Shell shocked

I always come out of supervisions feeling slightly shell shocked and unable to do anything for 24 hours. It is slight consolation that supervisor had the same feelings when she was doing her PhD.

However, my Facebook friends console me.

Informatics Friend: Once you recover, do you find the content was useful and usable?

Me: I do something different as a consequence, so the content is used. But these discussions are so mind challenging that it takes time to use the content.

IF: Being stimulated is good :-)

Psychologist Friend: Know what you mean.

Me: In summer I wrote 5 case studies, and sups said don't structure the thesis with these 5 chapters, rewrite them as four chapters, analysing across cases by addressing four developing ideas. I gave them those 4 chapters last week, but they don't like it done cross-case like that and they want a different structure - more like the first effort.

IF: Which I hope you've got saved somewhere.

Successful OUBS Phd Friend: That is so annoying. Don't they realise you haven't got endless time to indulge their whims!

Me: And the final comment was, "you don't seem to be making much progress". So I don't think I'll be able to submit before Christmas

IF: Which do you think is the better structure? Would there be any value in just outlining it and trying to get some quick reactions rather than going through the pain of writing several chapters to have them 'not liked' again?

I know all this is ahead of me, but I guess there is something in this around who actually owns your thesis and the structure of it - and whether you are happy with changing/conflicting advice.

Good luck!

Me: Outlining is what we discussed, now I have to implement it. I can see where they're coming from, but until I'd written it this way, they, none of us could have seen that it wasn't going to work. Now, it's clear that it doesn't read well that way, so I have to write it another way, and just slightly different from what I did in summer. The slight difference also means that it will integrate more with the methodology, and lead to the conclusion. I see them every four or five weeks, which gives me 3-4 weeks to get stuff to them, then they're very good at reading and commenting. Their changing/conflicting advice is because they're moving on in their understanding of my research as I write it - and I do write and give them stuff, which is why I'm upset by the comment about my progress as if I weren't working.

IF: If they could have said something like - it must feel as if you are not making much progress, but actually it is because of all the work you have done that the way ahead is becoming clearer...

I guess they were wanting to encourage and empathise but it came out all wrong - lessons in this for all of us who try to mentor, tutor or teach!

Are you able to edit your previous work rather than having a major re-write - and are there other chapters you can work on in parallel to draw out that integration?

Me: Oh yes, IF- that's the way it could have been said. It's a major edit rather than a major rewrite because I've written it all before, and filed discards in a discard folder. What will take time is editing the drawings that I use to show the thread through the thesis. So it's like

• in spring I had skeins of wool and didn't know what I was going to knit,
• by summer I'd started on a pullover,
• but in autumn, now I realise it should be a cardigan, and the sleeves are too short, so I have the right colours and know what who has to fit, but need to unpick, redesign and knit more.

PF: Yes, you need to look at the positives and try not to worry about the negative. You have made progress - you've started knitting and now you have a better idea of the final garment

Volcanic ash

Not only is a supervisor stuck in Australia for days more, but the lead speaker and the organiser at a writing workshop that I'm attending at the end of the week also can't fly in from the States. Rats!

Remembering supervision

Just had a meeting with supervisors. I record our meetings.

Two colleagues joined me for coffee as the supervisory meeting finished.

"Did you record it?"
"Yes"
"Do you always record them?"
"Yes"

It's so useful to record the meetings, so I can concentrate on the conversation, not attempt to take notes of what might not turn out to be the important points, and so I can go back over the discussion later making notes and remembering things to do. The recording stimulates thoughts that I can later follow up, but in the face-to-face situation there's not the time to follow up everything. This habit was particularly useful after our September meeting. I took the recording away with me on holiday and sat on the train listening to it, making notes that stimulated new ideas for a theoretical framework.

I don't know any other PG that records the meetings, but I recommend doing so.

Getting somewhere

Post supervision:

1. Supervisors are happy (ish)
2. my framework could make a significant contribution
3. Supervisor # 1 is (again) looking for a case study through work contacts
4. As usual both supervisors are available together, even if they have to come in especially, which is what they might have done today - I appreciate that effort.
   
5. They gave me direction to work out how to finish my literature review with this proposed framework for analysis of the case studies, then "This suggests the framework is useful to test..."

The happiish bit is because of the paucity of rich case studies, hence supervisor #1 wants to widen outside the public sector. Without the data, I can't finish on time with a good thesis. The options are:

1. Finish but I may find the examiner passes the thesis only with major revisions or
   
2. Wait until case study materialises so I finish late
   

Both scenarios mean an unfunded delay.

For a rich case study, I need an IT project where I can speak to several people: users, project manager, contractors, developers and consultant. I have one otherwise good case study where I couldn't speak to the consultant; an examiner might argue that without the consultant's perspective I can't say enough about engagement.

So it's back to the word processor to work out how to write my arguments. And the drawing board to think who I can approach for case studies, in or out of the public sector.

View of landscape after

I've honed my twittering skills, realising what twitter tags are. That's practical.

The learning is through reflection on what I do in my roles as Associate Lecturer or research student, arriving from earlier practices in teaching and computing.

The workshop on Landscapes of Practice has drawn my attention to the different practices of the different people on IT projects, the different practices in public and in private sector. They exist, but they're not always explicit. Boundaries aren't always visible, and you wonder what's stopping you, but you can't see what's stopping you.

There're boundaries between research students and supervisors. My supervisor was at the Landscape of workshop, where his group did a brilliant sketch on the different landscapes of teachers, parents and school children. At one point, as parent, he turned to his acting teenage daughter and said, "I'm always available." She exploded with complaints about him being available at 9.30 on a Sunday morning when she was recovering from a night out till after midnight. The funny thing is, that he's used that line to me, about him and fellow supervisor: "We're always available, at least electronically." There's an equally possible sketch about the different landscapes of research students and supervisors, the sort of thing that PhD comic is always getting at. As the PhD student participates at the periphery of the academic researcher's landscape, how does the supervisor enable the student to identify, and move centre of the landscape. That is the supervisor's job, isn't it?

