Research staff and PhD students at Napier University undertook all three parts of Fistral’s ‘Introduction to Project Planning’ webinar series. The course covered the ‘Establishing Foundations’, ‘Scoping the Project’ and ‘Creating the Plan’ sessions.
The attendees gave a fantastic average overall feedback rating across the sessions of 4.91 out of 5 (5 being Excellent), when asked “How useful did you find this session?”
Comments by the group included:
- “I also really like it that you get training that is applied from working life as well”
- “Wish I had participated in webinars previously”
- “These have been very helpful to me…now to put them in action!”
- “A session such as this should be mandatory”
The group gave some really insightful feedback when asked various questions about the effectiveness of the course including:
If a colleague asks about this session what would you tell them?
- “I would strongly recommend taking part in it”
- “You will get good tips and practical examples from this”
- “Provided real-life examples rather than just textbook do this do that”
- “Get in now… you can’t afford to miss this!”
- “It’s really useful for the start of this whole PhD process”
- “I would say essential to a successful project”
What will you apply in your work as a result of this session?
- “Breaking down each of my projects into smaller pieces”
- “Edit my spreadsheet calendar leaving more time for unexpected events”
- “Make more specific goals”
- “Will aim to plan every task effectively before commencement”
- “Redo elements of original plan as ‘proper’ Gantt charts”
- “All of the learning. I have already started using the information and skills”
What new skills/knowledge do you feel you learnt?
- “How to approach planning the project and breaking it down”
- “I know how to do a good Gantt chart, but they haven’t been this focused”
- “The importance of counting personal life and unexpected event to your projects”
- “[I] Feel ready to be able to plan properly and equipped with new skills”
- “Project management, time management, how to do a proper, useful, and functioning Gantt Chart”
What was your favourite part about the sessions?
- “Interactive and lots of useful examples”
- “The animations. I like the visuals for learning”
- “Getting involved with the exercises to apply to my own studies”
- “The examples provided…very interactive”
- “The level of detail gone into each of the steps”
- “The practical examples and exercises are not just favourite, but useful”
- “I found the real-life examples very enjoyable!”
We’re delighted the group found the sessions so helpful, it’s great to hear what they’ve taken away from them to apply to their own projects, and that they found the course so enjoyable as well as useful.