Category Archives: PhD and me

PhD and me – ethically too

It is confirmed, I am ethical!

Phew! That is a relief. My ethics application has just been approved. As a follow-up to my last blog, I am pleased to report this was approved first time of asking. Conditional upon my confirmation that all recording of interview will be stored directly to university systems – and not on my laptop. Yes, that is a must-do.

For me personally, this first-time approval is a big deal. My year 2 progress assessment is fast approaching, and this is important progress. I would have some explaining to do if I were moving into my final year still to be approved to conduct my method of interview. For any PhD candidate, this approval is a milestone to pass through. For any academic research this is now what must be done each and every time one moves an idea into a formal academic action.

As stated in the last blog, this approval is the result of months of challenge to my methodology by my supervisors. The pre-PhD me would be asking “why on earth does this all take so long?”. In other words, how can a PhD possibly need so long in the preparation before the real data collection even begins? Which for me is a data collection via interview. Maybe you are reading this, thinking that, too. After all, plenty of people conduct interviews, and against tight deadlines which demand one to just get on and do. Skills most learn in business or through life one way or another. Much like you then, this has been me too!

If I contrast this preparation with other forms of interview I am more familiar with, this has been quite different. For example, I have been a consultant interviewer – I have prepared, conducted and reported plenty of interviews to establish facts for executive decision-makers. That requires preparation more focused upon the needs of those engaging one to seek what they want you to find. I did similar work when compiling reports for purposes of due diligence. Different again is conducting one-to-one career development interviews, or performance appraisals, or performance improvement interventions, with colleagues. This one-to-one is different because they reported to me and I was working within frameworks of guidance imposed upon me, and therefore obligations of a different kind. The same may be said of interviewing job applicants, where one is ultimately intended to tell most the answer is no based upon a selection criteria. Or I could recall, with stoic resolve, occasions when my investigations into allegations of poor conduct resulted in dismal of those found to have been too wayward and too economical with the truth. In each case there was preparation, consideration of duties, and thereafter there was interview. All are life skills of communication and assessment perhaps, but each demanding preparation as well as establishing facts in interview. Many of those examples would not have been long in the preparing – prepared as I was for each.

However, the PhD version of me now appreciates just how exacting and powerful this more deliberate and precise academic preparation can be. It is different in kind. Even if I compare this to other transformations, such as learning to be a facilitator consultant and not an advisor in a room, or mentor, or directing others to what I needed them to do, this is different preparation again. This academic ethical process is different in kind, because it questions why do this at all. The questioning of everything, and most especially the safety of the other, and the integrity of what is then found and what is retained and what not. In this research capacity, this preparation is something different and useful to have learned. Both in interview context (a method) but also in methodological context much more broadly. In both senses applying best practice to the how and the why of what must be more precisely framed, and to know what we are academically adhering to.

My supervisors suggest I will now need quite some months conducting interview and analysing my interview data – of course I am naively thinking I can do it quicker than they think!!! Some lessons can only be learned the hard way I suppose. Learning by doing, no matter how well one prepares. More lessons to learn over the summer and beyond no doubt.

To be continued…

PhD and me – ethically

Protecting us and them from “them and us”

A blog intended to convince you of the role of approvals and assurance as a benefit. A factor of doing things well but often missing or ineffective – creating that “them and us” attitude. An individual view, drawing from the ethics process in academic context compared to assurance in other domains.

The ethical approvals process in PhD level research is probing and exacting upon the researcher. I like it. I do however wonder if mine is the minority view of “the dreaded” ethics approval process. With this resistance in mind, this blog attempts to convince you that the role of assurance is a positive one, in what ever field you are in or whether in academic or professional life. I now have experience enough to make reference to both.

I speak with some authority of assurance processes for two reasons. Firstly, my professional background involves questioning the internal controls in project-based organisations. In advising tier one contractors (i.e., main contractors often managing tier two or three specialisms), assurance is part of what we colloquially called “risk, internal control, and assurance” or RICA. This may be layered or distinguished by commercial, planning, design, and other specialist roles. In construction design management this includes questioning the effectiveness of the internal controls and how they relate to key interfaces (internal and external), the capability and capacity of those using them, the leadership overseeing all of this, and the assurances in place to inform that overseeing. Secondly, my PhD research is focused upon governance in this same “project” context. Subsequent to my professional learning therefore, I can also now borrow from academic conceptualisations and theory. Without labouring on that too much, both professional and academic learning can be positioned toward the same need for appropriate assurance.

In both experience and theory terms, I would also observe that assurance and governance are terms that have contextual meaning. As such, there is potential for much confusion of where one starts and the other stops. Arguably, assurance sits within governance. However, one can be talking at cross-purposes where one level of assurance is confused with another level of governance, or an obfuscation of these distinct terms. All depends on the context. For example, the overall governing of an organisational process is a context. Depending on context the internal controls in a project-based company are one part of a governance framework. The accompanying sign-offs within the overall procedures, the approved persons lists, stated policies, or standards or procedures, have potential assurance aspects or framing as governance. I may be guilty of having crossed purposes or confused terms with your own preferred definitions. Which is to some extent my point.

The academic researcher might borrow from methodology literature and understand this obfuscation or confusion as highlighting the need to be clear on the applicable level of analysis. For example, an organisational level of analysis here directs the distinction between terms with clear hierarchical delineation of what formal governance may be. However, the randomised checking, or spot checks, via formal audit is also an assurance process with a distinct and separate formality. A separate line of defence. In a project-based organisation I have often encountered confusion in discussions where two interlocutors are talking of approvals processes, audits, and the broader notions of what governance relates to. The interchanging level of analysis may be a source of confusion. However, the definition of the project or what the project is to that one organisation versus another – i.e., at interorganisational project scale – or the project as the temporary organisation, all create potential for misunderstanding. My research is focused on this confusion – which is everywhere once one considers perspectives beyond ones own. In the remainder of this blog, the framing of sign-off of what is “ethical” will next be turned to. A change of unit and level of analysis once more.

