Congratulations to the University of Texas, Austin, Applied Research Laboratory for having its researchers, managers and supervisors be the most recent to complete Science Management Associates four- session “Management Skills For Scientists” workshop (now being offered via Zoom). We had the pleasure of interacting over a two-week period with a group or 24 talented scientists and engineers making advances in the fields of acoustics, electromagnetics, and information sciences sponsored by the US Department of Defense. By training its staff in management and leadership best practices UT Austin Applied Research Lab joins an elite group of trend-setting US research and education institutions.
While we have run many Zoom workshops over the past nine months, this was the first online version of this very popular four-part series. We ran it over a two-week period, on two consecutive days each week. Our own experience running the workshop and the experience of the attendees as judged by feedback evaluation after each session was uniformly positive. Both the instructor and the participants said that the Zoom format offered a highly engaging and stimulating workshop experience. We especially noted the ease with which breakout groups can be created for the numerous small group and one on one exercises that are the hallmark of our workshops. Participants said that the breakout rooms were highly effective at enabling them to practice the management tools presented in the workshop.
One of the challenges that institutions had to manage with the in-person version of this workshop was the practical necessity of running it on two successive days in order to minimize facilitator travel and expense. For many scientists, taking two days in a row away from the lab required a lot deft planning and schedule adjustments. Zoom workshops allow us to spread the workshop sessions over multiple days, weeks or even months, greatly minimizing or even eliminating work interruptions.
We anticipate that with the increased adoption and improvement in online training like this we will be able to offer this series and other workshops to a much wider national and international scientific audience.