The Science Websites That We Read Every Day

• Ars Technica. Ars Technica offers brainy, geeky coverage of technology and science and how it intersects with our everyday lives, whether we want it to or not.
• Atlas Obscura.
• BBC – Science.
• Chemistry World.
• Futurism.
• Gizmodo.
• National Geographic.
• NPR – Science.

There are four steps to picking a topic:

1. 1A. Find an area that interests you.
2. 1B. Categorize your topic.
3. 1C. Investigate your topic. 1D. Narrow your topic.

The question that you select for your science fair project is the cornerstone of your work. The research and experiment you will be conducting all revolve around finding an answer to the question you are posing. A scientific question usually starts with: How, What, When, Who, Which, Why, or Where.

Five Questions to Ask About Your Project’s Scope

• What are the project’s deliverables? This is the most basic step to creating a helpful scope statement.
• How much flexibility do you have?
• What are the long-term priorities of the project?
• What’s out of scope?
• What is the success criteria of the project?

10 Project Management Questions To Ask Before Starting A Project

1. What Are We Actually Delivering?
2. What Are We NOT Delivering?
3. Is There A Deadline?
4. What Is The Benchmark For Success?
5. Who Is The Client…Really?
6. Who Is The Point Of Contact?
7. Who Is Doing The Work?
8. Who Is The Audience For The Work?

“I’ve noticed that [gap in process or goal] and think that this project will help…” “As you can see, this would directly contribute to our goals by…” “My hope is that through this project I’ll [develop X skills/improve Y process]”

Use formal but personable wording: “Hi. I thought I should check in with you to see how progress is going and/or if you have any questions you might have for me or if there’s something I can help you do if there’s any snag or clearing any questions for you”.

Now I will come to possible ways how can you get release. Talk with the manager and explain the situation. Tell him that you need to move to other project. (If you have spend at least 2 years in your project, he may accept your request, but if your project period time is less than that, chances are less.)

Saying no do’s and don’ts

1. Do tell the person you’ll get back to them.
2. Do look at the big picture.
3. Do highlight the value of your work and of your time.
4. Do be assertive and confident.
5. Do pick your battles.
6. Don’t whine about having too much work.
7. Don’t give “it’s not in my task description” as a reason to refuse an assignment.

Key steps of a change request process

1. Understand what is scope change.
2. Determine the impact of incorporating the change.
3. Seek approval or disapproval of the change request.
4. Communicate and implement the approved change request.

The Seven R’s of Change Management

• Who raised the change?
• What is the reason for the change?
• What return is required from the change?
• What are the risks involved in the change?
• What resources are required to deliver the change?
• Who is responsible for the “build, test, and implement” portion of the change?

A change request is a formal proposal for an alteration to some product or system. In project management, a change request often arises when the client wants an addition or alteration to the agreed-upon deliverables for a project.

Monitoring is the collection, recording, and reporting of project information that is of importance to the project manager and other relevant stakeholders. Control uses the monitored data and information to bring actual performance into agreement with the plan.

Closing Processes Activities Obtain acceptance of the project deliverables. Hand off operations and support responsibilities. Document the lessons learned over the course of the project. Formalize closure.

Here are some basic monitoring techniques you might use:

• observation.
• talking with people.
• monitoring work performance and output.
• monitoring absenteeism and staff turnover.
• employee surveys (before, during and after the change)
• baseline measuring before and after the change.
• benchmarking with other work units.

By monitoring the proper execution of the various project tasks, the work and results of your collaborators, you ensure that your team is effective and that the defined objectives are achieved. This project monitoring also makes it possible to calculate the budget at any time, based on the time already elapsed.

Project Monitoring refers to the process of keeping track of all project-related metrics including team performance and task duration, identifying potential problems and taking corrective actions necessary to ensure that the project is within scope, on budget and meets the specified deadlines.

Tools or M&E Planning

• Theory of Change.
• Logical Framework (Logframe)
• Monitoring and Evaluation Plan.
• Statistics – Open Datasets.
• System Data.
• Surveys.
• Interviews and Focus Groups.
• Sample Size.

These six processes are performed in chronological order and represent the 6-step process in developing a project schedule.

• Step 1: Plan Schedule Management.
• Step 2: Define Activities.
• Step 3: Sequence Activities.
• Step 4: Estimate Activity Resources.
• Step 5: Estimate Activity Durations.
• Step 6: Develop Schedule.

Five phases of project management

• Project Initiation.
• Project Planning.
• Project Execution.
• Project Monitoring and Controlling.
• Project Closing.

Sequence Activities is the process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities. The key benefit of this process is that it defines the logical sequence of work to obtain the greatest efficiency given all project constraints.

The critical sequence, defined as the set of activities which are connected by technology and/or resource sharing, is suggested as an alternative to the critical path. Problems created by the use of the critical path concept for scheduling individual activities are demonstated.

The CPM would describe the sequence that takes the most time. For example, if you’re building a house, you would have several task sequences as follows: Each task takes a different amount of time and resources. It takes more time to build walls and lay the roof than to install faucets and fixtures.

You can have more than one critical path in a project, so that several paths run concurrently. This can be the result of multiple dependencies between tasks, or separate sequences that run for the same duration. In fact, the activities on the critical path are not always the most important parts of the project.

The critical path (or paths) is the longest path (in time) from Start to Finish; it indicates the minimum time necessary to complete the entire project.