The ethics approval process becomes an assurance of the prior-start process of empirical research. It is applicable to every researcher in my university, and a demand of any researcher in most all academic settings. I will not dwell on the details of the academic approvals process I am going through per se because the generalisations are quickly lost. I will offer an experiential account instead. In truth, I have taken much longer on this ethics process than most PhD candidates would (or should). I have read through the guidance notes from other fields, I have also read other university guides from other Russell Group universities, and Oxbridge and the US Ivy League. I have worked through the various templates of key supporting documents required. That is very much overkill. Such reading around is not necessary, indeed much the same is asked in broad terms overall. For me this extended reading around the theory and practice, specific to the issues of ethical concerns in academic context, is of interest and use to me. Ultimately, my own application has taken four months to prepare (on and off). Anecdotally my reading suggests the norms are more like six weeks. I am consequently behind the curve in research project or process terms. But I think I am also now better prepared, in the context of my wider research aims. Overall, I applaud the process now engrained within the norms of universities everywhere, and the habits instilled which peer review journals now expect as standard. The levels of questioning the researcher must apply to ones own research and how it has been framed are robust – whether they always followed is a separate assurance related question. There is plenty of evidence to suggest other problems grounded in motives not means.

Elsewhere on this website I also talk of visibility | behaviour | trust ( v | b | t ) – as three legs of a stool that supports an interest in truth. Assurance can be canvassed in these same terms. The unit of analysis applicable there may be leadership, and the level of analysis perhaps the assurance process itself. A decent assurance process compliments the broader internal governance framework because it requires leadership to behave with ongoing care, by seeking visibility that confirms what they think is happening is in fact the case. All parties involved can become more trusting of the overall process if all are included in ensuring there is clarity and efficacy in that process.

Another framing of this assurance challenge would be to ask who is checking the checkers? Or challenge whether leadership takes the possibility of not hearing bad news because of the processes they insist upon. In practical terms this means leadership proactively ensuring all involved are being given the right guidance and training to act in accordance with this accepted way. Based on practical experience, I would also observed this attitude of leadership is rarely in place. At institutional level I think the current Post Office fiasco in the UK highlights such leadership apathy. At national level I think the parliamentary process weakened by a lack of constitutional oversight, and telling that current government have taken to calling the Civil Service and its many layers of checking “the blob”. At lesser levels of analysis, if the process is working well, one is required to use the best tools to do what is expected and the given right training to do or manage at all levels of authority. Furthermore the clarity of priority and purpose also becomes bound to the overall vision of leadership. In broad terms I think this applicable to most levels of process. This same top-down need exists in this context of priority and vision, but this should also be ground-up effective by design. The ground level view is critical — both for buy-in but also efficacy and capture of emergent best-practice — from those working within this framework. The assurance of leadership should be much the same. It is the doers who must be given means to ensure what is being asked of them is relevant, do-able, and universally upheld. Leadership should be accountable for making that so. There is great power in being empowered by this collective interest in truth.

The three legs of v | b | t is an idea which emerged from my dissertation in my first masters [link here]. However, the RICA idea was firmly a matter of learning for me, taken directly from my consulting colleagues and betters – they developed this idea which predates me going back several decades. All of these notions are pointing toward the same positive outlook of what assurance can be. In essence, the benefit of good assurance (distinct from the broader notions of governance) is as the final aspect of this increased visibility. Seeking the truth of what is actually going on. This is about critically challenging what leadership thinks is going on, based on the policing of what is actually going on, via the combined effectiveness of the systems of control and the people managing and relying upon that process (i.e., the risk in RICA being managed via that compliment to leadership). That is the professional summary – what frames consulting discussions in areas such as design management – but the notions apply equally well to what the academic ethics approval process represents.

In summary, this is all important stuff and to be taken seriously by the researcher. Even in “low risk” situations such as my own. I observed risk assessments being demanded in context terms, which is great to see. I learned besides in going through this so thoroughly. The process is useful, because it is demanding of oneself and ones research assumptions. For example, my interview method is now more clearly stated and supported by the new-found clarity of my interview protocols. The recruitment materials – participant information sheet, consent forms, draft email – all prepared and agreed via my supervisors’ critical interventions. Within the ethics application I wrote and rewrote several times, there is now a clarity of purpose, process, and outcome of my research methodology and the reasoning for that chosen design. All of this has necessarily become more exacting of me. I have been challenged in new ways. Kudos to my university for the quality of supporting information and various modes of training or guidance which all made this process meaningful. The new online system – Phoenix – one I have grown to like (and trust) these last four months. I very much approve.

My ethics application was formally submitted yesterday evening. Electronically signed by me. Then separately approved by my lead supervisor. Now with the ethics committee to deliberate over for between six and eight weeks. I will no doubt need to make amendments, or offer clarifications. Just as it should be! An “us and them” in compliance terms, only in the context of hierarchy. That hierarchy ultimately acting as a “we” within the university. Approvals governing the same protections of others -i.e., of the researched them to whom we must act ethically as a researching us (including me) who may cause harm. The ethics process is a means to manage that risk.

to be continued…

PhD and me – purgatory

Living in the space between ideas

A blog about writing-to-think, but not as I thought it to be. In true collaboration we are writing-to-think together, and shared meaning needs common language to be found to make that so.

Eureka! If I shouted that to myself I did not hear. However, such moments are few and far between on any personal journey and merit this evening’s reflection. I had such a moment yesterday, in the company of my supervisors. Not that they would see it as such, more likely, “ah! and now finally he gets it!” Although, that too may yet be a conclusion to win from them both.

My Achilles heal in progressing in my capability as an academic remains my ability to communicate with academic clarity. I feel somewhat stranded, or perhaps held back by this now and it has started to dent my confidence. I am in purgatory, in the sense that I am wanting to win favour to move through the next gate, but still atoning for sins I did not even know I had made. That may now be about to change because of a realisation I came to yesterday. It seems so obvious as to be embarrassing to have not found out by now. Namely, that if I am writing-to-think it is thinking being done with my supervisors rather than telling them what I have now resolved.

For wider context, I am still wrestling with a problem with my methodology. It seems a simple enough problem to solve but it has really absorbed most of my second year so far. In crude terms, I am undertaking research that I now know will eventually involve interviewing individuals. The subject matter of interest sits at a much grander scale: relating conflict in projects involving differently orientated organisations to the governance managing that relationship. The scaling challenge really comes down to what is being generalised from the interviews, and how can that be evidenced meaningfully towards wider claim. I have taken a quite remarkably elaborate path towards answering that question. I am very happy with what I now see differently because of that intricate, or knotty, or perhaps frivolously convoluted route to bring me back to where I have now arrived. It is however a journey I have taken largely on my own, because I just have not found the words to explain what I have been doing.

