Last day reflections

1. Mafia game teaches how to convince the people and helps in studying the people.
2.Gaining the trust is very important to convince the people.
3. Finally, I recommend this for all PhD students to take this course in their first year in order to get the idea of  writing a proposal and how to plan the PhD duration.

Day 4 insights: Project planning

My insights:
1. Clarity is important in project planning to avoid the delay.
2. Critical path determines the project duration.
3. Assess the risks before planning.
4. Budget should also be planned in the concept phase to avoid last minute confusions.

Day 3 reflections: Negotiation skills

My reflections:
1. Interaction, co-creation and building network (contacts) are important to get ideas and to continue the research.
2. Mentioning the reputation of the partner universities and previous successful collaboration with any industry to the industrial partner can help in trusting us.
3. Explaining the benefits they will get can make the industrial partner to show the interest to be the part of the project.

Third and Fourth days

On Wednesday and Thursday we studied negotiation skills, project planning, budget, and resources. My reflections have been listed below:
1. Costumers play a key role to produce a product or application.  We need to interact with them to figure out what they need.

2. Negotiation requires some steps, such as making preparations, identifying and discussing potential areas of negotiation, and bargaining.

3. The discussion stage of negotiations contains significant exchange of messages and information about the wants and needs of each side. Key elements in negotiation with industry side are clear communication, active listening, a willingness to separate the people and personalities from the subject of the negotiation, and a desire to look for outcomes that can satisfy the interests of all partners.

4.  Realistic planning of finances is a key to the implementation of a project or program. A professional and transparent approach to budget planning will help and convince funders.

Comments at the end of the course

The last day of the course (Friday) was used to work on our project proposals, improve our presentations and perform the second round of Pecha Kucha. We got tremendously useful comments regarding all the aspects treated during the week.

After finishing the course, Vladimir suggested us to play the game "Mafia" to improve our negotiation skills. We had lots of fun! It was so interesting, as well as addictive, that we could not stop playing, round after round, until 2AM.

Finally, I would like to thank to everybody involved in this course, as well as to Aida, Ella, Carmen and Max. The course is definitely very useful and interesting and all of us have contributed to make this an exceptional week. It was a pleasure.

Thank you everybody!

Scientific Project Creation & Management: Sixth Day - Pecha Kucha

The morning was used to rework the proposals and the pecha kucha presentation. I recognized that it is important to make the revision on another day to improve the work with a fresh mind.

For the pecha kucha presentation, we got another valuable comments. Actually, I recognize, that is more than important to review the presentation. Showing them to other people and ask for their comments. You cannot see all possible comprehension difficulties. Do it and your presentation/proposal significant increase in value. 

Day 3 and 4.

After two days, I am back with my insights about Wednesday and Thursday.

- On Wednesday we had a nice negotiation rehearsal session. This time the purpose was to convince an industrial partner to get involved in the "Sub sea car" project and provide additional funding. Gareth, Frank and Andreas represented Tesla board and they put us in real unpredictable situations like asking us to include research topics that could be out of the call scope or considering to leave one of the academic partners out of the consortium. This exercise was really enriching because I had a completely different idea about these negotiation procedures.
Among other ideas, I learnt that:
   - It is very important to show your assets to the industrial partner, in order to gain credibility and make them interested in the project.
   - You should not show inferiority with respect to them. Do not be shy!
   - Relationships with the partners should be built slowly and before you try to involve them in the project.

- On Thursday we had lectures on project planning and rights protection, critical aspects of projects that are not well known by most of us, junior researchers,
   - You have to know the nature of your project, taking into account the three main aspects: time, cost and scope/quality. Identify which ones provide you some flexibility.
   - Use milestones to measure the progress of the project and to keep the team motivation by means of short term objectives.
   - Choose the correct kind of right protection to your "product" and rely in specialists.