PhD Courses in Denmark

There are at least two reasons for creating and running a course in project planning for PhD students. First, a survey among PhD graduates of DTU showed that they request better project management skills. Second, the fixed time constraint of the PhD study is stressful for the students (and supervisors) and the outcome becomes sensitive to the risks that exist in all research projects. Good project management will mitigate these risks and give control to the PhD student in collaboration with the main supervisor The course should run in the first two months of the PhD study and the physical outcome is a study plan, which fulfils the DTU requirements and is used by the student and the supervisor throughout the project.

A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to:

• Explain the official requirements for conducting a successful PhD project at DTU
• Define the roles of the student and the supervisors, and list other relevant stakeholders to the project
• Describe different project management tools available
• Divide the project work into smaller parts, and define milestones and deliverable for each part
• Perform a risk analysis for the project work, and make a realistic work plan that mitigates these risks
• Organize a front-loading activity
• Synthesize project management principles and apply them to a research project
• Select the relevant project management tools, and use them actively

The course consists of four modules. For the each module, the student reads relevant literature and/or prepares a presentation or document to discuss in dialogue with the teacher (the supervisor) and a longer meeting. The topics considered in the four modules are: 1. What is a PhD study at DTU? 2. What project management tools are useful for our PhD project? 3. What are the objectives and outcomes of your PhD project? 4. What are the risks and how do you plan your PhD project? The first module is based on the “Qualification Framework” (learning objectives) of DTU, the Ministerial Order, and DTU’s PhD guide. The student and the supervisor create an overview of the official requirements, draw a timeline for a typical PhD project, and discuss the mutual expectations and responsibilities. The second module is based on the book “Lean Innovation” by Claus Sehested and Henrik Sonnenberg, as well as the Project Guidelines from DTU Wind Energy. The project specific relevance and usefulness of the general project tools such as “front-loading”, “stakeholder analysis”, “risk analysis”, and “sprint-planning” are discussed, and agreements on the supervision and project follow-ups are made. At the third module, the student presents a preliminary literature study within the scientific field of the project, and the objectives and contributions (possibly in terms of tentative paper titles) are identified and broken down into smaller parts. At the fourth module, the student presents a Gantt chart of a suggested project plan, which contains milestones and deliverables defined in the previous module. The risks of the different work parts are discussed with the supervisor and necessary corrections are made to the project plan. Report: The course results in two deliverables: • Study and project plan – submitted to the PhD committee • Report describing the application of lean innovation (or other) techniques in refining the objectives and outcomes of the PhD project and the risk management – submitted to the PhD coordinator (email to anca@dtu.dk)