In this episode hosted by Dr. Eugene Wilkerson, Dean of the School of Business, we hear from alumnus Dr. Timothy Brandon on his doctoral journey at NCU. They are joined by Dr. Brian Allen, professor in the School of Business, and Dr. Stephanie Menefee, Associate Dean of Students, to discuss the collaboration on Dr. Brandon’s post-doctoral research project.
In this episode hosted by Dr. Eugene Wilkerson, Dean of the School of Business, we hear from alumnus Dr. Timothy Brandon on his doctoral journey at NCU. They are joined by Dr. Brian Allen, professor in the School of Business, and Dr. Stephanie Menefee, Associate Dean of Students, to discuss the collaboration on Dr. Brandon’s post-doctoral research project.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 0:02
My name is Dr. Eugene Wilkerson, and I'm the Dean of the School of Business at North Central. I'm excited to be your host for this podcast. Our topic today is research partnerships, creating a successful collaboration between students and faculty. I have three guests with me today. And we'll start by asking them to introduce themselves. Dr. Brandon, you're first.
Dr. Brandon 0:23
Thank you. I'm Timothy P. Brandon, just to keep me separate from all the other Timothy Brandon's out there. Please call me Tim. I was in the program for PhD Business Administration, with a project management specialization from 2015 through 2019, I retired from my 45 year professional project program and portfolio management practice in 2018. to completely focus on my dissertation, I'm now working for the pleasure of helping others to become better project managers. By coaching mentoring, conducting research studies like this one we'll talk about today, writing papers and articles and speaking at virtual meetings, webinars and conferences. Thank you, Tim. Dr. Menefee, can you tell us about your background?
Dr. Menefee 1:24
Sure. My name is Stephanie Mannefee. I have been at MCU for about three and a half years now. I started as a full time professor. And that's how I met Dr. Tim. And now I am our associate dean of students for the School of Business. Dr. Allen, you're up next.
Dr. Allen 1:43
Excellent. My name is Brian Allen. I've been with MCU for about five and a half years I came from industry, specifically my industry experience was in Information Systems, but functionally it covered a lot of industries and a lot of different experiences. And I came to ncu and serve in Well, in a full time capacity. I think 5.4 years, I think if I have to be exact right or five years, four months if we're going to be exact, and I am the lead of the DBA program.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 2:17
Excellent. Well, lets let's start from the beginning with Dr. Brandon or Dr. Tim, tell us about your doctoral journey and why you decided to to pursue a PhD.
Dr. Brandon 2:31
Well, I've always been a lifelong learner. And after I took my BS in Mathematics and Computer Science way back in 1972, when they had punchcards. I, I, you know, had Mathematics and Computer Science on my mind. I'd never even thought about project management. And so I was accepted to the NYU Courant Institute of mathematics, thinking that was my path. And, you know, was offered also simultaneously, a position as an assistant data processing manager, as it was called in the in back in those days. And that all happened in 1973. So I hemmed and hawed for a while. And I was widely advised to pursue my career in computer science, over a graduate degree in mathematics. I survived surgery, about 40 years later, of, you know, for a life threatening condition.
And at that point, I realized, I woke up alive. It's time for me to realize my lifelong dream of a doctoral degree. So I took my ms in Information Science and Technology, with a project management specialization. Since I was doing that for a living now, back in 2014, and on the advice of my capstone advisor, enrolled in the ncu, Ph. D. program in business, and project management. So that's how I find myself here. Tell us a little bit more about what led you to ncu Why did you pick this institution? This Institute, I would strongly advise the my capstone advisor said he had gotten his degree, there was a life changing experience for him. He had formerly been with NASA. So you know, he kind of knew what projects were all about. So I followed his advice.
And then when I researched further, I realized that even though there were other opportunities for for a degree, it was time for me now to focus in on the business side. Since I had been heavily it oriented in my projects, even though I worked at all phases of businesses, I touched on them. So my I wanted I wanted as I saw the project management discipline, becoming more of a pervasive skill set. And now, as we see with with agile, the product owners, you know, because just business plan old business people becoming as kind of newly born project managers, I realized, it was time for me to become very familiar with the language of business. So I could speak with executives and decision makers at that level, and also bring my expertise to, you know, my fellow colleagues in the in the project management practice,
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 5:41
That's an excellent example of rescaling and moving into a different area as your career evolved. Now, thank you for sharing that. But I really am interested to hear more about the research grant that came from NCU Tell us about your research.