Whose job is it to help the different people in a public sector IT project to cross the boundaries? Is crossing the boundaries how people transfer knowledge?

Getting the message through

Had supervision today. It wasn't great. Supervisor number 1 is into nag-about-access-mode, worrying that I haven't any more case studies yet. I daren't assure her that I have access until it happens, so I don't give her best case scenarios, but let her worry along with me.

Then neither of them were happy with my writing, "muddled" they said it was and too note-like. I've used bullet points - they said at the last meeting to use bullet points - but it's not good enough because I need to join up the bullet points and the quotes with explanations. And layout the setting more clearly and describe the actors more clearly. And write the story more clearly.

The day after I'd sent the paper to them I had an insight to something in the case study that showed how a missing client-consultant engagement at tactical level was overcome through good consultant-consultant engagement and consultant client engagement at strategic level. When I told them that idea, supervisors liked it, though I thought it analytical and they'd told me to write descriptively so I'd not have included it in this paper.

Supervision delayed

I don't think I write clear emails. I emailed my supervisors reminding them that we had a meeting and apologising for not getting them my writing in yesterday, but that they'd have it today, rough, not polished and I guessed that's what they'd prefer.

They've said they'll have the meeting postponed a week, emphasised the importance of writing and would like it in a week - rough. Well it's rough today.

Supervision after data collection

I emailed a short description to supervisors before yesterday's meeting, just to give them an idea of the projects that I'd had access to.

• One supervisor hadn't been reading my emails and was a bit surprised at my progress.
  
• One supervisor was really helpful on answering my question about how to write this up by tabulating and using my research questions as headings and sub headings.
  

But it's early days yet and I have another year and forty weeks for things to go wrong.

Supervision

Today's supervision meeting has brought things together - good, because we haven't met for a couple of months. Things were in my mind, like getting the interview questions together and the ethics approval, and now we've discussed them together I feel that this is the time to write them. So I have three things to write:

1. set of interview questions
2. ethics proposal
3. a draft to the head of a consultancy firm to get that perspective on my research.

I'd written on engagement, I'd written three drafts, and presented the last one to my supervisors at the last minute. (Sup #2 likes the structure and that's a first! :)) Sup #2 knows now where I'm going with engagement and why. He suggests I read the collaborative literature, and he's right, but I just wouldn't have got round to it for ages if he hadn't said it. So I've reading to do too.

And dates to negotiate for cases.

BTW, I took along a table of the search terms and databases I had used for engagement. Supervisor #1 was happy with this approach, evidence that could fit in an appendix for my PhD eventually. Why did I have such a table? Because I'd been to that systematic review of the literature at the BAM conference, where I felt encouraged to record and tabulate what literature I'd searched for and found. Supervisor also kept looking at the table I'd done of a thematic analysis of the literature - something I'd seen in a couple of the Cranfield papers that I mentioned here, here and here.

Perhaps I have reviewed something systematically.

Supervision meeting - new supervisor #1

That was fun but a bit exhausting today! It was the longest supervision yet at over two hours.

Supervisor #1 is quite different from previous. And the relationship with supervisor #2 is interesting because he was or used to be the one who seemed to talk as much or more. New supervisor #1 not only talked lots, but also drew diagrams. I like that. I thought that one diagram was a system diagram, but she said that she didn't like systems. Well, I expect I'll use some systems theory to analyse whatever comes up eventually so I'll just have to explain it right so that she does like systems.

We talked a lot about a set of research questions, like one big question from which I could draw a number of other questions, but also phrase it to avoid having a big chunk of literature to read like accountability or value. I have heaps of notes, my usual recording and diagrams.

Now I have to work out where to go from here.

Rhymes

I went to see the ENO's Mikado in London. I mention it because of Koko's little list of those irritating people that he might execute. There are alternative little lists including:

"The management consultants whose fees are near a crime
Report to the directors what the staff knew all the time
and the countless thousand bloggers
whose opinions no one reads
I've got them on my list; they never would be missed."

Okay - so that's me done for, end of my research, go and stick my head in a bucket -

"Nobody loves me
every body hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms"

Got a supervision this afternoon.

Supervision

Next task is to review literature on the management of consultants, which is quite difficult to find, possibly because

1. there is little such literature
2. it's hidden because the research terms 'management' AND 'consultant' could mean how consultants manage, or how they consult for managers rather than how managers select, use and manage them.

I also need to turn up at the next supervision meeting with around 10 possible PhD skills to pick three from and concentrate on.

Thirdly, I need to work out what, if anything I can submit to the student stream at the BAM conference in September.

Supervision preparation

I have a supervision next week so need to put together what I got from the last supervisions (met supervisors separately) and indicate where I'm up to.

My topic seems to indicate that I’m investigating two areas:

1. Organisations
2. Accountability
   

The organisations are public organisations and use external management consultants. Accountability may be public but if it exists, it is expressed within and by a public organisation. Starting points then are visibility and power to account. My supervisors have consequently made recommendations relevant to these areas:

1. Find a review of the literature on accountability
2. Search for literature on organisational development interventions and the intangibility of management consultancy work.

Initial literature:

• Public Policy and Administration vol 21 no 3 Autumn 2006 special issue on public accountability in a new institutional environment
• Lukes, (1974 & 2005) Power: a radical view
  

These texts are leading me to consider

• institutional logic,
• the power of the invisible,
• the effect of intangibility and
• the resulting undiscussability.