Only those that look like projects are worth it.

As for the stressfulness, it is similar to learning to drive a car. You initially spend effort and time recollecting the routine. Then, at some point, you start doing lots of things automatically. Moreover, you automatically dismiss many things—tasks, data, people—as you can estimate their likely value and foresee their trajectory. {FAIL FORWARD, WEED-OUT, PRIORITIZATION}

You also develop the habit of questioning things you plan to do—why would I do it, what's the goal, etc. This is a very healthy habit.

{COMMON SENSE}

There is no and can be no "ideal length of a project"—the length must match the goals. {ADEQUACY}

It can be a day, a week, or six years. In the case of projects running for years, there must be some subprojects with some intermediate results. {ECPM, SAMPLING PERIOD, CHECKPOINT}

Building an organizational culture helps instill the things you want in the organization. If you establish a culture, it will likely outlive those who no longer work.

Yet, do not worry about cohesion. If you perform well as a group, the cohesion will grow.

Start with ground rules promoting learning from mistakes so that failure would not scare people.

{GROUND RULES, COHESION, FAIL FORWARD}

In an industrial setting, “when preparing quotations for potential customers,” one usually gets a salary. Thus, although money for “preparing” and “preplanning” does not come from “the future project,” these are not unbudgeted hours. The abundance of resources makes payments possible. {ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES}

The question is essential, though. In real life, the more you want to achieve something, the more unbudgeted hours you put into it (GHOST RESOURCES, ENDPOINT TIERS).

It’s not just about artists and writers; consider entrepreneurs. They don’t wait for money to fuel their ideas; they invest their ‘non-budgeted’ hours to reach an endpoint. Many of these efforts will not yield any valuable results but may bring knowledge. {FAIL FORWARD, THE 5 EXCHANGES}

Consider the hundreds of ‘non-budgeted’ hours you invest to eventually start earning. This is the process of education, a journey that many willingly pay for.

Thus, if you are enthusiastic about something, you gladly spend these hours to reach the desired endpoint, and it is OK.

However, there is a caveat: many people would gladly use your “non-budgeted” hours to reach their endpoints. They often frame it as a “teaching opportunity” for you or something else.

The most crafty would still align your free work with reaching some endpoint not in this world, so you cannot check the contract fulfillment. These guys promise you will get paid with heavenly tokens to buy heavenly goodies. Eternally.

Managers will be more important, i.e., “above” the coordinators in places where both titles exist.

You will get something like this: “Project coordinators and project managers perform similar tasks, but the managers often direct the coordinators.” Thus, it’s about hierarchy that, hopefully, increases effectiveness.

If somebody pushes you to have both—coordinators and managers—determine what endpoints these additional titles will serve. If the endpoint is not clear, do not multiply entities.

{HIERARCHY, SIGNAL/NOISE, CRAPPY JOINT, WEED-OUT}

“Coordinators” in doctoral programs do not coordinate your Ph.D. project work; they mostly communicate with you—the Ph. D. students—and introduce you to the works of the university, and help you get the needed grades.

{EXPERT, COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES, INFORMATION}

When you start the project, you formulate the exit criteria—that help you decide on aborting the project. If you do not, you can get carried away with hopes. {ECPM, ONE SIMMON MO}

Formulate them now if you have not done it initially. Formulate them today, five minutes after having read this passage.

Consider why you are doing the project, and are there any conditions that make your project irrelevant? Think about the three tiers—aspiration, goal, and task. {ENDPOINT TIERS}

Only the aspirational tier can have no exit criteria—a goal can be so existential for you that you will try to reach it as long as you exist.

Goals on the other two levels must have exit criteria.

The actual question is somewhat different: What practices would always work in a research group setting? Are there any universal work practices?

In research, build your hybrid models. When dealing with traditional problems, you plan traditionally.

For instance, getting 40-60 credits for courses during your Ph.D. is linear, and you can plan it linearly. Not that you enroll in all the classes on Day 1, but that you cover 20 credits in Year 1, 15 in Year 2, and 5 in Year 3.

If you understand that the environment is shifty, try agile. Not necessarily charting everything in 30-day sprints—you can have different time boxes (weeks or days), and they do not always have to be the same length. {COMMON SENSE, AGILE}

You also leave blank spaces in life, which can serve as buffers and protectors against burnout.

Do not plan to work on weekends or holidays. First, you must rest, and second, these days will serve as buffers that can save you during work spurts.