The time taken to unsnarl that knotty problem (it may yet amount to six months) was largely the unpicking and re-stitching of my research design. As has been said several times to me now, “you’ve done a very deep dive into philosophy, much deeper than many PhD researchers do”. In unpicking and re-stitching what I now know to have been a research design problem I needed to satisfy myself that my eventual unit of analysis and levels of analysis aligned with my research problem, generalisation goals, and philosophical positioning (Strang 2015 taught me that). The justification for adopting hermeneutics and phenomenology seemed obvious to me, but it has been a devil to find the means to explain it. I had actually began this research wanting to work within a psychological framework but in time it became obvious to me that it did not fit the problem as an exploration. However, I have felt compelled to draw back the veil of the underlying philosophy to then understand the methodology, and then have my reasoning for why psychology did not fit. Much easier, but less satisfactory to my exploratory aims, would have been to keep the psychology and change the philosophical positioning to something more objectively amenable (pragmatism or critical realism for example). I have ultimately needed to rethread the philosophical and methodological ties with better understanding of both, and then reject the psychological ideas as too overtly positivist. The comment “you’ve made your work quite a bit harder for yourself” is certainly also true.

A month on since these comments, and yesterday’s fortnightly discussion with my supervisors was partly a reprimand and partly therapy. It was actually one of the best discussions I have had, simply because it drew something to the surface that I have been blind to until now. The revelation has three levels of insight. Firstly, I have been reticent to send progress to my supervisors of late. My reasoning was because I have deemed my thinking still to be thought-in-progress. Secondly (more deeply hidden) I am actually not so much still thinking through this problem now, but actually fatigued by the constant criticism of my writing style. Thirdly (more deeply still) my perspective on what writing-to-think can be is now found to be framed to the wrong set of possibilities. The result has been a growing sense of being judged, however that increasingly raw feeling is a criticism I have really been placing upon myself. If I had worked that out sooner, I would not have had to think the rest out on my own.

Once I moved beyond the self-pity yesterday -i.e., insight levels one and two above – this third level of insight became the focus of discussion. Writing continues to be my Achilles heal, but for reasons other than I had thought them to be. I am inclined to write, re-write, and write once again. I will take on new perspective, write that into what was said before, and then write it all over again. That might sound tedious, but it is apparently pretty common in academic terms. It is just writing-to-think. But, here is the kicker – only toward the end of my writing is what I eventually come to understand differently being structured to be understood by others. In this context, the writing to be understood is only arriving once the research is done. This is only half the story. The first-half however is not just writing-to-think for me. It can be, and has been but that is not the resting place of that ability, not if I want to be an academic and a collaborative member of an academic team. Once the full power of academic thought is being unleashed, the writing-to-think is itself a collaborative text. The written thinking as a process becomes necessarily downloaded into a text in a common language that can be readily understood by all involved. That was the light-bulb moment for me – Eureka!

The point here is that if everyone is writing-to-think, and if everyone is naturally inclined to think differently – and different is good – the collective thinking is useful and productive. However, the iterative process of collaborative thinking necessitates all can find means to converse through those thoughts, not after the thoughts are complete. Thinking in written form is therefore not just for the writer, but for all involved in developing that original thought. Taking that further, this probably means that no one person would have had some of these thoughts at all. In the project management field (which I aspire to call home), the relatively small scholarship community are a community of collaborators. That collaborative focus is part and parcel of the thinking process. I am fortunate to be supervised by editorial experience, and by extension to now be on the fringes of that community. I am getting to meet some of those names I read constantly. In Project Management journals the academic papers are hardly ever a solo affair, and the collaborators are spread across the globe. Where collaborative endeavour is the established norm, writing-to-think is therefore also necessarily learning to think in iterative steps with fellow thinkers. In other words, not just learning to think like these people, but learning to think with them.

Somewhere along the way of my PhD journey I have grown weary of the constant pointing to what I am not expressing with clarity – i.e., because it is still being thought out. However, I now see I had the wrong end of a very heavy stick. I was feeling embarrassment, fatigue, annoyance even, that my thinking was just not moving into the difficult and interesting discussions I crave – I just seemed to be constantly the recipient of judgement upon a writing style. That reflects the mood of my part in discussion yesterday. My supervisors grabbed that quite skilfully, “We are not judging you!”. After some newly offered explanation that fog began to clear. I am being nudged toward a way of communicating with my peers, in a language they too have had to learn. It seems like everyday language, but the context is code based on what all already know. By the time I am defending my research I am expected to know what others can be expected to know. My supervisors are my guides towards those final discussions at the end of this circa three years. Thereafter, if I am lucky and find the favour of those differently minded peers, I may get to move out of purgatory and onto new shared thoughts. New sharing, based upon or moving against already shared ideas.

…to be continued

Strang, K.D. 2015. The Palgrave Handbook of Research Design in Business and Management 1st ed. (K. D. Strang, ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

PhD and me – unknowability

Living life in Schrödinger’s blender

Today, I feel like a hydra or a sponge living in a blender. Both are examples of basic lifeforms which, despite external effort to break them, will not die when put through a blender but instead return to their basic form. By virtue of some rather ethically suspect experiments (not by me), this has been shown empirically. As a PhD researcher, I am curious to know who signed off the ethics of that…

I am not unbreakable, far from it, but my point is the PhD process often feels like a rebuild. Life lived in a blender. However, the process of PhD progression becomes a fight with one’s innermost way to be. Like the hydra or the sponge therefore, one must withstand the blender and rebuild again. Unlike these more basic lifeforms, the PhD student’s form should not remain unchanged.

Today is another rebuild for me, feeling all battered and bruised post a tough destruction of three months work. The blender was on full power on Friday, with my supervisors turning the switch. It was a pulse-blast, just the headlines of what is coming my way. For background, I submitted a large lump of first draft thesis writing in mid-January – at 20,000 words probably too big to cram into that one blender. I then spent much of the last two weeks much like Schrödinger’s cat. My work was both alive and dead – with possibility of being whole or in pieces – both at the same time. The actual state would be dependant upon external measure of how those words would be viewed. With the box now open, blender lid opened enough to peer in, the rebuild will once again begin. So is the way of the PhD progression, and the cycles of form and necessary reconstruction.

