Advanced courses

I would highly recommend working with DoctorateHub. In the past, I have benefitted from the webinars that DoctorateHub organises periodically. When the time came for me to prepare for the final submission of my thesis as well as my viva voce, I reached out to the team at DoctorateHub to see about a more formal engagement that might allow me to prepare for my upcoming viva. Over the course of eight weeks, I had the opportunity to work with a viva coach who challenged my research through a close examination of my write-up and in a series of mock viva engagements. All of this was done in a tough but collaborative way with my viva coach. As a result, I feel more prepared and grounded going into my viva. My thesis write-up is better now too. For me, the timing was perfect as I was able to go through the entire eight weeks before the final submission date of my thesis write-up. Overall, my viva coach helped me to see things through the eyes of the examiner and what they would likely question in the document and, importantly, in the context of the viva examination. I found the programme well worth the investment of time, effort, and treasure.

The course has been invaluable in:

1. Understanding problems as "wicked",
2. Assisting with my Thesis and,
3. For practice.

Despite the difficulty in balancing work, completing the Thesis and the course, at first the 8 weeks could appear to others as taking time away from Thesis development, but actually, it enhanced mine.

I would highly recommend it. Thank you. I do wish you the best with taking the course forward.

It was a good 8 weeks, though I would have loved to have had this module during my DBA programs theoretical stage ...or even during one of the DBA DDP’s (Doctoral Development Plan).

A key learnings for me was to keep the focus on the problem, and not get diverted towards a solution based approach. 

The mirroring technique and the table shared in the module will be an useful tool for candidates to compare and ensure that relevant points have been reflected on and addressed in the respective sections of the thesis.

I see myself using the table for communicating how triangulation has been supportive both at the data collection and analysis stage of the thesis. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the team at the DoctorateHub for your time and patience and appreciate your feedback and comments that have ensured further clarity in my thesis. Wishing everyone the best in their future endeavours.

Thank you for your invaluable input on my thesis journey.

I acknowledge the sacrifice in time and effort you made to help me grow as I learn to adopt an academic perspective of my work-based problem.

It was rigorous but worth it.

May your journeys yield great success.

The learning on this course has been phenomenal as it has brought to view a number of blind spots in research, in fact they are not even blind spots, they were complete unknowns. The main one relates to what is broken in any given situation, if there is nothing broken then it is unlikely that it worth researching, at least for a DBA. Finding the broken pieces, added to the rigorous challenges from yourself, have highlighted my shift in thinking about problems in general, particularly digging deeper into the problem by asking why of the problem. I moved out of a comfort zone around what I have interpreted as action research. The why RQ allows for the superficial or surface layer problem to be problematised with relevant stakeholders, who in turn, (and as a collective) can penetrate to the deeper domains with a view to establishing the actual causes of such problems. In other words, the problem can be properly 'ventilated and saturated' which I have termed as key to staying on the problem side instead of jumping into the solution without properly understanding the problem. All of which is key learning for me and for participants involved in the exercises on this course. 

Once I shifted away from strategy formation (rejected by supervisor) and shifted to observing what was going on in practice, and ended up on a lack of strategic thinking and had to source the literature for what was a new topic for me, I battled timewise to shift gears from strategy formation and strategic thinking literature and would have preferred more time to get immersed in the new literature to get the 'objects' under control through reading. I felt that I rushed it and it became messy. The strategic thinking literature that I have been immersing myself in is highly theoretical and conceptual which worries me as there is very little in terms of experiential. This is likewise with already established RQ's, there are none that I have found, and also, the literature refers to hypothesis testing which petrifies me as there is a fairly big chunk that is quants orientated.  

I won't go as far as saying that the above didn't work out well when it actually has, I have learned about how the mirroring and juggling works in practice. 

In all, I have learned more about problem identification, RQ's and framing than on all of the earlier coursework in this doctoral program - I am very grateful for your time and efforts, Sir. Much appreciated!