The BIO-EARN Newsletter  A Publication from the BIO-EARN Regional Coordination Office No 2, December 2006 Capacity Building and Training Activities Project Management Training Workshop One of the goals of the current phase of the BIO-EARN Programme is to train researchers in the region to manage regional and international strategic Research for Development (R4D). As a first step towards achieving this goal, the Regional coordination office organized a four day Project Management course for the leaders of the five BIO-EARN projects that are being implemented in 2006-2009. This training course was held in Nairobi from 4-5 September 2006 and was conducted/ facilitated by Dr Laurie Barwell from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) South Africa . The course covered the key elements of Good Project Management Practice (GPMP). Researchers learned that the goal of GPMP is to deliver every component of the project to the required quality (On Brief/OB), within the agreed budget (On Budget/OB) and within the agreed time frame (On Time/OT). This in short is depicted as delivering OBOBOT. Achieving the goal in the spirit of “No Surprises” goes a long way to minimize inevitable stress associated with challenging projects. Establishing a value system for the Programme would enable all levels of management to make decisions without having to consult widely. The participants learnt that Pro-active Performance Management is a key for creating an enabling environment for GPMP. Since each team member has an input to the project a series of SMART (Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Realistic and Timebound).  Key Result Areas (KRA) should be defined for each person participating in BIO-EARN. These KRAs will form the basis for discussion between a particular person and the manager within BIO-EARN and to provide feedback on performance against each KRA. “Go slow to go first” is a wise saying that portrays the importance of proper planning to prevent poor performance. Scientists were told that it has been proven that spending up to 30% of available project time on proper planning is very worthwhile and a key to success. Starting with the SMART definition of the scope of the project provides a guide to diligent planning. Successful performance is depicted by the tracking of agreed upon Key Performance Indicators (KPI), which is critically important for attaining the common goal of a project and delivering OBOBOT. “What gets measured gets done” and therefore the BIO-EARN project leaders should define and track a set of relevant indicators that keep them informed of the progress on delivery of key factors that define success. A responsible manager is able to quickly identify the critical areas of concern or interest and thereby “Manage by Exception”.  It is a reality that there are many risk factors that can cause potential failure of delivering OBOBOT. It is therefore good practice to identify, assess and put in place a SMART plan to manage each identified risk. BIO-EARN Project leaders were also taught that all aspects of the project must be documented and reported or otherwise “what is not on paper has not been said”.  Setting up and maintaining of a project file is a legal requirement and a crucial tool for effective and efficient administration and reporting. The project team leaders established their value systems by setting out Project Management Ground Rules for individuals and teams within or associated with BIO-EARN. A tangible output from the management training was a GPMP Manual that will be used by all project team members. The manual provides not only the course content but also various templates for Standardized Operational Procedures (SOPs) and reporting. Teamwork & Team Spirit in BIO-EARN Programme Successful implementation of large and complex projects similar to BIO-EARN’s necessitates the collaboration of a team with people from different backgrounds and with unique personalities and thinking styles, who interact as peers, pooling their ideas, judgment and plans.  The success of the team’s endeavours hinges on the behaviour, talents, balance and cohesion of the project team.  It is well known that "Nobody is Perfect - But A Team Can Be" and teams produce higher quality and quantity of work than the sum of what the separate members could have produced on their own. "What is needed is not well balanced individuals; but individuals who balance well with each other."   – Dr. Merideth Belbin During the BIO-EARN Project Management Training workshop, participants evaluated the project teams on key factors for successful implementation of projects. The evaluation results show that participants acknowledged/highly rated team membership, valued individual differences, roles played by each team member, recognized team members’ contributions and shared responsibility as key factors that will assist a team to deliver on agreed outputs/impact. The high rating of the five factors gives a promising picture on the team’s cohesion, which is necessary for successful implementation of the projects. It is hoped that this attitude towards team functioning will be maintained throughout the entire Programme period for achievement of the BIO-EARN Programme goal. Project Management Training Follow-up The Regional coordination office organized a follow up of the Good Project Management Practice (GPMP) training course held in September  2006. The follow-up exercise was conducted between 13-24th November 2006 , when the project teams were conducting their normal planning /kick off meetings. The follow up meetings took place in different BIO-EARN countries as follows: Project 1 in Kenya, Project 2 in Uganda; Project 3 in Ethiopia and Project 4 and 5 in Tanzania. The meetings were conducted by the CSIR consultant (Dr. Laurie Barwell) who carried out the GPMP training course for the project leaders. The main goal of the follow-up exercise was to enforce the knowledge acquired at the early September 2006 GPMP training course, assist in the implementation of the GPMP guidelines and Standardized Operational Procedures (SOP) contained in the GPMP Manual and obtain feedback on the GPMP Manual in order to enhance its adoption/ownership by the BIO-EARN fraternity. In addition the follow-up exercise was meant to introduce GPMP to the project team members (including postdocs and graduate students) who did not take part in the September training course. The follow up task was very successful. The teams examined the GPMP Manual and made their inputs. They scrutinized the Project Management Ground Rules stipulated in the Manual and effected some improvements.   