Fresh from the latest of so many intervention therefore, I know I can survive being blended once again. I am grateful. The new clarity and targeted aspects of change give me the signposts towards coming back around again. Like the simple structure of the hydra, I am therefore blessed with the gift of being alive whether found temporarily blended or mended. The life of the metaphorical hydra-sponge cat that remains alive yet in a state that is both pulped or whole at the same time. The PhD life, lived in Schrödinger’s blender, where change is forever invited in.

to be continued…

PhD and me – i level

The “i” in your PhD team: it is within (part 2)

This blog is a continuation on the theme of the “i” in the PhD team (i.e., being the PhD student). In a very non-academic and somewhat tongue-in-cheek piece, I revisit some old ideas from psychoanalytic (Jungian) analogy; specifically to alchemical transformations. This analogy to being in a forever coveted state of change. The constant desire to transform into something more valued or more pure. Valuable to whom, though? This reflects the deeper question, and the point I’m trying to convey.

This image and comment remain relevant, here.

… shine a light on the “i” in team if you are to survive your PhD.

per part 1 of this blog

As a recent student of psychology I am very much aware of the limitations of psychoanalytic theory in the 21st Century. However, it was not so long ago that I gained much personal insight by this light — it is therefore to Carl Jung’s perspective I have chosen to frame this specific blog. An odd choice for a PhD student, and certainly not a position I’d advocate using academically. Yet, metaphorically, Jung presents a rich imagery which can be borrowed from — including his close associations with alchemy.

Is that too kooky? Well, think upon the following for context, from a not-so-distant reach into the past. Sir Isaac Newton was famously obsessed by alchemy. Later still the French Royal Academy of Science debated the claims of transmutation as late as the 1850s. The London alchemical society was formed in 1912 to foster discussions between alchemists and chemists. The old and the new melting into the imagination, reawakened by the nuclear age. In other words, just one century ago, in the time of Freud and Jung, notions of alchemical transformation were not fully dismissed. That’s not to say it has scientific or serious academic merit today, but metaphorically this idea of transformation aids the point I wish to make here.

Being a PhD researcher involves extended periods of learning how to understand things differently. We are each inviting a process of change into our mode of being. Metaphorically (i.e., no more than analogously), the language of alchemy helps conjure images of how we invite in that change. Burning away excesses of information towards the essence of what is more true. Alchemically solidifying an idea or a philosophical position to give it a rigid form —i.e., a position that can resist incoming force. Alternatively, melting down a concrete idea that seems too strongly bonded together —i.e., to better differentiate aspects and see what sits between.

Other notions are also metaphorically physically transformative. Making matters more malleable; breaking things up; generalising a mass from specifics atoms; atomising from that mass of specificity. Better containing a paradigm; or building one anew. A constant transformation is going on, and matters are constantly being made stronger, to then be pulled asunder once more. In this context, is contemporary “systems thinking” logic really so different from claims in the alchemical past? Both seek to show inter-connectivity — “As above, so below” said Hermes Trismegistus in the Emerald Tablet. In my opinion, both are lost once paradoxical positions need to be contextualised, not connected. However, the point here is that once the scholar reads back into the history of scholarship, so do some lines begin to blur. Hence I raise this alchemical analogy, because it seems surprisingly useful to explain the constant state of change or transformation a PhD candidate goes through.

The level of analysis also becomes challenged once we acknowledge the student is both the subject and the object of change. Being simultaneously and necessarily both rigid enough to critically engage new ideas, yet fragile enough to be inevitably changed too. We are both the experimenter and the experiment. On the one hand, representing a constant need for clarity of perspective. Yet, on the other hand soon in need of burning away the peripheral aspects, or to be melted back into a primordial soup to enable whatever future progress may yet demand us to be. The supervisors in this context are necessarily less changed.

The “they” in this team (i.e., the supervisors, or the institution, or the journal we wish to publish in) are offering more clarity of the structures and frameworks that underpin the field of research you chose. “They” represents the necessary containment needed for a field of research to be defined. “They” do this by demanding we individually present argument and engage discourse from within that contained field.

Engaging with the “they” — or “them” (the others) — can be difficult discussions. Discussions that do not become easier, indeed once engaging with academia at large, it is harder still. That’s why the supervision team is so important; they can help. They increase the capability of the individual to endure challenge, learn to be the challenge, and so embrace change and be a contributing factor to bigger change.

That’s why “we” is a team; and the “I” in the team a discernible part. As a team we can operate within a safe psychological space — like a lab containing our discourse. I am free to test ideas in this safe place, and the odd explosion is tolerated by them, but most importantly the mistakes can be safely diffused. Trust is therefore a key ingredient in this process. Trust comes from behaving appropriately, learning to behave more academically, and being more visible at moments when doing something out of the norm. Trust in a personal metaphorical lab, which “they” too have access to.

The “I” in this team takes accountability for such introductions of novelty. The student makes errors responsibly, learns quickly, and moves forward. Safe to occasionally blow-up, melt-down, freeze over, or just sit stewing in one’s own juices (seemingly doing little, yet inwardly becoming realigned). For me at least, this is how I improve. I am constantly battling myself, and better is generally another light shone upon something to which I was blind. For this reason I tend to read and write my way clear of problems, and respond to every occasional nudge from my supervisory team.

Finally, let me reveal why the grand alchemical metaphor ultimately fails, and thereby succeeds. Change is a critical part of the PhD journey. You are inviting in new means to see, and to be. However, the alchemical fallacy was ultimately flawed because it sought change of the wrong kind. Gold is valued because it is rare, and therefore valuable to all who value it. However, it is materialistic. That is a poor substitute for the value of time; or the value in being with others. My phenomenology philosophical positioning would point to change, but also regard experience as a development and a direction toward something else. Experience in human terms, which is inseparable to our perspective set in a finite time. More valuable than gold is therefore our time. And what that time is best spent on, is something each of us builds our own laboratory around; in our own context and priority. This build, is something none of us can do better alone. Heidegger tells us that.

In Jungian terms change will be a dent to one’s ego. It will require persona to be unmasked, old shadowy corners to be revisited and overcome, and aspects of Self found by finding new ways to change one’s state of being. Such transformation is necessarily a destabilising experience. But enjoy that journey, and dare to admit you do not know. Work hard to earn the trust of those acting as guides along the way. Think laterally, be brave, but fail quickly and be better next time. It will be on that path the “i” in team is shown.

…to be continued

PhD and me – i level

The “i” in your PhD team: it is within

This blog is aimed at post-graduate level students (like me) who are wrestling with their research positioning or procedures, and facing the unknown. Moments when becoming self-reliant lives best within your wider team.

We are all potentially on the same team, yet we are each alone with others in shared pursuit of what is unknown. Shine a light on the “i” in team if you are to survive your PhD.

