Page 217 - DMGT302_FUNDAMENTALS_OF_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Fundamentals of Project Management

Notes thought things through. The same process also applies to other aspects of running your laboratory
and planning your career.

14.2 Deciding on a Project

You may have an endless number of ideas for projects, but your resources (e.g., research funds,
number of students and postdocs, time, and so on) are limited. The first thing you will have to
do is decide which projects to pursue within the limits of your resources and considering your
laboratory’s mission.
For, example, you may want to obtain a second R01 grant because it will allow you to pursue
another line of research and increase your chances of obtaining tenure.
The grant deadline is in nine months. You should ask yourself the following:
1. What experiments do I need to conduct to write a research paper and submit it for publication
before the grant deadline?
2. Do you have enough time to obtain the necessary data?
3. Which students and postdocs could generate these data?
Once you have defined your overall objectives, how to get there, and from whom you need
buy-in and participation, you can start the process of planning your project, working backwards
from your stated objective:

Your project is to get an R01 funded within one and a half years.

Notes Project management is a series of flexible and iterative steps through which you
identify where you want to go and a reasonable way to get there, with specifics of who
will do what and when.
You will need to:
1. Obtain final data for the grant proposal (12 months)
2. Submit the grant with preliminary data (9 months)

3. Submit a paper for publication (6 months)
4. Integrate data and start writing a manuscript (5 months)
5. Complete the initial set of experiments (1 to 5 months)
Project management consists of planning each part of your project using the tools outlined in the
sections below. One of the most important benefits of project management is that it helps you
accurately anticipate how much time a project will take and what resources you will need. Even
if some back-of-the-envelope thinking convinces you that a project is worth pursuing and that
you can generate an initial set of publishable results for your grant in five months, you will need
to plan each step more carefully to answer the following questions:
1. How long will the project really take?
2. Do we really have the people to do this?

3. Do we really have the funds to do it?
4. Can we get it done in time?

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