Project Check-In & Management

During lab meetings, project check-in follows immediately after individual labbie check-in. During project check-in, folks are invited to share some updates on their projects, whether it's an administrative project, a thesis, dissertation, or other empirical work, or a conceptual or clinical project. The categories of project check-in include: (1) accessible why, (2) wins, (3) barriers, (4) next goal post, (5) needs, and (6) opportunities.

Below is a breakdown of the project check-in categories with examples.

The Project List SP25 document contains an active list of all of the lab's current projects, along with a way to get involved! 

Accessible Why

If someone asked you "What is your 'why' for this project right now?" what would you say? There may be this big reason that you wanted to do the project in the first place, but as researchers, we know that the "big why" doesn't always feel relevant or accessible in the moment when you're checking in. Some weeks it's hard to contact the topic of your project and why it matters to you. An "accessible why" would be anything, anything that breathes some purpose and life into your project in this exact moment. 

Wins

Wins include any kind of progress - big or small. Did you read those articles? It's a win. Did you only read one article? It's still a win. Did you send that email? It's a win. Did you revise your entire paper? It's a win. Did you write two paragraphs? It's a win. Did you schedule that meeting? Run that analysis? Drink enough water? All wins. 

Barriers

If you're stuck, having trouble making progress, and spiraling into despair, think about your context. Think about all of your contexts in the past week - what's getting in the way? Maybe it's the fact that you haven't really been sleeping well, maybe you're feeling sick, maybe you haven't had much time to sit down and work. These are what we call "barriers." Barriers are things in your context that may be prohibiting you from making your desired progress. We typically don't count "life", "myself", and "the world" as barriers. Be kind to yourself and really think about the things in your environment that may be interfering with your progress.

Next Goal Post

What is your next goal that you hope to accomplish for your project? This can be as big or small of a goal as you'd like - whatever feeling managable for you in the next week. Maybe it's writing two paragraphs, having your document revised and proofread by others, conducting a literature review, cleaning and coding data, running analyses, sending an email, or scheduling a meeting. Any kind of progress can be your next goal post.

Needs

Similar to labbie check-in, a need can be... well, anything about your project that you may need some labbie support with. When thinking about what your needs may be, consider if you have any questions regarding your weekly and monthly goals. (For example, if your goal is to write 2 pages of literature review, do you have enough articles to backup your writing?) Additionally, if your social battery is depleted and/or you are not feeling 100%, you can simply ask for support such as check-ins or memes. 

Some things this can include are:

• Accountability checks (labbies check in regularly throughout the week to motivate progress)

• Peer review and paper assistance (thesis, dissertation, and/or pre-published manuscript) such as revising, critiquing, finding citations, literature searches, and data analysis 

• Love bombs (similar to accountability checks; sending heartfelt, uplifting, or wholesome messages and memes to a labbie who needs a little extra love)

• Coworking (meeting via Zoom and sharing a space to work on projects together or separately) or setting up other meetings (discussing methodology and/or conceptualization, clarifying a task for a fellow labbie, learning an analytic strategy, etc.)

• Application assistance (CV, personal statement, diversity statement)

Opportunities

Labbies are welcome to offer any opportunities for labbies to get involved in their project(s). Opportunities can include attending a conceptual discussion, attending a presentation or rehearsal, learning about research design and data analysis, and other skills-based research activities. 

Labbies are invited (and encouraged) to get involved with some of the current lab projects by volunteering to be a project manager for another labbie's project. Project management is completely volunteer-based and gives folks of all levels of expertise and training to offer support and resources for the labbies who may really need it. The "project management" section of this page provides more information on what being a project manager entails and some resources specific to project management. 

What Is Project Management?

Project management can be used for projects including conference presentations, thesis/research and writing, and conceptual paper writing. For these projects, usually one person takes the lead on the direction of the project. For conference presentations this is often the symposium chair, for thesis research and writing this is always the student leading the project, and for conceptual paper writing this is often self-selected based on interest and capacity.

For all projects, it can be helpful to have a Project Manager. A Project Manager is in charge of tracking and cheerleading the progress of the project through all of its steps; this helps ensure that tasks and deadlines are clear, reminders are given for tasks, and team members have an identified person they can go to with questions. They manage the "Teams and Timelines" document for the project.

Steps a Project Manager (PM) may take:

1. The Project Manager plans project check-in meetings with the Project Lead (the labbie who is the "parent" of the project). This can be skipped if the PM is the project lead or if the PM attends other meetings and can get necessary information there.

2. The Project Manager documents the commitments, due dates, and progress of the Project Team on the "Teams and Timelines To Do List" for tasks that the Project Team Members have committed to.

3. Planning and organization is key for project management. You may spend 20 minutes each week reaching out and making plans for the next week with team members. Plan any and all self-prompts needed as a Project Manager to remember to send prompts to Project Team Members yourself. The PM may find a spreadsheet very useful for this, or a Gantt chart. 

4. The Project Manager sends individualized prompts to the Project Team Members in a modality of their choosing and at a frequency of their choosing. Some members need or prefer more or less prompting; communicate!

5. The Project Manager documents the efficacy of the prompts given for the week, and helps analyze and troubleshoot if the prompts were not effective for the week

   • This is optional; not everyone wants to take data on their prompts. However, if things aren’t working, ask the team member if another modality or frequency, etc., of prompting might be more effective or what barriers they see to their progress. If this does not work, the Project Lead will be able to give input on moving forward or reallocating tasks.

The lab has compiled some resources in a Google Drive for folks who are willing to sign up for the role of Project Manager. Some of the files include templates for project organization and a demo video for project management weekly check-in.