You are your PhD, and this is the “i” in team I am pointing to in this blog post. Depicted above to infer a spotlight behind the team that reveals that “i”. I am lucky to be able to say my supervisors are fantastic, as that core of my wider team. Without them I would have no hope of successfully navigating this PhD journey. However, being alone is a key part of the PhD research process. It is this sense of isolation which I am now seeing more clearly – revelling in this aloneness as a fearful empowerment – once the navigational unknowns are those we all share.

This prompts another spotlight metaphor. That of a map of knowledge one is navigating by, but at that moment it starts to run out of roads. A PhD is required to contribute something new. It is inevitable therefore that if one chooses exploration (rather than confirmation) as a basis of research, then eventually the maps are not so well drawn. The conceptual, methodological, or assumed correct dimensions of the map will have blank spaces or false ends. And as with all approximations in early maps, the tendency is to draw a dragon or a compass on what is not known.

Eyes wide open therefore to new means to see; new cartography, or necessary changes to the maps now outgrown. A few personal demons to overcome perhaps; and a readiness to vanquish mapped dragons by shinning a new light upon the unknown. It will be here that the “i” in team is shown.

…to be continued

PhD and me – the transfer

Five key aspects of a PhD first year you will need to know

I passed my transfer examination this week (yay!). In this blog post, I summarise the five aspects of developing a research proposal that defines most of my first year as a fulltime PhD student. If you’re curious about what to expect during this initial year, keep reading.

Time to read:

10–15 minutes

A readers guide. The five aspect I focus upon are listed next. Each aspect is then addressed sequentially -i.e., one section each – structured: [i] a descriptive paragraph; [ii] a Quick tip! ; [iii] what this meant for me; and [iv] a summary of my research within that aspect, in italics. Happy reading.

The five aspects are:

  1. the problem – what your research is directed toward
  2. the research gap – how the research serves a gap in the literature
  3. the research question – one factor that helps frame the aim, purpose, and point toward the expected contribution to the field
  4. the proposed methodology – justification, philosophical underpinning, pros and cons, and the basis to direct the intended plan
  5. the literature – the clarity of positioning research within the wider academic discourse being engaged.

[1] The problem

[i] Any academic research (including the research that builds towards a PhD) starts with the outline of the problem to be addressed by that research. This is the means to demonstrate, with evidence, that there is something to be concerned about. One possible outcome is a succinct note as a “problem statement” and a series of propositions backed by literature evidence.

[ii] Quick tip! Defining the problem is a harder task than may first be thought. “The problem is the problem” is the mantra I recall most from the guidebooks. However, this addressing of the problem eventually becomes the clear articulation of why something is valid for research and of interest to an academic audience. As the first aspect of learning to engage academically this might be a rude awakening – academic writing is uniquely challenging.

[iii] At a personal level, my supervisors and I spent months kicking “the problem” around. I was also metaphorically kicked around, too – because as clear as I thoughts I was, I really was not. First off, get straight to the point. Make it crystal clear how theory relates to the main issues. Second, know your audience and take their side. Third, win over the audience by strength of argument, not strength of conviction or controversy raised. It’s all about effective communication and knowing how, why, and when to change that tone. Defining the problem with the necessary academic clarity, was devilishly hard. For me at least, the changes in me might have been the hardest part.

[iv] In summary, the problem I am addressing is the regularity and pervasive nature of conflict in interorganisational projects (IOPs). Conflict is largely acknowledged as being a factor of one party’s intentions (needs or goals) being denied by another. Yet diverse intentions of different parties are rarely a factor of the upfront governance that is relating all parties together. Peculiar to construction, the literature is also obsessed with governance by contract. The result is that construction scholars deem the contract as both cause and solution to conflict. Conversely, and more broadly, governance is both a matter of formality and informality; or contracts and relationships; matters of trade and of trust; in the wider interorganisational governance literature. However, even here relationships and behaviours are understood sociologically or economically, and not psychologically (e.g., relating behaviour to intent). My research is therefore connecting those three aspects (conflict, governance, and diverse intentions) to try and understand what governance may be able to do (or enable us to be) differently.

[2] The research gap

[i] The research gap is addressed by arguing (with evidence) that the identified problem is not already understood. In other words, showing the reader that there is a gap to fill. This evidence based address also shows how the wider literature currently interfaces from the perspective of the identified problem.

[ii] Quick tip! My advice is find the journals in your academic field that are orientated towards literature reviews. They typically conclude with express statements about where research gaps emerge. In management scholarship for example, the International Journal of Management Reviews (IJMR) is a must read. All of the papers in this one journal are literature reviews – and generally written by accomplished scholars who are pointing to problems with or gaps in the literature.

[iii] On a personal level, I have learned how to read scholarly materials with more critical perspective. Unusually, that includes the philosophical positioning that often underpins theory and assumed norms. That has enabled some lesser travelled paths to be pointed towards in reviewing where gaps are potentially interesting. However, it has also made the clear definition of contribution to knowledge more difficult to place in one set of literature or another. Luckily for me my examiners agreed, because the “so what?” question (which becomes the contribution to knowledge) is one I am yet to really nail.

[iv] In summary, my research focuses on conflict and how it relates to governance theory. Evidencing the two-fold origin of theory is supported by the literature. I argue that this gap can be explored through psychological and philosophical perspectives, and my cross-over into notions of conflict and intentions support this claim.

[3] The research question

[i] Aim, purpose, and contribution may not be immediately obvious, or easily separated. However, when looked at in reverse – i.e., retrospectively, and informed by each of the other five aspects – these distinctions might suddenly seem obvious. All research will vary, however there will be an aim of any research that is distinct from the purpose. The research question(s) will relate to that aim, and the objectives will build toward that purpose (and develop intended outcomes toward that end). A research title will bring all of this together (or be the start of what each of these aspects become). The contribution is distinct from all of these aspects but will link the research to the research gap and problem.

[ii] Quick tip! Have your individual priority clearly in mind first -i.e., your why for doing a PhD. As I explain next, that factor sits outside of these five aspects but it can profoundly change the basis of what is then asked in the research itself.