Each project team was able to use the various templates provided in the GPMP Manual for SOPs and reporting and apply them to their own project. Every team reflected on its project’s goal and fine tuned it to a SMART and achievable goal. They then developed project road maps leading to the SMART goals and progressed to road maps for the main activities of each project. Road maps depicts the route that the project should follow from the start, passing (achieving) a number of parallel or sequential intermediate milestones before accomplishing the set goal within the agreed timeframe and budget. Further to this they created Gantt charts depicting the information shown in the project and the main activity roadmaps. They practiced how to use monitoring Gantt chart used for monitoring and evaluation of the ‘On Time/OT’ component of OBOBOT. They re-assessed the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in their project proposal log frames and re-focused them to be achievable KPIs within the project timeframes. In addition, the teams managed to assess risk factors that could pose potential failure in delivering OBOBOT and put in place SMART plans to manage each of the identified risks. The consultant emphasized that the projects’ partners must maintain communication to avoid reaching a point where some members loose interest in the research projects. All project team members agreed to put into practice GPMP within BIO-EARN by January 2007. BIO-EARN Trains Researchers on Intellectual Property (IP) Management The BIO-EARN Policy project (Project Five) held a workshop on Intellectual Property (IP) Management on 30th October-1st November 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop was organized by the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) in collaboration with its policy project partners and the BIO-EARN regional office.  It was attended by about 40 participants composed of the Principle Investigators (PIs), COPIs and research scientists involved in the 4 BIO-EARN research projects, IP managers/resource persons from BIO-EARN implementing institutions (mainly universities) and IP consultants. The workshop was necessitated by the need to make the BIO-EARN fraternity aware of new conditions for the access and use of genetic resources and biotechnology know-how worldwide resulting from International conventions, treaties, and the rapid biotechnology development. Ownership and management of Intellectual Property (IP) is an increasingly important part of technology transfer, dissemination and commercialisation. Public R&D institutions, including BIO-EARN Network institutions need to raise awareness of opportunities and obligations in the context of management of Intellectual Property (IP) in relation to use and handling genetic resources and biotechnology. Patent and IP management will be an important part of the new BIO-EARN Programme (2006-2009), and the BIO-EARN policy project (Project 5) - “Enhancing product development opportunities and supportive policies” will play a leading role. An important part of the BIO-EARN policy project is to support the BIO-EARN research project partners to develop collaborative Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) and Alliance Agreements. To this end, Fred Erbisch, formerly IP/technology transfer manager at Michigan State University (MSU), United States , is assisting the BIO-EARN Policy project to develop model MTA and Alliance agreements to be used by project partners. These will be reviewed by project partners, and finally signed by each institution by early 2007. At the same time and in order to facilitate a better understanding of the IP situation in each of the BIO-EARN research projects, the BIO-EARN policy project initiated a survey in October 2006 to collect relevant information on the IP policies in network institutes and the IP situation in each of the research projects. From a technology transfer point of view it is important to understand the IP situation on issues such as the ownership of IP assets (e.g. genes, genetic resources, methodologies) that will be used in the projects. It is also important to map the need for the projects to acquire necessary IP and the conditions for its use -the so called “Freedom to Operate” for projects. The aims of the workshop were to:  Enable BIO-EARN researchers to understand the implications of access, and use of IP in their projects and their implications for future technology dissemination/commercialization of products/technologies generated in the projects; Discuss the findings from background surveys on the IP situation for each of the BIO-EARN projects; Enable research partners to provide input on draft  MTAs and Alliance agreements for their respective projects developed by Fred Erbisch, who was present at the workshop; Proceedings from the workshop will soon be circulated, but in short participants agreed that: The workshop was very useful in creating an understanding for IP management in the BIO-EARN projects, and the need  for the Programme to continue to build awareness and capacity at the institutional level in the area of Intellectual Property (IP) Management; There is a need for close interaction between the institutional IP resource persons/designated IP officers and researchers in the projects; The BIO-EARN Programme should have a standing IP management committee (IPMC) with nominated IP representatives/resource persons from each institution that will support and advise all BIO-EARN R4D projects on IP matters, including potential technology transfer issues. 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