Weekly / regular meetings

Note: if you feel like skipping the meeting, that’s totally fine. If it’s for scientific reasons (just discovered a bug in my code, model is still running on the cluster) let me know. If it’s for personal reasons, you of course don’t have to tell me the specifics.

Template to fill out before meeting

For our regular supervision meetings, we’ll use the template below (feel free to adapt it to your needs, or give me feedback). It was adapted from Tomas Knapen’s lab wiki, who in turn got it from Martin Hebart.

Fill it in before our meeting, and send it to Anne by email (just in the body of the text) with title ‘Weekly summary [date]’. If you have a better idea for keeping track (a shared living document? Teams channel?), I’m happy to explore!

Current state of wellbeing

Motivation is pretty good / I’m demotivated because… / I have fun working on … / Still trying to get over the paper rejection… / I’m struggling with … / I’m bored / Insecure

Past work

Describe the progress of the past week (or period since we last met), including longer descriptions (text, figures, code). Ideally, code + figures live in a shared GitHub repo or other document where I can look at them before we meet.

• Done, as planned
• Done, with some changes, due to …
• Not done, since [insert problem]
• Something else came up

Next steps

• These are the obvious next things I’ll pursue
• I have a fantastic new idea for a new analysis that solves all our problems
• Based on our conversations, I want to try what you suggested 4 weeks ago but I never tried it…
• I’m stuck on …

What I need (from supervision) right now

Feel free to already send me some keywords or action points ahead of time, so I can prepare better for our meeting.

• Analysis ideas / research / methods
• Writing feedback
• Reading suggestions, content knowledge
• Administrative help
• Academic language and culture
• Peptalk / well-being
• Career planning
• Not much; the meeting is just to share an update
• …

Template to fill out during meeting

Check-in

How are you doing? What’s going on?

Evaluation

1. Check if/which previous goals and deadlines were met, and which remain open (why?)
   • Go over GitHub project and Project log
2. Are things generally going to everyone’s satisfaction? [discuss explicitly every few months]

Action points

Can be with or without estimated (self-imposed) deadlines or ETA. Separate by priority. Clarify: idea or request?

• …

Ideally, we’ll both take notes during our meeting. Please send them to me (as a reply to your original email) afterwards, so we’re on the same page - and to fight any forgetfulness on my part!

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Evaluation meetings

Once or twice a year, we’ll zoom out together to see what’s been done, what lies ahead, what works well and what doesn’t.

For instance:

• Are you happy with the way things are going - scientifically, personally (work-life harmony), in the department and in the lab?
• What have you accomplished? Does this match your original plans?
• What did you struggle with?
• What works well, and what can we improve, in our mentoring relationship and in our lab culture?
• Do you have/need a constellation of different mentors to advise you on different goals/aspects of your life and career?
• What are your goals for the next few months or year? Where do you see yourself in a few years?

Feedback for me:

• What is one thing I’m doing that I could do better? One thing I’m doing that’s getting in my own way?

During these meetings, we will update and revise our mentoring agreement.