[iii] At a personal level, my entire research focus changed once I corrected my declared personal priority. Most people I know are going for PhD by publication, and initially that was my priority, too. Three reasons: [1] future academic careers are dependant upon citation count and publication productivity; [2] the more time spent learning how to navigate those difficult publication hurdles the better; [3] there is increased credibility in the final viva exam if able to point to a portfolio of peer reviewed work. For me however, the monograph thesis emerged as the more appropriate approach. I could spend longer with a development paper outlining the problem – submitted to my first conference. A single research question emerged from that extended time, and thereafter I had more time examining methodology to support that one question. For context, a student going for PhD for publication is likely to have developed three research questions that each support a publication e.g., developing a first question as the literature review [guide here]. This change of personal priority profoundly altered where most time has been spent in the second-half of my first year – and ultimately my research is much changed in response.

[iv] In summary, I am asking a single research question “how can differences in intentions inform governance approaches and reduce threat of conflict in interorganisational projects?“. That single research question unpacks into three phrases, and each phrase has two objectives identified to answer this one question overall. The six objectives relate to defined outputs. Those outputs collectively provide the empirical evidence to support my final claims in answering that research question. The extra time I have had (i.e., not preparing the three necessary plans for separate publications) was spent with aspects of methodology towards that one question.

[4] Methodology

[i] At post-graduate level methodology should be noted as being distinct from method. Method is specifically the manner by which data is collected (e.g., questionnaires, interviews, case-study, field work etc), and analysed (e.g., coding of transcripts or the chosen numerical evaluation). Methodology is more generally the wider appeal to how empirical method will be related to the grounding of the research and the adopted philosophical worldview that sits within. Put another way, the methodology is what invites philosophical assumptions to be made clear. This clarity then connects to the methods of data gathering and analysis to be applied to the research. By this under-pinning the procedural elements of research can then be critically examined and assessed accordingly. This is what then informs the research plan, sampling strategy, level of analysis, unit of analysis, and the strengths and weaknesses of that positioning in what advanced with evidence at the end.

[ii] Quick tip! There is an easy road and there is a hard road that may be taken when approaching methodology. The less philosophically demanding route is to work backwards from method [Google, YouTube, postgrad blogs, ChatGPT all offer “hacks” to short-cut this way]. An alternative (i.e., more respectable) shorter path might be taking Saunders research onion approach {here}. The hardest road is seeking to understand the philosophical perspective more concretely.

[iii] At a personal level, I took the hardest road here, and I am pleased I did. *By positioning the research needs first and foremost, I was rewarded with insight and justification in rejecting many of the more conventional philosophical approaches in my field. This meant positivist epistemology making way for better means to support exploration. I prioritised human reasoning for action (not a thickening of explanations to support causation) which meant post-positivist perspectives -i.e., critical realism and most forms of pragmatism – each became less appealing. Constructivism also eventually yielding to philosophical positions borrowing more fundamentally from hermeneutics*. Several months of finding deep-seated problems with conventional wisdom changed my research methodology and redefined my entire research priority and plan.

*[practical user tip! – if all of these philosophy terms above are gobbledegook, I have placed two *asterisks* in paragraph 4 [iii] to flag a section of text to cut and paste Have ChatGPT expand that paragraph -i.e., by asking it to explain the key philosophical concepts and justification I have stated between those two asterisks. ChatGPT is fundamentally flawed in many ways but I tested it with this text and it offers reasonable rudimentary paragraphs of explanation. In my opinion that is how to use such tools -i.e., to give basic level explanations to enable you to dig in specific directions it signposts you towards].

[iv] In summary, Martin Heidegger’s philosophical hermeneutics is the unusual choice of grounding selected for my research. I am also persuaded to utilise the interpretive power (albeit philosophically demanding) methodology of phenomenology. Phenomenology can be a powerful interpretative methodology when complimenting Heideggerian ontology, so the pairing is well chosen. Both invite different perspectives and challenge to what is otherwise assumed in project management discourse. Notwithstanding that novelty, my empirical evidence is to be gathered via well-understood methods of semi-structured interview. However, because of this philosophical positioning I will use factors such as author and participant pre-understanding as a key aspect of how I conduct interview and analyse my interview data. The justification for this novelty is therefore supporting exploratory priority and possibility of a fundamentally different way of seeing human interaction in a complex project space.

[5] The literature

[i] The literature review places the key arguments of your proposed research into the context of what is already known -i.e., it is a mistake to this just a regurgitation of existing theory and scholarship. The literature review ends up as an appendix in the year end transfer report, it is also likely to be a chapter of your final PhD thesis. Indeed, if going for a PhD by publication, this may also be the first publication proposed (and likely needing to be ready to submit to a journal soon after that end of the first year).

[ii] Quick tip! Check your field of scholarships journal ranking norms. In management scholarship, for example, the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) provides broad guidance. CABS Academic Journal Guide (AJG) is a means to check quality scholarship by starting with 4* journals. Another example is aforementioned International Journal of Management Reviews (IJMR), as a good place to start literature review grounding; both as a guide towards what a literature reviews looks like, and offering guidance on types of methodology available to conduct a literature review.

[iii] At a personal level, a detailed positioning of research into the wider discourse going on in several fields (i.e., the discussions in the literature one article to the next) became a constant changing perspective. The source of many draft and rewrites – and it will continue to be.

[iv] In summary, the socio-economic division of governance literature and conflict literature are now better understood by finding the origins of theory shared by most scholarship. Furthermore, much of the theory underpinning these positions in these two distinct areas of scholarship (conflict and governance) both trace back to comparable sociological or economic origins. Conflict literature can claim some level of sophisticated when posing questions of psychology or factors prior to action (which variously forms from goals, motivations, and intentions). Governance, however is reliant on economic or sociological theory. This forms a central theme of the arguments and examples presented in my research proposal, the feeds into the gap and the contribution to knowledge I have proposed.

What next?

For me, this first year is at an end. My whole demeanour is changed having been told I can transfer. More general information on transfer exams can be found {here}. This “go / no go” decision is one to have in mind from the start of your PhD. It is a nervous moment, so I hope writing this blog whilst living with that anxiety reveals what is important in the end; and what this transfer hurdle might mean to you.

…to be continued

About Me

“PhD and me” is a blog-series about my later life move into academic research. One mask, among many.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art

PhD and me – in conference

A peer into the academic conference

I attended and presented at my first academic conference last week – The British Academy of Management annual conference {BAM2023}. This blog offers you a comparison between the “professional” conference and the “academic” conference format.

This blog will highlight the importance of peers as exemplified by the peer role in academic conference. To peer in: “to glance, look, or stare in (to something), especially in an intent, inquisitive, or searching manner”. To be a peer: “a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background, and social status”. Peer is meant here in that second definition, but both notions apply.

