All entries for Tuesday 07 December 2004

Work review, part four – strategic, planning, project management

Follow-up to Work review, part three – organisation and planning from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

• interpreting and explaining university and government policy;
• explicating current workflows and practices;
• mediating between competing interests;
• identifying implications of adopting IT approaches and modifying current practices;
• advising on legal issues;
• identifying projects and activities that benefit departments, faculties and the university as a whole;
• identifying factors that may impact negatively on staff, students, departments, the university;
• identifying ways to develop consistent practices across and within departments;
• persuading individuals to cooperate;
• responding to individuals in their own time;
• advising on costs (time, resource, money);
• identifying tasks, project activities, stages, requirements, milestones, deadlines for others to follow;
• project managing people without being line manager;
• advising on the viability of projects and research funding applications;
• providing technical guidance to funding applications;
• planning use of and negotiating access to resources;
• identifying and specifying requirements;
• advocating requirements as important;
• proposing solutions;
• getting agreement for solutions to be developed;
• monitoring development progress;
• feeding back development status to clients;
• considering training and support implications of introducing new developments (for self and other teams and departments).

Robert O'Toole : 07 Dec 2004 13:00 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

PhD proposal accepted

Follow-up to PhD proposal submitted from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Yesterday I recieved a nice letter from Johannes Roessler of the Philosophy Department informing me that my application to do a PhD has been accepted. As i've actually started a PhD there twice before, it's not a big surprise, although the proposal that i've made this time is I think more radical and less predictably following in the usual continental phil-lit tradition. I have chosen a theme or problem that crosses all kinds of areas of philosophy, and which has immediate application.

My application has in fact been approved for September, although I had applied to start in January. But that might not be a bad thing, as i really need to do some planning and develop some better working practices first before starting. I think i'll ease my way into it, starting with attending a couple of taught courses. That will be a useful thing to do in many ways, as it will also help to give me a better understanding of the teaching and learning process.

Robert O'Toole : 07 Dec 2004 12:33 |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem