Jonathan Lawson - project definition

My project that I’m working on has two main focuses; to gain a better understanding of organ development before birth, and also to understand how cancer spreads, which, although they sound very divergent, are actually two very similar goals. Project definition is the process that you go through before you start a long term project, although it is something that also has to be re-evaluated at various points during the project. So we had several meetings and also put together a prolonged written proposal of the plans for my project before we started it, and then have subsequently re-evaluated that.

My project is part of a larger project within the lab which includes two previous PhD students who are currently coming to the end of their projects, so obviously it’s very dependent on what has already been found and some of that is still being worked on now. So we had to consider various possibilities, plan for various contingencies and allow for much more flexibility in terms of budgeting required and required materials.

When you’re planning a project like this, certainly your major expenditures have to be the point at which you start building around. So for me, we knew that the microscope that we work with required a very expensive upgrade that was going to be almost half of the entire funding that I was going to be allowed for the project, but we knew that that had to be done in order for the rest of to be even possible. So that was our starting point, and then onto that you just have to build in what you think you’re likely to need on top of that.

It’s important to build an initial plan that is modular, that has separate sections, that although they kind of follow on from each other, you could quite easily and successfully move them around should a specific aspect happen to be delayed, or should you need to move something up in order to compensate for some other change. The main lesson that I have learned is that you should always be flexible; you shouldn’t try and too rigidly stick to a plan even if you have spent a lot of time making it, and even if many things depend on it, you could always change things around within there.