Course Type: Online-Workshop

Target Group: Doctoral researchers

Many scientific projects and specifically PhD projects suffer from an insufficient planning, unclear goal definitions, unclear role allocation and a bad time management. This leads to project delays, inefficient use of resources and often to frustration on the side of the scientists working on the bench.

This workshop is designed to improve this situation by supporting starting PhD students in the acquisition of the necessary skills for an effective management of their research project and their personal and private time. It is based on the classical and agile project management and time management tools which are adapted to the need of exploratory scientific projects.

The course includes many interactive hands-on exercises in which participants directly apply the learned tools to their every-day situation. They will thus leave the course with first results that can directly be transferred to their work and life situation.

Contents in brief:

• - Introduction of different agile and classic project management methods and tools in combination with practical exercises on participants’ own projects and in practical case studies.
• - Differences between agile and classic project management
• - Project conception: vision & objectives, stakeholder analysis, risk management, project specification
• - Classic & agile project planning: charts, roles & responsibility, milestones & deliverables
• - Project execution: Meeting structure, delegation, documentation & information, visualization
• - Working in teams: Team size & dynamics, communication
• - Self-management: Prioritization, stress-management, self-reflection
   

Counting towards the Certificate "Leadership, Management, Science Communication and Knowledge Transfer" (Module II, 16 AE).

Nicola Findeis studied physical engineering at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. Following this, she worked for four years for the semiconductor laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Extraterrestrial Physics (HLL) in Munich. As an experienced project manager, she supported numerous national and international projects in the semiconductor industry and mechanical engineering from 1994 to 2015.

Since 2016 she works as a freelance trainer, project coach and organizational developer in her company Nicola Findeis Projektcoaching. She increased her competence by additional training in mediation, coaching, supervision, and agile project management. Today, Nicola Findeis supports teams in planning, structuring, and implementing classic, agile or hybrid projects using her over 20 years of practical experience and extensive knowledge of methods. Additional professional focuses are management and team development in workshops or with individual coaching, as well as conflict resolution via mediation.