Thesis update

I see that I haven't written on this topic for over two months: this is not to say that nothing has been happening, just that I haven't written about it.

During November and part of December, I carried on working on the thesis, trying to implement the changes which had been suggested by the external reviewer. Like previous occasions, I felt at times that I was working in the dark and that I needed supervision. Unfortunately, once again my supervisor had disappeared - it turns out that his mother had died.

Eventually I received feedback on what I had written and as a result, we had a good discussion in mid-January. I was heading in the correct direction but there was still plenty to be done: mainly (once again) explaining the importance of the topic and explaining my choices. I worked solidly on the first four chapters for just over a week then submitted yet another version.

I received feedback on this late Thursday evening (I only saw it on Friday morning) in preparation for another discussion scheduled for Friday morning. This version was considered to be much better and is nearly complete. We talked quite a bit about managing engineering change as opposed to managing enhancements, which is a central point. I am not differentiating sufficiently between the two.

My supervisor said that he will send me references to some relevant literature; it will be up to me to read then decide what I am taking from this material in order to improve the thesis. It might even come down to me changing the thesis title to something like 'Applying ... change techniques to ERP enhancement management', which will require some restructuring but will be interesting. I don't know at the moment because I haven't seen the material yet - I tried finding some on the basis of our discussion but couldn't find anything relevant.

My supervisor has realised that I want to up the pace as much as possible; I would really like to have a new complete thesis by the end of February which allows sufficient time for another external review before the final viva and the graduation ceremony in June. But quality should not be sacrificed for speed, and if this means graduating at the end of the year, then so be it.

Strangely enough, the end of the session was devoted to talking about the research process: while it is important to have initial ideas, these should be influenced by other people's ideas so that in the end, the final product has been improved. This is remarkably like some of the things which have been happening at work: there is a problem, I might suggest a partial solution which then gets worked on by other people in order to reach a much better solution.