PROJECT PLANNING AND SCHEDULINGRESEARCH METHODS (BIOL6910/FOR6913)

WINTER 2020

UPCOMING EVENTS

• J23 – JAK in UNB Admin meeting

• J27 – F16: JAK in India, Guest speakers in Class

• First Discussion Paper February 6 (Ting-Ru Yang to moderate)

• Important Papers

• Pick a paper in your area of interest that you think everyone should read

• Outline the paper using Gowin’sVee

• Prepare a 3 minute presentation explaining the paper and why you think it is important

• Presentations Feb 18 & 20

IMPORTANT PAPER

• Each student chooses a paper in their area of research that they think is so important

that they think everyone in the class should read

• You have three minutes, one non-moving ppt slide, to convince us that we should read it

• Send me a pdf of the paper and I will post them on the website

•

WHAT MAKES A GOOD (SCIENTIFIC) RESEARCH QUESTION?

• Research Question:

• Clear, concise, easily understandable, with minimum jargon

• Must be testable or quantifiable

• Must be non-trivial

• Cannot be answered with a Yes/No

• Science:

• Must relate to a real phenomenon

• Ideally it should be derived from current knowledge and advance our understanding of the concept or theory

IS IT COLD OUTSIDE?

GOALS FOR TODAY

• What is Planning?

• How do we create a schedule?

• What should I create a schedule?

• Estimate time to completion

• Learn about critical paths

• Analyze task dependencies

• Simulate changes to see impact

• What if scenarios

• React to change

• But….I am doing research

• Can research be scheduled?

• What is different?

THINGS TO CONSIDER UPFRONT

• This is a degree not a career

• Need milestones and deliverables

• Your timeline might not be your supervisor’s timeline

• Planning is not hoping/thinking/wishing

• How do you set realistic timelines?

• How do you estimate the length of time something will take?

• How do you factor in life?

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

• Project planning is about getting a specific project finished

• On time

• On budget

• At high quality

• Project planning is a set of tools to

• Create a schedule

• Update

• Re-plan

WHY BOTHER?

• How long will my degree take?

• Are there blockages to my progress ?

• Are there opportunities to improve?

• I want to change my plan … what then?

• I would like to be in charge of my progress.

STEPS IN MAKING A PLAN

THE UNIVERSAL TRAVELLER(KOBERG AND BAGNALL. 1990. CRISP PUBLISHERS)

• Accept the Situation

• Analyse the Situation

• Define the Problem

• Ideate Solutions

• Select a Possible Solution

• Implement Solution

• EvaluateSolution

GANTT CHARTS AND NETWORK DIAGRAMS

• Allows visualization of the Process

• Helps Identify Bottle Necks

• Lays out Critical Paths (there may be more than one in a given project)

• Earliest completion time

• Number of parallel tasks

• Tasks with high # predecessors

• And, we can simulate possible changes, add new tasks …

CRITICAL PATHS

• Longest path from start to end of a project

• Defines the LEAST time to complete the project

• Identifies constraining tasks

• Be careful: There may be more than one

HOW CAN I DO THIS WHEN I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE IS?

• You know more than you think

1.Start with a generic plan [how?]

2.Add details for the first term…

• Repeat 2.

FREE PROJECT PLANNING SOFTWARE

• GanttProject

• http://www.ganttproject.biz/

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR COMPONENTS OF A GRAD DEGREE?

• MF versus MSc versus PhD

• Lets develop a plan

WHAT TASKS SHOULD BE MONITORED CLOSELY?

• Identify external resources … why?

• Identify uncertain tasks

• New software

• Field work

• Identify looooong tasks

• Field work

• Experiments

USE THE PLAN

• When planned times are significantly different than expected times, RE-PLAN.

1.Simplify or change strategy to gain time

2.Eliminate ‘nice to have’ features if necessary

3.Use extra time to start new tasks sooner.

4.Take advantage of parallel tasks –if you get blocked on one task for some reason,

switch efforts to another that can be done independently.

AGAIN, WHY DO WE BOTHER?

• Organize and solidify goals/methods/expectations

• Planning is essential even if the plan changes.

• Check Feasibility

• Can we finish on time?

• Monitor Progress

• Encouraging

• React to problems

• React to opportunities

• Communicate

• Everyone knows where the project is

• Everyone knows what they have to do

USEFUL RESOURCES

• http://www.nextscientist.com/

• https://www.mitacs.ca/en/programs/training

• https://www.mygradskills.ca/