Research Infrastructures are often challenged with managing several EU-funded projects simultaneously. Projects with big budgets and multiple work packages and tasks can be challenging to manage and coordinate even for the more experienced RIs. Project Officer Liisa Ikonen from ICOS ERIC reflects on the workshop on project portfolio management, organised jointly by ICOS and ACTRIS in November-December 2024.
Integrated Carbon Observation System, ICOS ERIC, is a partner in the RItrainPlus project that among other training, organises Knowledge Exchange Workshops to address burning issues in the RI field. After brainstorming several topics, project portfolio management emerged as the most valuable area to focus on. For ICOS, these workshops provide an opportunity to learn how other RIs tackle similar challenges and to share some of our own methods in return.
To broaden the point of view of ICOS, we invited colleagues from the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure, ACTRIS ERIC and the ICOS ERIC data repository, Carbon Portal. ACTRIS has plenty of experienced staff in-house and from the Carbon Portal we managed to get a more data-oriented angle to projects.
Planning workshop sessions around such a broad topic, as project portfolio management, showed us that one session is not enough to include all aspects that we found challenging. With our three part workshop we wanted to portray different areas of project life cycle in stead of concentrating only on the every day management of the port folio (see image 1).
The session names were:
- Methods for identifying emerging themes to impact the future of RIs
- How to practically manage several projects at the same time
- Afterlife – how to ensure the benefits of project legacy
We started with asking the partners to analyse what projects their organisation has now and what strategic key areas they meet. This exercise was created for the RIs to reveal where the organisation is going with the current projects and if they are happy with the direction or should they start steering towards another goal. We are aware, that often organizations chase any opportunity, join a consortium of friends or apply to everything because only 15% of the proposals they write are funded. We wanted to introduce a strategic method to flip the perspective from going call first to goal first. Instead of thinking “here is a call, what could I propose” you can think “this is what we should do, where can I find funding to it”.
Image 1: Laying out the project life cycle and the workshop structure in relation to it.
In the second workshop we put focus on dealing with the everyday management of the project portfolio discussing file, time and financial management to keep all projects on our desks. To warm up the audience, we interviewed an ACTRIS administrative expert that gave us good insight on the topic. Finally, in the last part we wanted to see how to ensure the project outputs don’t just gather dust on the books shelf but would live on after the project ends using a past ICOS ERIC project, RINGO, as an example. The session was topped with facilitated group discussions.
Interactive methods encouraged learning and discussions
We wanted to create an interactive and engaging atmosphere in our workshops by using a number of interactive methods to enforce the idea of a knowledge exchange workshop. One of the used methods was to ask the participants to submit a comprehensive pre-assignment mapping the RI projects in relation to their strategic key areas, have them present them in the session and discuss the findings with the audience. The three RIs that presented their assignment are in different stages of the ESFRI roadmap and come from different scientific fields. The presentations lead to a lively discussion and gave everyone the opportunity to compare different approaches and find an example they can relate to.
We had limited the number of registrants to 50 and in the end we had roughly 30 participants in each session. A live questionnaire was an easy approach for everyone to take part anonymously, and to lower the threshold to share in front of a big group of strangers, especially when the poll results support your own thoughts. Most of the audience won’t dare to participate in a live discussion that happens between 30 people. To help out in getting started with a live discussion, we decided to divide the participants in break-out rooms with discussion facilitators to make it easier to share. In addition, we set up whiteboards to support the small group discussions, since it is a democratic way to gather ideas: producing anonymous sticky notes puts everyone in the same position. The discussions around the whiteboards resulted in visualisations or posters, that summarise the results (see image 2).
“To manage your project portfolio well is to manage all your projects well.” – quote from the workshop
We learned that managing a small group discussion time is difficult. Cutting a lively chat short is never optimal, but it’s easy to override the rest of the agenda with endless discussions. On the other hand, giving too little time for it doesn’t serve the idea of knowledge exchange very well either. A 20 minute discussion in the last session wasn’t quite enough. For next time we need to understand that people need enough time to chat, but we also need to stick to the time frame that we have decided on.
Key takeaways
It was useful for both ICOS and ACTRIS to learn from other RIs that are at different stages in their evolution. We understood that even though ICOS is an experienced player, we have a lot to learn from these exchanges. We were lucky to have other RIs bring up working methods and perspectives that could be useful for ICOS to incorporate in our daily work.
We think that the array of methods used during these three sessions made them dynamic and engaging. It was delightful to see that most participants came to the three sessions making questions and lively discussions. We believe that our Knowledge Exchange training enhanced strategic thinking in the participating organisations. For future projects we recommend training sessions on the same topic to further investigate project portfolio management and serve as a peer learning platform for participants.
“The timing of this workshop series was perfect for me and my team. We will finish several projects in 2025, and need to think about which proposals to go for next. Methods and discussions in session 1 help were helpful to us in this regard.
My team has also requested licenses for several project management tools. I hope the discussions in session 2 will help them better justify, for themselves, why we need these tools. Lastly, knowing that the results of our projects won’t just sit on a shelf collecting dust is a key motivating factor, as we learned in session 3, “says Elena Saltikoff, Head of Operations at ICOS ERIC.
Learn more about the Integrated Carbon Observation System, ICOS ERIC: https://www.icos-cp.eu/
Learn more about the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure, ACTRIS ERIC: https://www.actris.eu/