{LACK OF MOTIVATION, ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES, LINEARITY ASSUMPTION}

Start with analyzing your current processes or workflows.

A process map is an excellent tool; build it in detail to depict all your activities, decisions, potential loops, etc.

Build it for the processes you have at your workplace. Analyze them, i.e., check every node of your maps and ask yourself simple questions: “If this node does not exist, what can happen?” and “How can I do it better?”

Turn this analysis into a group activity. And be critical of any element of your work process you do not understand.

{COMMON SENSE, COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES, NEED-TO-KNOW, INFORMATION}

Track down your productivity so that you will have meaningful numbers. {TRACK PERFORMANCE, EXPERT}

Also, track your work time with a simple method, and do it consistently.

{SELF-DISCIPLINE, 100’ SPLIT}

It is a tricky balance.

The number of group goals can be infinite. Yet, no matter what you want, you must be clear: you group for having some work done (task orientation) or having a good time (socio-emotional orientation)?

The group goal will define your primary mode of action. {GROUP GOAL MIX, THE DICHOTOMY}

Another dilemma to consider is the 'be liked or respected' dilemma. In work groups, it's advisable to aim for respect.

This doesn't mean being deliberately unpleasant or projecting a controlling image. Instead, it's about maintaining a professional image within the group. You can increase emotional bandwidth later when you see that work gets done.

Whatever you choose, be consistent with that.

{TRIAL AND ERROR, LEADER: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH}

Ideally, you work with experts, and a part of being an expert is to provide certainty to a client concerning quality and time frame. {EXPERT, ADEQUACY}

If you work with “normal employees,” their output must be linked to their remuneration. {ECPM}

In most cases, however, it will depend on how things work in your unit—group processes and norms. {GROUND RULES}

If following through with the engagements is a norm, it is one thing. If a norm is a laid-back attitude and ignoring deadlines, your wish cannot be granted quickly.

Yet, even if the norms are dysfunctional, much depends on your relationship with a particular person. Can you demand discipline from her? If not, then do not expect much. If you can, then be persuasive. {CAPACITY TO CHANGE, POSITIONAL POWER, CHANGING GROUP NORMS}

Next, asking for the results on the last day of the project is terrible management—it might be too late. Plan the engagement to have interim checkup points. If it is a two-week thing, it is necessary to inquire at the end of week one at the latest. Yet, it is better to ask more often. {SAMPLING PERIOD, CHECKPOINT}

If the person does not perform, inquire why. {LACK OF MOTIVATION, MOTIVATION THEORIES}

I’ll skip the advice to lead by example, inspire, spark, and galvanize. Apart from self-help books and case papers, where these tactics work miracles, they might occasionally work in practice, yet always from a hierarchy’s top to its bottom.

{CALIBRATE YOUR PERCEPTION, COMMON SENSE}

First, understand why things happen the way they do. Verify that what you describe is not a problem of your optics and that others witness the same phenomenon. {CALIBRATE PERCEPTION}

Next, approach the one “changing the scope or goal” (The Changer) to understand the reason for the changes and provide your view on how these changes harm work.

Abstain from judgemental telling, “it is wrong and harmful for the project,” and preaching. Many bosses, especially insecure ones, are very sensitive to preaching and immediately discount the message without considering it. {COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES}

If you find out that changes happen randomly or due to the incompetence of The Changer, then motivating the team might not be only hard but wrong as well. You should not encourage people to work in a crappy joint—it is unethical. Prepare escape routes.

{CRAPPY BOSSES, CRAPPY JOINT, SUSTENANCE}

In one word—no.

It is a sign of incompetence, potentially leading to disaster, to transplant “business” methods into academia.

The sectors' goals are different, the utility of the used money is different, and the communication models differ as well.

{ENDPOINT TIERS, ECPM, PSEUDOMONEY, COMMON SENSE}

I would mainly sell it as a mindset: use troubles to become stronger.

Initially, Dr. Taleb defined antifragility “as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm, leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility.” It does not sound simple.

Also, we can agree with his example that “life itself is antifragile,” but does it help us become antifragile? I doubt.

Thus, develop a mindset intending to grow out of any trouble. Use trouble as an opportunity. Precisely in the sense used by a mustached German genius of the 19th century. {for learning from mistakes, see FAIL FORWARD}

At the same time, let’s abstain from a “toxic positivity” stance—that just you will, and you can get positive outcomes from any adverse experience. Or that anything that happens to people happens to the best and has a meaning in some “Bigger Plan,” and had we known the plan, we would have been happy to lose our relatives, limbs, eyes, and other parts of our body or society.

Unfortunately, many things that should never have happened happen, and many things that should never occur will. {CERTAINTY HOLDER}

Nonetheless, seeing a current problem in a bigger context of your life and thinking how it can become a stepping stone to a better version of yourself might work.

{COMMON SENSE}

Changing the environment is always an option. {ADEQUACY, CRAPPY JOINT}

Yet, get new resources—i.e., a job—before letting the present go. Treat the search for a better environment as a project with ECPM; otherwise, it can degenerate into a perpetual wish. {ECPM, SUSTENANCE}

There is a curious story, “Why Mr. Possum has no hair on his tail.” Brer Possum wanted to eat persimmons in Brer’s Bear orchard. Although Possum knew that he was in the wrong place and the bear would appear soon, he tried to convince himself that he would leave the orchard after eating just one more persimmon. ‘I’ll des git one’ simmon mo’ en den I’ll go; one’ simmon mo’ en den I’ll go.’ Unfortunately, at some point, the bear returned and almost ate the cutie. We can call it the “One ‘simmon mo’ trap. {ONE SIMMON MO}

If you are in the wrong place, you want to leave, but sweet persimmons of certainty, salary, and a known group keep you staying there just “one ‘simmon mo’”; naturally, you will start adapting to it, and sooner or later you will become a supporter of that system.

You will share your wisdom with the newcomers, saying, “This is how life goes.”

And you will be right because this will be how your life goes.

{DAILY INCREMENTS, SUBJECTIVITY, REALITY}

You did it correctly—precisely as a scientist would do. However, poor research ethics might be a norm in that environment {CRAPPY JOINT, CRAPPY BOSSES}.

We have ethical codes in many, if not all, professions. Almost always, people know the correct way of acting, yet where the rubber meets the road, it turns out that “everything is very complicated.” And “it is exactly this instance when only a very naïve person will not bend the rules…”

Then, we all lose. Because integrity in research is more important than in, for instance, accounting.

Companies that do “creative accounting” defraud their shareholders or a particular country to evade paying taxes. That’s all. Bad, indeed. People go to jail.

However, when you lie with your research, you might poison the entire ocean of knowledge. People might base their research on yours, but the “shoulders of giants” might be non-existent, as no giants exist.

Also, science has a critical beacon function in a society where many people believe in magic, where rubbish gets validated by the number of believers or centuries of existence, and where modern media as quickly spread a cave mentality as progressive ideas.

A cave mentality can ultimately win. It is simpler to digest and has been with us for thousands of years.

In your case, I would consider the future, which might be brighter in another lab.

{CERTAINTY HOLDER, COMMON SENSE}

We discussed they are not.

They will happen. The more complex the project, the more you expect changes.

However, as any project is a system, changes in one part lead to changes in others, so they can quickly become harmful when we do not consider them.

{DAILY INCREMENTS, PROJECT DIARY, COMMON SENSE}

As with everything else, reasonable. Try one project as your playground, and see what works for you.

{COMMON SENSE, ADEQUACY, TRIAL AND ERROR, BUILD YOUR LAB}

I would suggest a meeting.

People censure their writing more. They also save words, as writing takes more time (25-40 words per minute vs. 100-150 wpm). Another thing is the spontaneity of face-to-face meetings.

People might come up with something and vocalize it. Having second thoughts, they would not say that and definitely would not write it. It is easier to ask questions at face-to-face meetings.

Next, it will depend on what stage of maturity your group is. If you do not know much about the members, each meeting is an opportunity to get more data about the people (i.e., observe).

Yet, you may prefer distant communication when you have worked for years and know your peers well.

{COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES, FEEDBACK, EXPERT, EXPLORE AND EXPLOIT}

The most common is its absence: no closure, no lessons learned, and one project hurries to follow another.

Thus, people are bound to repeat the same mistakes in the future. Mistakes repeated many times by many people can become norms and traditions.

{ECPM, FEEDBACK, FAIL FORWARD, GROUND RULES}

Influencing from the bottom is much more complicated than from the top.

It is particularly tough to change how things run in the joint; it is a boss’s turf.

Presenting your case with facts and suggestions might be one way—we discussed rational persuasion. However, the boss might see herself as the most rational person at the joint. And she might be right on that one. {COMMON SENSE}

Building a coalition of like-minded people is another way. Yet, the boss might see you as a dangerous troublemaker with the potential to spoil the barrel. {BAD APPLE, COALITION}

Also, you might ask for help and say it would be easier, if only for you, if the projects were adequately closed. However, the boss might see you as a nuisance or control freak. Yes, power asymmetry is like this. {HIERARCHY, POSITIONAL POWER, BOSSES AND LEADERS}

I would start by observing, calibrating my perception, and then talking to a superior in a “help me” way.

A coalition might be the last means of influence. If you try to muscle the boss, the boss will almost certainly try to muscle you in retaliation. Thus, estimate your cost-benefit ratio.

{CALIBRATE YOUR PERCEPTION, CRAPPY JOINT, COALITION}

It will happen if all the members see a reflection—and every lesson learned session is a reflection—as a worthwhile activity and continuous improvement as a valuable process preferable to the cheap vainglory of looking smart. {FEEDBACK, GROUND RULES}

Sharing a concern can start a norm of reciprocity—sharing in response—which might increase group cohesion and trust. {COHESION}

Trust is a complex phenomenon and a resource any group should have. On the one hand, trust makes sharing or confession easier; on the other hand, trust grows through these mutual confessions.

{TRUST, GROUPS: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH}

Ph.D. is a byproduct of (a) doing research work in (b) an organization run by (c) people.

You set goals, communicate, think, write, present to the public, and learn new things—all these things you will be doing your entire research career.

{EXPLORE AND EXPLOIT, ADEQUACY, COMMON SENSE, DAILY INCREMENTS}

Compare concepts, not words.

If it is temporary, has an endpoint, and needs effort, it is a project. A study can be a project, making a movie can be a project, and writing a book can be as well.

{COMMON SENSE, PROJECT: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH, ANALOGY}

Answering the following questions will help you decide.

First question: who will be using the software?

If it is you only, buying something will unlikely be beneficial. All these tools are for groups.

Next, if you have a group and think that this group might benefit from using the tool, ask the second question: Can you force people to use this software?

Not in the sense of, “I will showcase it, and everybody will see the benefits!” That would be a naïve attitude. Can you force people to use it in their routine work? If not, then it might not be a good idea. {POSITIONAL POWER}

The third question: what is the ratio between the resources you will spend on it and the benefit you intend to get from it?

Resources spent include the upfront payment and resources you will need to spend on learning and using the tool. Try and see for yourself. {TRIAL AND ERROR, ADMINISTRATIVE OVERHEAD, COMMON SENSE}

In general, if you think that you are not organized and believe that some tool will help you become more organized, this is a part of denial thinking.

All the tools that can help you have been available for a long time. These are your analytical abilities, self-discipline, pencils and paper, and a watch.

{100 SPLIT, TRACK PERFORMANCE, COMMON SENSE, ECPM}

Unclear definitions lead to problems.

Is any employee an expert? It isn't very likely.

Can an employer always provide an expert with a "clear job description"? It's also improbable.

Let's clarify.

Any work implies five types of work exchanges, and it is helpful to agree on those right at the start.

These five exchanges will have different combinations for different jobs, depending on what tier the endpoint belongs to—a task or a goal. {THE 5 EXCHANGES, ENDPOINT TIERS}

If the endpoint is a task, and reaching it means doing the algorithmic work, an employer sets the endpoint and criteria and measures the output. Often, the employer provides the employee with the means to achieve the endpoint. You can see this almost everywhere, from a factory to an office or a shop, and there might be little space for autonomy. {BOSSES AND LEADERS, ECPM}

Yet, if our endpoint is a goal, and reaching it means solving a complex problem, limiting an expert's autonomy will be counterproductive. The employer can formulate the endpoint and criteria, yet often does it with the help of an expert.

Last, only a few experts can handle the work of identifying problems to solve. Autonomy and ample resources are essential, while micromanagement will impede progress.

Research, consulting, creative endeavors, and the like are examples of employer-employee interactions that benefit from autonomy.

{ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES, EXPERT, EXPERT FUNNEL}

If we continue with your construction metaphor, we’ll notice that it is problematic to build a basement when you have already laid the second floor and are currently installing bathrooms in it.

Yet, a metaphor is a metaphor, and projects are not necessarily buildings; they might be nets weaved. Then, it’s another story.

Understand what you mean by lacking a “solid foundation” and approach the project like a paramedic. {PROJECT: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH, GROUPS: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH}

Better late than never: get things straight—the goals, rules, communication lines, problems.

As to the “causing more tension or insinuating that someone has done something wrong,” this part is more problematic.

You must understand the root cause of a problem so as not to repeat it. {EXPERT, FAIL FORWARD}

Projects do not just happen: somebody starts them, sets goals, plans, allocates resources, etc.

Thus, whenever we have a poorly formulated and poorly run project, all these bad decisions have a name, a job title, and an email address. And this person often does not want to own the troubles caused.

At the department level, it might become a group denial. {OMERTA}

You might have witnessed it in large bureaucratic organizations: once a problem sprouts from the ground, its roots immediately disappear. Those who made mistakes “are not working with us any longer,” and “it is already useless to look into the past—let’s constructively look into the future.”

Such approaches seemingly work when resources are abundant, but precisely, these approaches will deplete the resources and endanger the organization in the long run. {ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES}

What to do?

Do your best to find out, even if only to understand how the system works. And even if you cannot change much in this organization, this knowledge will help you later.

It is not a secret that we all work on several projects in different roles. There is education and its demands, work and its demands, family, friends, society, etc. We have to.

To succeed, you must manage yourself in time. Do not squander it. And decrease uncertainty the best way you can.

However, beware of the crammed periods, bottlenecks, or jams when your deadlines coincide. These are moments of immense stress and significant vulnerability. Leave blank spaces in life: as much air as possible.

{BUFFER, WEED-OUT, COMMON SENSE}

You update all plans during the project because they must reflect the current reality of the project, not the past.

However, the priority is being rational and not hindering your work with the “meta-work.” You make plans ultimately to save time and increase chances of success, not otherwise. {ADMINISTRATIVE OVERHEAD}

Yet, the frequent scenario is spending a lot of time on some traditional planning, preparing “seriously looking” plans, and forgetting about these plans immediately once you start the work and get the first bump from reality, which, of course, differs from its paper (or digital) versions. {COMMON SENSE, CURSE OF ACTION, ADEQUACY}

What to do?

Use slim tools and update them promptly.

{PROJECT DIARY, COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES}

The manager’s responsibility is to set processes so that she gets the needed information accurately and promptly.

The manager’s need is evident. She needs information on progress to make decisions.

The worker’s interest in providing such information is also apparent: the system must work to connect progress to his pay or other benefits.

In the case of task jobs—tyling the floor, laying bricks, conducting lab tests, or doing any other work that is both measurable and linear—setting a process of monitoring work is straightforward. {ECPM}

True, it often is not done, and the usual suspects are the absence of ECPM, managerial incompetence, and poor communication between managers and workers, yet, in principle, control there is easily achievable. {ADEQUACY}

However, two categories of work pose unique challenges.

The first is goal-oriented work with no linear output, making continuous objective measurement problematic. This category includes research where the employee-employer relationship hinges on role negotiation and contractual agreements.

The second category is when you work for yourself, being both the worker and the manager, and having all five types of exchanges connected in yourself. That is, you formulate the endpoint, the approach, the criteria, and even provide the means and the resources.

{THE 5 EXCHANGES, MAP YOUR DREAM}

The limit better exist in one place—the head of a person.

The best heads will have common sense based on experience. Such common sense beats any MBA from any school. {COMMON SENSE, "EFFECTIVE MANAGERS", ANALOGY}

Personal characteristics, such as nervousness or anxiousness, can be challenging to alter.

If this "someone" spends resources you cannot afford, use rational persuasion with the person—with numbers and analyses. It also helps to know the reason for spending so much. {SUBJECTIVITY}

Resource use in organizations often displays a curious phenomenon of the 'abundance of resources.'

If you look closely at their operations, many organizations squander resources. They buy equipment they never use, keep people who do not perform {PERMIES}, and start projects with no goals.

Yet, when working on something new, it is tough to be specific about what you need and when. Just-in-time might work nicely with known projects, but the just-in-case approach may be wiser with the unknown. {JUST IN CASE}

It's true that having too many useless projects can overshadow the useful ones, much like the sound of a voice getting lost in the noise of a crowd. Similarly, sloppy decision-making can lead to the depletion of resources and ultimately, the destruction of the organization.

Yet, we can see that organizations with many resources outperform organizations with less. People from wealthy backgrounds do better not only due to genes (sorry, Gregory Clark) but due to the brute abundance of resources as they can afford to take a chance—i.e., do something new—and know that their family will not have to beg for food at the end of the day.

{SUSTENANCE}

This excellent question describes the frequent dilemma: stay quiet and hope for the best, or open your mouth and face the potentially dire consequences.

The “Troy” movie (2004) has a fabulous scene in the beginning. A messenger boy summons Achilles to fight Boagrius—a champion of the competing army—and warns Achilles: “The Thessalonian you're fighting, he's the biggest man I've ever seen. I wouldn't want to fight him.”

How does Achilles respond?

Does he say, “Thank you, a kind little fellow, for your care?” No. Does Achilles say, “Oh, I will be on guard, don’t worry. Forewarned is forearmed!” No.

He says: “That is why no one will remember your name.”

Achilles has answered your question.

Doing anything new, you find your balance: you do a new thing and risk failure, or you do not do it and do not fail. Yet, maybe you lose an opportunity to do better, move higher, and enjoy more. The bigger the reward, the higher the possibility of not getting it and spending yourself in vain. The decision to do or not to do is always up to you.

These decisions are among the scarce opportunities to exert genuine freedom. We have no say in many critical situations in our lives.

For instance, we were not free to choose where to be born—or were you? Later in life, we hear that we were lucky to be born in the best part of the world with the best history, heroes, religion, and traditions. We might start believing in this, and then we will probably continue indoctrinating the new youth.

Yet, in the beginning, we had no choice: we were accidentally born into a random family living at an arbitrary location on our planet.

You had no say in getting a particular brain, heart, and habitus. Life dealt cards that way. There was no freedom in it. And definitely, there was no fairness.

You can only get freedom by deciding on specific ways of action. “Staying quiet and hoping for the best” is one decision; “opening your mouth” is another.

Yet, and this is important, you will face consequences anyway.

Staying in a crappy joint all your life is a reward of a doubtful value. Losing a stable position might also be bad if you do not find a better one. Yet, it is up to you.

The same question, by the way, is the theme of one famous soliloquy of one quirky yet appealing prince:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them.

One way or another, in the situation you described, I would be on the lookout for a better job while you have the present one.

{SUSTENANCE, FAIL FORWARD, CRAPPY JOINT, ABUNDANCE OF RESOURCES, COMMON SENSE, CONSTRAINTS OF A SYSTEM}

First, evaluate the situation—how bad is your scope creep?

List the things that crawled in the project in one column, row after row. Then, in the same column after the “crawlers,” list the things that have been there from the start. Hopefully, you have them somewhere.

Second, estimate the time needed for each task in the adjacent column and compare your estimates to the deadline. When calculating the time required to finish, you must consider your productivity thus far. {TRACK PERFORMANCE, LEAVE TRACKS, PROJECT DIARY}

If the estimates show that you cannot finish on time, and likely it will be so, then, third, prioritize all the remaining tasks—the original and the “crawlers”—and plan to work on the most important things. {PRIORITIZATION}

Fourth, plan ten checkups before the end of the project. At every checkup, re-estimate your tasks and schedule.

{SAMPLING PERIOD, CHECKPOINT, PROJECT: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH}

Yes. No. Yes. :)

Sticking to a strict plan might only work in predictable projects and environments. If we are talking about gaining new knowledge in research, a strict plan may be a vice, not a virtue.

Scope creep is not about making changes during the project but about losing control over your project because you did not account for those changes.

{PROJECT DIARY, TRACK PERFORMANCE, PROJECT: A PARAMEDIC APPROACH, SELF-DISCIPLINE}

Only a proven track record signals expertise, i.e., the demonstrated ability to solve particular problems and perform specific tasks.

You know that it makes the job game difficult for those starting a career: no experience—no job; no job—no experience.

Yet, as you don’t want somebody to learn his craft by performing surgery on your eye, do not employ others as experts if they are not experts yet.

Or take risks at a fraction of the price.

Also, as we discussed, do not mistake confidence for competence. These are different things.

{EXPERT, EXPERT VS. PROFESSIONAL, FINDING AN EXPERT, COMMON SENSE, EXPERT FUNNEL}

Is it the only assumption?

What about scheduling or scoping the project? Why do universities assume that future researchers know how to write papers, present results to the public, create databases, and manage information? Why is even sufficient knowledge of MS Office assumed?

Where university management questions their assumptions, you see new courses added to curricula.

{COMMON SENSE, EFFECTIVE MANAGERS, ADEQUACY}