Dr. Brandon 5:59
Well, that was sort of a magic thing that Stephanie made happen out of the sky, she does numerous times in my career here at NC U. But basically, when I was defending my dissertation, I identified that there was a major failure mode in you know, knowledge management processes, and that transferring of, you know, experiential learning to other teams just wasn't happening, even though it was all being captured and stored and, and sometimes being reused, but usually by people, or teams that had stayed together. And so I identified that area as a further area of research. And literally, just as I finished my defense, both both Dr. Murphy and Dr. Allen, kind of offered to partner with me to understand more about how project managers develop their expertise. So we decided to pursue that just on our own, you know, I had, I was now retired had plenty of time on my hands, I had to, you know, wonderful mentors in the in the university would kind of steer me along my path all along.
And it was, yeah, their offer was just, you know, I couldn't have asked for anything better. So we decided that we would look into the current state of Project Manager, competency and experience and how it affected the career development. And, and we, we found that there were 10 significant expertise factors, half of them now called soft skills, and now I guess, really, we should call them human being skills, and, and, and another six hard skills or project management related skills. And, and, and that those those factors correlated with overall competency and project success. I won't go into all the details of that. But the other things we found were that there were common areas of strength and weakness. That changed over time, as one would expect as as the the individual move from a sort of a novice to a competency to a proficient expert and master level.
And some stayed the same, uniformly, some are more ephemeral. In other words, they would come and go as a individual progress to those stages, we have a very large sample of the 700 and some odd 69, I think, participants so we, we were pretty reliable data. And we prove that, you know, with all the quantitative methods, but the other thing that we found, in talking with the individuals after our quantitative phase with Stephanie, deleting the interviews, there's a critical need for fast track training, and hands on experience for brand new project managers. I think we coined the term somewhere in our research, the accidental project manager, and, and unfortunately, there's a book by that title, so we can't pursue that further project. But anyway, the the thing that was really interesting was that, you know, we, we saw, like, a need to return back to the apprentice system, where, you know, someone was taken under the wing of an expert, allowed to get, you know, drown a little bit in the shallow end, and then, you know, be able to recover with their, their interest and willingness and their reputations still intact, to get better and better by trial and error.
And the other so the whole long term goal was really to you Provide project managers a way to quickly assess their skills and, and also to provide professional development considerations for project management leadership. So, so far, we've submitted two quantitative papers for peer review. And one qualitative paper that's on its way soon. So looking forward to getting all three of those in there and, you know, pass the peer review cycles, so we can truly celebrate,
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 10:28
That is outstanding. And, you know, one of the things that I've kind of learned throughout my career is that, you know, in some cases, folks start to think research is a very linear process. And in many ways, it's not there, there are often challenges and deviations. Talk to us about maybe some of the research challenges that occurred and how did you overcome those?
Dr. Brandon 10:50
Well, I have to admit, and I explained that to my chair, Dr. Robin Butler, that, you know, I chomping at the bit, I'm a project manager, professional project manager, and I have a bias for action and a need for speed. Right. And, you know, so I, I really struggled with the pace of academia, I at one point, I was calling it almost glacial, which is too extreme, actually. But for me, I had to cool my jets, I had to learn patience, and tolerance for delay, uncertainty, and change. While while I still kept the team focused on, you know, the, the next steps, right, and, and also at the end state vision. So that was my major takeaway. The research process sort of came naturally, of course, it was honed by experience with all of my, my, you know, instructors or professors at NCU. And, you know, I am naturally do research and did a lot of research for my role as, as a professional project leader. So I'd say that was it really kind of learning to pace myself and look around a little bit rather than race down the path.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 12:19
Okay. Talk to us a little bit about the role that Dr. Menifee and Dr. Allen played in your research efforts? How did that evolve over time? And how did they help foster your success?
