Finding a Way Forward

After some correspondence with Eddie, Dennis and Alec... I think I have gathered my confidence that all is not lost! (Read about my panic attack here).

Right after the meeting with Dennis, it seemed clearer what I needed to do. I tried to organise the documents I have and what information I am going to gather from those documents to address my research objectives:

Late Night Library Musings

Been cracking my head on a research issue... Been here in the library all day, skimming through documents, coding, thinking and panicking. Did not even notice that time flew so fast! So night time falls and I decided to try draw the picture of my situation.

So this is a glimpse of how my brain looks like (I'm sure the jumbled thoughts in my head must be amplified by a 1000x). Pictures are a bit blurred but I need a form of reference of my musings. 

At this rate... I'm getting really worried. But I don't think I'll get anything more done for tonight... so off to home now...

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Just in case you are interested in what I'm fussing about:

My research question is: To what extent does programme risk management practice contribute to achieving UNDP programme outcomes?

My research method is designed to be unobtrusive; thus I am heavily depending on using UN documents that have been already created and published. Using these documents  I am trying to infer the extent of (1) how UNDP country programmes uses/perceives  programme risk management and (2) how programme risk management is valued in the process of achieving programme outcomes.

Through my research so far I have been able to:

• Trim down my study's target population to 15 countries within the Europe and CIS region.
• Set the time-frame of the programme cycles to be within the years 2005-2011; the rationale being, so that the outcomes are already evident.
• Gather, complete and read the top 3 country programme documents (UNDAF, CPD and CPAP) of the 15 countries; where the documents have narrated how the programmes are supposed to be managed (but only some includes a risk management aspect)
• Skim through the ERC website, where the documents can give me inferences of the outcomes of the programmes.

What is causing me to worry is: so far I hardly see any explicit risk management aspect in the documents that I have. In addition, I've also gathered that the UN system has proposed and implemented an enterprise risk management framework; but I have realised that the framework was introduced in 2008, mid-way through the programme cycle (therefore will not be evident in the documents that I have).

Weekend in Devon

We had an amazing weekend at Alec's place down south in Plymouth, Devon.

It was a work/leisure weekend. :-)

With regards to work...

We got to tease my literature review and got some great pointers from Alec! Alec kept emphasising on creating a logical line of reasoning for the whole of the thesis. I think I get his point and I think I have a better idea of how I am structuring my thesis.

We also talked about how I am going to go about the thesis and Alec made a diagram from our discussions:

I am content with what  I plan to do, I just hope I have enough time to do it! :-)

10-11 May 2012 Tutorials

My thesis is forming up a bit, and  I think I have nearly nailed down the question that I am trying to answer. I am glad that we did the sessions, and it is just clear that I really need to figure out what is it exactly I am doing. 

For the most part, I have the generic baseline stuff that I need to form my thesis. I already know the type of data I will be using. And I have the generic idea of what my literature would look like. The real problem is the question... so after much discussion with Alec and Dennis, I sat down in the learning grid to clear things out... I think I almost have it:

Thesis Writing Workshop

I attended a thesis writing workshop by Dee Nicholls today. From the mind-mapping exercise I realise that I already have shifted my question a bit; it's different from the one I originally wrote for ReMe on February. 

I think this mind map shows the areas I am really interested in... In a way this can be my guidance for my future writing. 

Click picture to enlarge

I hope I'll stay focused on this one... and won't steer off too much... as such I hung this up on my wall. :)

Aside from mind mapping, I got a lot of insights on writing the dissertation! I got a bit motivated and excited to write after today's workshop. Now, I just have to finish off my April PMAs... so I can start writing my literature review.

Mapping UNDP

I do some scratch-work on loose bits of paper... just trying to make sense of things. I'm taking pictures of them and documenting it here in my blog so I can refer back to them (just in case if I mistakenly throw them away).

I found this today... I actually did this 2-or-3 weeks back. I found it quite useful. 

Cleaner version of the above picture.