Meet2Talk

Dr. Swantje Schirmer
Alliance Referee for Quality Management, 4EU+ Alliance, heiQUALITY Office, Heidelberg University

Wednesday, 04.12.2024, 18.00–20.00 (s. t.)

Pursuing a PhD is an exigent endeavour since it entails both organizational as well as psychological challenges. As a remedy for these challenges, a group of eight PhD researchers at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, developed an adaptation of the agile method Scrum, called ScrumAdemia, which constitutes a lightweight framework that helps teams of PhD researchers generate scientific knowledge through peer support and adaptive solutions for complex problems. This talk presents this framework as a good practice example. After a rough overview of how Scrum and more importantly ScrumAdemia works, the talk focuses on the benefits for PhD researchers in making use of this framework as well as potential opportunities and exigencies for supervisors. PhD researchers report that ScrumAdemia helps them overcome challenges related to workflows, working conditions, and mental health during doctoral research. For supervisors, ScrumAdemia, can be useful for framing and structuring supervision and for defining the individual role as a supervisor.