I have attended many conferences in a professional (i.e., business) capacity over 25 years. That has involved me presenting to rooms full of people; I have been interviewed as panel guest, and played host. The professional conference can be a place to prioritise many things: aimed at selling; a networking focal point; places of debate, political persuasion, or commercial positioning; or a glorified meeting place where familiar people meet to chat in some far from home bar. On company time and expense, I have accumulated a toolbox of skills for all those formats…

a group of friends drinking beer
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com
people on a video call
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

My first academic conference was unlike anything I had attended before. Firstly, it was all online (at least for me). More fundamentally however, an academic conference is a place where new ideas are presented and given critical scrutiny. It is expected that presenters will face challenging questions aimed at the validity and significance of their work. Questions like “So what? Why is that interesting?” are common. Participants engage in critical discussions about methodology, the strength of findings, and the understanding of theories being compared.

Three distinctions – preparation, participation, and expertise in the audience – are now expanded upon to offer some insight into what academic conferences do differently. Firstly, the preparations are different because to be academically interesting, requires something to be new. Unlike other conferences where sometimes the speakers have nothing new to say – and may have paid sponsorship fees to say it (again!) – academics come prepared and ready to share their latest research. Preparation will have begun well before the conference. For example, the BAM2023 call for papers was made in the Autumn of 2022 to be submitted in early spring 2023.

Secondly, academic conferences are different from professional conferences because participation is a two-fold process with all authors of papers additionally acting as reviewers. Participants have the opportunity (and the obligation) to review other submitted papers and provide feedback. The selection of papers for the conference is influenced by these reviews. This is the peer-to-peer process in action. At BAM, the membership is roughly one third PhD students, so both paper development and the review of papers are perpetually a mix of experience and new researchers learning the peer-to-peer craft. The process is anonymous (double-blind of both author and reviewer). Not all submissions are accepted. However, that review process is also observed to ensure quality. The goal of this process is to improve each paper based on feedback from peers.

Thirdly, when presenting at academic conferences, you are sharing your research with other experts in your field. This includes PhD students, but also accomplished and established researchers, professors, and journal editors, who will all ask questions and engage in discussions to better understand your work. This can help improve the quality and impact of your research. It is also quite possible that in citing someone’s scholarship in support of your argument, that same someone is listening in the audience to fire comment back at you. Ultimately, this process aids in enhancing the quality and impact of the research being conducted. The collective advancement of knowledge is dependent on that community of peers all playing their part.

Those are three aspects of the academic conference that can be intimidating, even for experienced speakers like myself. In an academic domain where the audience is so well informed, and your work so fully exposed, that self-doubt is potentially magnified. However, it is ultimately a great opportunity to improve your research and get valuable feedback from the audience. Academic conferences are especially helpful because of that audience expertise. You can engage with peers who are likely to be your target readership. The discussions, different perspectives, and feedback you receive can really enhance your work. The key message of this blog, and this comparison, is that unlike other types of conferences, the relationship between presenters and the audience in academic conferences is special. It is a close and symbiotic connection, with both sides aiming to enhance and share their ongoing research. It is right to be a little daunted, but take a moment to revel in that peer privilege as well.

Postscript: The icing on the cake for my first conference was later being told I had won an award – “best reviewer” in the project expertise conference track. My university have told that story, and I will just leave that link {here}. Given all I have observed above, being acknowledge as a good peer by my peers is the highlight of my first year.

Next blog: My end of year viva voce examination is almost upon me. Preparing for that transfer exam is a time of stress and unease. As such it reveals what is most significant from that first year – i.e., retrospectively as factors being examined upon. The next blog will summarise what research has been for me, looking backwards over this first year.

To be continued…

About Me

“PhD and me” is a blog-series about my later life move in academic research. One mask, among many.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art

PhD and me – timed luxury

Diversify the thinking

Two weeks until my Transfer report is handed in. I am feeling the pressure, but I think in a good way. I am thinking clearly, or at least finding my voice. So, when I read the attached at 6am {here} – a story of Rishi Sunak seemingly wanting his positivist mathematical brain to become a population of the same – my writing awoke before I did. Some “unquantifiable” part of me was awake – and I think it offers a reasonable rant. I will park it here. I will be back in August…

…

Wrongheaded “having or showing bad judgement” is a term that springs to mind. My journey back into academia has been via the scientific and quantitatively orientated project world. But it’s philosophy and the social sciences I now seek to apply.

If I pass my first year of my PhD (it’s definitely an if not a when) I will have achieved something different. I’m attempting to introduce a different perspective into a space. Heidegger and social psychology in a project management place. Built from what industry thought project management should be: an industrial complex that saw answers from the industrial military complex, to turn all that was innovative into optimisation of cost. Well, maybe that was wrongheaded, too.

I certainly came about this all wrongheaded. I took my degree (a pass but a failed attempt towards the sea) and went into industry. I learnt to insure projects. Sat with those managing and enabling projects. Learnt enough over thirty years to realise what I saw is broken. So I came back to academia for other perspectives: “Wrongheaded me perhaps needs a new head”

But academia seems broken, too. Another place serving an industrial complex that saw answers from the industrial military complex (and turned all that was innovative into optimisation of cost). And most all of what is broken is the standardised metrics and positivist positioning that underscores that same optimisation. If you want new ideas, don’t expect the automatons to find them. Wrongheaded.

So all is wrongheaded here. A non-sense:

— Optimising. Maximising profit. Minimising cost. That includes turning university into a sausage machine, to then wonder why sausages don’t sizzle on their own. Wrongheaded.

— Nonsense and nonsensical thinking that includes:

  1. society level claims to be scientific, yet blind to the evidence of all going wrong.
  2. a politics advocating free choice and then cutting off both the funding and possibility of different thought.
  3. industry scaling back to zero its part in building the space. Train young people into those industrious automaton needed; alongside not instead of means to be creative.

Wrongheaded x3

I am reading all there is available about project management; and how it connects to the wider academic discourse. Now I read all the practical applications it connects to. I see the contemporary academic is being encouraged to think differently, apply methodology anew, or find alternative perspective. Yet, most-all quantitative learning (positivist positioning) seems now out there in the world. Why are we so sure mathematically derived answers will find different reasoning? Or are we so very sure mathematically driven answers is all there is? Wrongheaded.

Maybe it’s time to let university experiment differently. Humanity 2.0 needs more than one head. That’s rightheaded

…to be continued

PhD and me – foolhardy

I doubt my doubt is more doubtful than yours

This is a blog for anyone suffering a moment of doubt with their PhD.