Dr. Menefee 12:33
Okay, great. Thank you. Um, well, let's see, we, we, as I said, we pretty much agreed to my dissertation meeting to partner, which was serendipity. And, you know, it was it was great. He had Brian had been my dissertation chair had been pulled away to, to work, expanding NCU into China for a while there, and then came back as my subject matter expert, and, and Stephanie, and, you know, she's, she was my professor for Planning, Research in business, and my number one champion, I constantly thank her for that. Anyway, we reach consensus really quickly on what our problem was, and, and how we would, you know, pose our research questions, and, and agreed on a mixed approach to the study at the time. So it's pretty easy to prepare the proposal for the funding from the graduate school once Stephanie identified that opportunity, and suggested, you know, kindly that I've been named as principal investigator. So, you know, from moving on, you know, I, I agreed to take the laboring or since I was retired at the time, and, you know, Dr. Benefi.
And, and Alan were, you know, they're swamp with their normal, normal jobs. So they played advisors, collaborators, there were some areas where they took the laboring or others were, you know, I would just pick up if they got swamped and move on. And the whole process was it was a beautiful experimentation in in long distance, you know, virtual work from home. Collaboration, using, you know, pretty standard tools we had, we didn't use slack or any of these other high tech tools, we're just plain old vanilla, you email and text messaging, combined with a fortnightly or every two week review meeting on Monday afternoons when it was convenient for everyone and, and, and finally, we stored all of our final versions and deliverables in in, you know, shared Dropbox repository. So all in all, we, you know, we we settled it on our roles pretty pretty quickly. Brian took the quantitative factor analysis role. I took the quantitative regression analysis and, you know, pie and pm rolls. And Stephanie took the interview and qualitative analysis role. And you know, it is it is truly worked we, we never really stepped on each other's toes, but we, you know, danced around together pretty easily.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 15:22
Excellent. Let's turn to Dr. Menefee and Dr. Allen, a document if you'd let's start with you. As you noted, you're your associate dean of students in the school of business. What advice do you have for current students who are interested in collaborating with faculty? How should they approach reaching out and expressing their interest in the research?
Dr. Allen 15:42
Quite simply, I would say, Tell someone you know, we have a lot of students here at NC u, who kind of longed to do research. And I'm always sad when I connect with somebody who says, oh, I've wanted to do this for so long. And I didn't know how to get out there. at NCU, we have the one to one model where each student has unlimited direct access to their professors. And so that kind of lends itself to that kind of conversation. You know, if you're a student out there, and you're really interested in breaking into the research portion of life, say something, you know, and if your current Professor isn't the person, then we are all connected to each other. And that person can get you to somebody who can help.
You know, in, in our case with Tim, we, you know, I met Tim, gosh, almost three years ago now. And we Yeah, we just formed a bond, we got along really well. We worked together through his course really well. And he allowed me the honor and privilege of kind of walking, you know, through his dissertation with them. And so that's another way, you know, when you when you find a professor, that you connect with, keep that connection going, you know, I see, hopefully, Dr. Tim, and I and Dr. Allen working together even past these three papers, if we can,
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 17:14
no, thank you, um, can you talk a little bit about what programs that we have within the School of Business to help facilitate student research projects, and maybe some of the things that you're thinking about implementing in the future?
Unknown Speaker 17:29
Sure. So right now, we do have an independent research course, that doctoral level students can take, as an elective or a specialization, you do have to go through the dean's office for that. But it is available to all doctoral level students. Now. within the School of Business, we're working on a more formal program for students who are interested in research. So they connect with professors, other students in their field, some professors have contacts outside of NCU, who end up being perfect matches for some of our students. And so we're working toward a more academic focused, General holistic program for students who are interested in that.
And that should be launching within the next six months. So thank you, for anybody listening, who is excited about that. Thank you for being patient with us as we put it all together. Tim talked about the faculty research grant that we received, our graduate school here at North Central University has an application process. faculty do have to be involved in that. But it's it's a, it's a real grant. And there is award money. And it's a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested. There are also other grants out there. And that's something that in this more formal program that we're working on for students, students will be able to learn more about grant opportunities in general. But they're out there, there's money, there's free money that people want to give you to do research because it benefits them. So that's just a little bit about what we're doing.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 19:19
I want to turn to Dr. Allen here for for a few minutes. You're one of our most experienced professors when it comes to your time in the private sector, corporate world entrepreneur. And in many cases, folks may not always see the connection between between doctoral education and what it can mean for them in terms of their career. In either as an entrepreneur or in the corporate world. Can you talk a little bit about your transition and what you think students can can bring to an organization with their doctoral education?
