to work this way.

The workshop combines an introduction to agile PM with elements of team leadership. It is aimed at researchers working with a team of other researchers or students. It is recommended that participants have previously undergone some project management training and are familiar with the basic concepts of planning, executing, monitoring, and closing a project.

The objective of the workshop is for you to learn to

• Set the stage, forge a project team, and keep team members motivated,
• Think about the impact of your project by defining a problem and characterizing the user of your solution,
• Break down the project work into tasks, estimate their size, and plan the execution by using the SCRUM approach,
• Visualize progress, conduct team meetings, give feedback, and
• Characterize the main differences between traditional and agile project management.

You will leave the workshop with a plan of how to apply principles of agile PM to your work.

University of Fribourg

Date: Tuesday 10th and Wedensday 11th October 2023

Schedule: 9 am to 5 pm

Location: University of Fribourg

Trainer:

Dr Thomas Teichler is a certified Co-active coach, trainer and consultant on leadership, team development, and change management. After a few years with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants he set up his own market research and coaching business, before writing a PhD about science cooperation in the high-tech and security sector at the European University Institute in Florence. As a policy consultant Thomas worked for the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at Manchester Business School in the UK and for Technopolis Group in Germany. He advised the European Commission, national governments and international organizations on research and innovation policy. He trains doctoral students and post-docs at universities in Switzerland and Germany, as well as the Max Planck Society.

Participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train between the city of their university and the location of the workshop (half-fare card, 2nd class).

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