Firstly, I am fine. Slowly making progress. Quickly approaching a deadline. These two factors are on track to converge.

Secondly, it is also fine to not be fine. And if in doubt about that, the network you are part of within the PhD community is a good place to straighten yourself out.

The foolhardy measure

As a pretty outwardly relaxed person, and exceptional at masking whatever is going on within (especially to myself) I regularly consider my foolhardiness based on those above two possibilities. This is important for my mental well-being. In essence, it goes something like this.

foolhardiness:

#1 Be hardy: reading, writing, and revisiting.

#2 Don’t be the fool: know when to reach out.

A practical example

This is fresh in mind – because this week I had a few doubts to unravel. It is normal, but this one was big enough to prompt this reflection – my way of writing my way clear – until the next.

My latest example

The big doubt mid-week ended well. So I thought perhaps an example will help you work out your current flavour of doubt – i.e., whether it is one that is fine, or the one where you need to reach out. This is my foolhardy – always partly hardy, and partly fool – this is reflecting upon which better had my measure.

Background

No two PhD journeys are the same. I suspect no two transfer processes are either. Indeed, if you are not in the UK – this whole process may be alien to your own PhD journey.

The PhD status: The first draft of my Transfer Report will be with my supervisors by the end of this month (June 2023). This is a big deal – because the Transfer Report feeds into the transfer decision. The transfer decision is a go / no go. If you are “no go” – you go no further.

My PhD status: I am now deeply invested in my specific research focus. Three key examples of how that starts to look.

[1] My research problem is clearly outlined, researched and supported robustly with literature evidence. Robust enough to have been accepted as a development paper at the British Academy of Management conference in September.

[2] My research question is most clear. “How can differences in intentions inform governance frameworks and reduce threat of conflict in inter-organisational projects?” – supported by six objective which each link tightly to aspects of this one research question. These are hard won over several months of iterative challenge and reworking. My supervisors pushed me really hard on this – thanks to them for that. Both question and objectives have also now been aired with my peers within the Leeds Centre for Projects – and faced their friendly critique.

[3] A significant review of literature; a focus of methodology and supporting worldview; and an outline of a research plan are well researched, extensively written (a vast text – vast) but a long way from being written succinctly (a long way). The literature review, methodology, and plan form the backbone of the transfer report.

Hardy or fool?

There is nothing in that last paragraph to indicate excessive doubt. So far, so normal. But I can assure you that there is lingering doubt living still through every stage up to and including this point – even now it still does. Never prolonged. Never unduly critical. Just a constant edging towards more progress, and new doubt – all of that is more hardy than fool.

Last week’s doubt was a little deeper than most I have had in this first year of my PhD. The hard stop deadline adding a little more bite. This too, I concluded to be more hardy than fool. Situationally, that extra bite would have been stoking up my inner chemistry to make my brain’s amygdala pump out more angst (and with it more self-doubt); and with that more inner chemistry comes a repeating spiral that adds a little more. My advice (and all advice others have given me) is just keep reading, writing, and revisiting. Still more hardy than fool.

However, I think there is a point where that self-diagnosis and the safe return may not so easily be read towards. And if that is you, it really does pay to talk it through. Supervisors do this for a living. Peers go through it, too. Do not allow yourself to sit and stew. Don’t be the fool, being hardy.

I repeat the following to ensure it is noted. Situationally, that extra bite would have been stoking up my inner chemistry to make my brain’s amygdala pump out more angst (and with it more self-doubt); and with that more inner chemistry comes a repeating spiral that adds a little more. This is situational, it is not the normal. If this is the normal, you are spiralling the wrong way. I am not at the deadline yet for my transfer. But I am past that block to clarity that was building my doubt. I just kept reading, writing, and revisiting.

Know thyself

It also pays to know yourself well. That was a lesson I found out the hard way. I doubt very much I would have had the means to do this most hard thing I now do (this hard PhD thing), if I had not. Much like PhD journeys however, I think the individual path to know oneself is uniquely ones own. I will offer a glimpse here of each, as they relate to me. Firstly, it was therapy, a deeper understanding of psychology, repositioning my empathy that helped me. My wider blog deals with aspects of that.

Secondly, and more easily, I can expand on the exit of my doubt this week. For me, I wrote myself out of the trough I was in a few days ago. Others may talk their way through. Or find a way to redraw a diagram. Or perhaps have a plan they just need to stick to. Me, I need to let my brain free to be. That may be a rewriting, or redefining, rework a few smaller parts. That might lead: [i] revealing something new, [ii] reflecting and reshaping what I thought I knew; [iii] or just reclaiming my understanding, the justification, [iv] or reveal the weakness of a claim. It is a plunge into detail, then remove myself from that detail and plunge into something else. From that repositioning I will rewrite some more. And if that fails, I will write to myself. Those notes can be emergently revealing – if that sounds exceptionally odd, I provide an example in the footnote below*.

No doubt: there will be more doubt

That’s all for now. I very nearly did not write this blog. My doubt is still too near. Doubt enough to wonder what this will read like if my go / no go has me the wrong side of that nagging fear. That’s why I also write in reflection. Writing to my future self – whilst I still know last weeks self here. That may help you. It will help my next foolhardy moment – of that I have no doubt.

to be continued…

________________________________

Footnote:

* I woke up and felt this note waiting to be written. That will sound weird, but after a decent sleep my ideas are sometimes clearer before I start thinking of them again. This note turned into an industrious 72 hours: “It’s not about doubt at this point. It’s about refocusing upon the priority. And thereby clearing the fog, to rediscover the clarity. It is horizons that I am seeking to expand. But am I thinking about that too literally? Horizons but not looking out, instead revealing other mountains to look back upon. Or key items on the landscape to descend upon, and if necessary dig a little or ascend and look straight down. I am not describing other mountains that can be seen the same way. I am describing the view of my focal interest, from that found vantage point. My [Hermeneutic] circling claims that vantage point from which to see. To see the same focal point. Just seen differently. That is the object subject, but existentially one in the same. This is asking what we are being, in this PPP World [DN: my object of enquiry is Public Private Partnerships, the World probably Heideggerian – i.e., being-in-the-world]. How we are behaving. Reasoning behaviour based upon the active goal, as understood from that perspective. How these various perspectives relate us: to that world; to each other; and how governing all that is relatable differently. How that is us being in this seen world.”