Dr. Allen 19:53
Sure, that's a splendid question. You know, there's a there's a great book out there by Malcolm Gladwell, where he talks about becoming a doctor Main expert at something and he says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. And my my experience is that coming from an industry experience perspective, versus from a fully academic perspective, is that I came with some understanding that was kind of inherently built in. And so as I certainly obviously, for my own education, as I come in to be an educator, it allowed me to have a perspective where I could look at real world problems, find ways to see those problems both at their particular level, and then a holistic level. But that experience allowed me to to process what I learned academically into solutions.
And I think, as we, as we talk about students who come to enter are either a pH DBA program or our DBA program, obviously, a fan of the DBA program. The reality is, you come to build the credentials, but most of that expertise, that domain expertise, you kind of already start with it. And you use, you use the skill set developed through an academic journey, to be able to balance the emotional response of situations and really apply an academic perspective. So you have the these great theorists out there who have who've come up with some really fantastic ideas to look into frame problems, and having the dual capacity to look at that academic research to look at real world solutions and marry those together in a symbiotic narrative. And then ultimately, offer solutions in the marketplace makes you a very, makes you a very powerful force in industry.
Obviously, there are lots of people who come into, you know, to get a doctoral degree, and their only intention is to educate. And I would argue that you can educate outside of an educational arena with those types of credentials. So I think it's, for me, coming from that corporate and entrepreneurial, bent and experience. And obviously, my academic experience, I feel like it gives me a well rounded focus and capacity to see and offer solutions to problems.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 22:39
What advice would you have for our alumni? And that we stopped a minute fee to speak to students? What advice would you have for some of our alumni who may be interested with their master's degree in coming back to pursue their doctoral education? Or who have a doctoral education and want to get more involved in research?
Dr. Allen 22:58
Well, that's two deep questions. And the first one, so let me start with those with the, with the graduate education. So let's say they've got an MBA and they're they're considering a doctoral degree, the first answer is, absolutely do it, it's worth it. If you're even considering it, my recommendation is Go for it. If it brings you up to a capacity as the the holder of a terminal degree, it will call it some gravitas, right? It gives you the the, the, the weight, that your ideas have value.
And it also gives you the experience, again, as I mentioned before, to look at those, those academic and theoretical ideas and apply those in a real world setting and say, you know, what, hey, this really works and this doesn't work. Now, as far as as alumni who are, who are doctoral graduates. The thing that I will say is there's a, there's a travesty that happens. And I don't know how to say that any other way. I think there are far too many doctoral students who finish their degree, they walk across the stage, and then they shut down and shut off that learning experience. And that's a tragedy, because those should be if you just take the numbers, you know, if you if you calculate that there's about 2% of the population, two ish percent of the population that have terminal degrees.
This should be among the brightest, most capable people in our society to offers solutions and resolutions, to issues that plague our society. And whether those be disparities in representation of people across the broad spectrum of industries, whether that's changing things in policy and procedure, whether at the governmental level, or even in business. You have The opportunity to make those changes and research opens the avenue to make that happen. As we research as we look at, at where there are disparities where there are problems, guess what we can make a difference. So my my, my invitation for anyone is, if you want the education Go for it, if you have the education use it to the greatest advantage. And I'll borrow Dr. carpools. The present, he's the president of our university, I'll use the phrase he used is often the purpose of what we do is to improve the human condition.
And that really is what you should think about in research. How will your research, improve the human condition, whether in a business or in society at large, and I think that really has to be the clarion call, for wanting and desiring to, we'll say it this way to get off your backside and go out there and just make it happen for yourself. And for those around you make a difference. That's really what it comes down to.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 26:05
Well said, Dr. Allen, thank you so much for that explanation. And you've really set us up for to draw this to a conclusion for this podcast, and with my final question for everyone. And it leans into exactly what you said, What difference and this is open to everyone. What difference do you hope this research will make on the project management community on on corporate business society, however you want to answer it? We'll start with
Dr. Menefee. 26:36
So I just completed all of the interviews that we did. And I'm a qualitative researcher. And so I have to say I'm partial to really getting to speak to people and learn from them their perspectives on you know, the question at hand. And I think that, that my hope for our research is to help project managers to help them kind of feel more at home in their roles, because it's actually a really important place to be sitting in a project management role, you have the opportunity as a project manager to make a difference in these projects, right. And so what I found is that level of experience and time in the specific arena level experience level of experience as a project manager, and then also time in a project management position in a specific industry or area. I hope that our research gives people the confidence to know that they're in a really important position and and that they're doing their jobs well, and that they can learn from one another and make an impact.
