This year, ERBE is kicking off a series of training sessions for UCL and LU students to learn a particular skill, and get the opportunity to network. UCL ERBE PhD student Yingyue Li reflects here on the first of these sessions, which took place on October 23rd in Loughborough.
The session focused on Project Management, led by our very own CDT manager, Luís Carrasqueiro. Luís brings a wealth of experience managing large project teams and driving impactful outcomes. The goal of this session was to teach students how to approach their PhD with project management techniques, utilizing effective tools and strategic thinking. Jenny Crawley and Matt Li shared their personal PhD journeys, and we discussed in group on what kind of project can a PhD be. It is a long and lonely project (four years!); we need to manage people who are senior to us; a few interim deliverables but a large piece of thesis writing at the end. It can feel even harder than managing a regular project!
Even so, having the right tools and workflows can help us stay on top of the workload and reduce chaos. Luís introduced us to Kanban—as a powerful tool for visualizing tasks, managing PhD workflows, and increase our working efficiency. The process is simple yet effective: pick priorities from your “backlog”, move them to your “To Do” list, then get to “Doing” the work —and feel the satisfaction when tasks land in the “Done” column!
Knowing the basic logic of Kanban, we created our own Kanban boards to map out the next 1-2 months of PhD work, experimenting with additional features like swimlanes to categorize tasks, adding more detailed checklist, adding collaborators and setting due dates…
Luís also introduced other effective management strategies, and we discussed in relation to our own experiences – like how to prioritize tasks, avoid procrastination, and keep ourselves accountable to our plans. It was fascinating to hear not only about our colleagues’ research but also the methods they use to improve efficiency in their work.
A huge thank you to Jenny and Matt for organizing this training series and to Luís for his patient and structured guidance in teaching us a scientific, systematic approach to managing our PhD projects.