Dr Wilkerson
Thank you, Dr. Allen, what are your hopes for the research direction?
Dr. Allen 28:06
You know, it's funny, Tim and I talked about this early on, obviously, my experience in project management. I was a CIO for many years hired project managers manage many projects and my experience, and I love the phrasing that Tim used is having those human skills project managers, typically, they actually many accidentally fall into their role. And I think it is most often because they are proficient at and I'll be very nice here. They're proficient at minutia, but still have the capacity to see a holistic picture. And those those folks tend to gravitate towards project management roles.
And as you have so many folks that fall into these roles accidentally, they have, they kind of come into them with a bit of a hodgepodge of skills and capacities and understanding and often have to learn official pm PMI, you know, standards, Pim Bach standards after the fact and get their certification, their PMP certification. And my I guess if I were to look at the grand scheme of what I hope we achieve with the research that we've conducted and eventually publish here, is one that managers hiring those folks look for the opportunities to to to help them develop, develop the skill sets, the people skills, to be real human, genuine human beings who are interested in both the fine detail and the whole picture of successful projects but successful organizations and building people along the way. 'm a big believer that you have to build people along the way.
For projects to be successful, if you don't, you ultimately actually fail at your projects. So long term, I think those things all have to be married together. And I see that as the real win from what we've done, it's being able to see where you stand, what will, in your own personal development, developing those skill sets to help you develop as a better project manager. But also, if you're the hiring manager for those project managers, if you're the leader of them, how do you lead those project managers and portfolios of projects with project managers associated to success, organizationally, but also individually for those those folks in those roles? So that's what I hope to see long term.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 30:45
Thank you. That's a Brandon. Dr. Tim, bring this home, you're the PI for for this project. What are your hopes?
Dr. Tim 30:52
Well, my hopes, as others have described, is that project managers find their place in the world. They're often viewed as glorified administrators, as people to be avoided, because they ask all the hard annoying questions. And, and without having the ability to walk in the shoes of the people they work with, and understand exactly what their motivations are theirs, they never have the opportunity to really get the team working together. So I have to say that the major takeaway from this entire experience has has been that project managers never really intended to be a project manager that they somehow to do with their own drive. knowledge in the subject matter area, and general organization gets selected by others who see them. And only half of them actually get supported.
Those that really come to the top of their game, realize early on, they can't cope with they're experimenting, inventing new tools as they go, that they then need to finally learn the rules of the road. And then when it's time, throw them away. And so far, it's a project plan is only as good as the beginning of the project. It's constantly in a state of flux. And you need to use every skill you've learned, and all the things that you've heard, oh, sitting around at the watering hole from others who have passed on tacit knowledge, and then practice those in a real world environment in as many varied projects as possible, to become facile to be able to flow. And as one of my one of the interviewees, I think, describe, you know, take the threads of all the things you've learned and form a fabric that wraps around the shape of any project or scenario you find yourself in. And that's expertise.
Now, about 5% of these people went on to larger experiences and into other management roles. I really think that that's the true end path of a project manager, because they've learned to integrate, they've learned to work with people lead, provide vision, and support them along the way. That's that's the definition of a leader in any community. That's all I have to say at that point.
Dr. Eugene Wilkerson 33:50
Well, Dr. Brandon, thank you for being a research leader not only within this university, but within your industry. You're representing it well and the university. Well, thank you again, Dr. Menifee. Dr. Allen, thank you for mentoring our students and helping to facilitate wonderful, wonderful students like Dr. Tim, and to making such a difference. I greatly appreciate it to our listeners. Thank you for joining us today. If you would like to know more about North Central University, please contact us at www.ncu.edu