UCL DEPARTMENT OF SPACE AND CLIMATE PHYSICS
MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY
Applying Strategy in Space Science
William Dunn
Why I thought this might be useful
I hope you’ll get from this:
•  A framework to aid decision making. (should I focus on project X or Y, conference A or
B, poster vs talk etc, intership/placement or stay here...)
•  A way to ensure that you are working towards a goal (whether that’s: a PostDoc, a
career outside academia or just being a bloody good scientist)
•  Big Picture
perspective and your strategy within that.
•  Formalising and explicitly focussing on goals ensures you don’t miss things.
“It’s important to know what you want and work towards it”
- Kirthika Mohan (2015)
Why I’m doing this:
•  Strategy gaming + business
•  Transferability of strategy to academia
Summary
Why I thought this might be useful
Why strategy is important
Starter Activity: SWOT Analysis
Strategy as Position Vs Strategy as Capability
Definitions for Strategy: The 5 Ps Concepts
a)  Applied to research
b)  Applied to careers
c)  Examples of someone who has done this well
My mistakes (so you don’t make them) (and possibly other peoples?)
Where people have gone post-MSSL PhD
Why Strategy is Important
Competitive strategy is about being different in order to
produce a unique and valued offer.
•
Purpose of strategy is sometimes considered sustainable competitive advantage
•
Competition shouldn’t be ignored as a concept in science (there will only be a limited number
of Post-Docs to apply for…), but I would like to think it is more important to add value.
“Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want
to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives.” –
Albert Einstein
•  You will want a strategy to ensure you
contribute value, that your research prospers and that
You personally profit as much as possible from your PhD
“
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths (Internal)
Weaknesses (Internal)
Opportunities (External)
Threats (External)
Strategy as Position Vs Strategy as Capability
Ends
Ways
Means
•  Where do I want to get to?
•  How am I going to get there?
•  What do I need to get there?
VS
Means
Ways
Ends
•  What am I good at? What skills do I have? Who is my supervisor?
•  How can I utilise these best in the field?
•  Where does this get me?
What is Strategy?
The 5 Ps: A Strategy Plan
How to get from point A to point B.
E.g: Chess: how do I get to checkmate my opponent?
Research:
‘“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a
matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”
– Albert Einstein
Before you start coding: try to answer ‘how can I frame this problem best in order to solve it?’ ‘How am
I going to get my answer to this research question?’ Sketch the algorithm in a notebook – streamline it.
This framework is often really important in writing a proposal: What is the problem (and why it’s
important)? What do you need to do to get a solution? Give me telescope/computing time/money for it.
Consulting decision tree activity.
Decision Tree Activity – To Answer the question: How can a coffee shop
increase profitability?
Coffee Shop Profitability
Revenue
Cost
Etc
Number of Goods sold
Average price per good
Etc
Number of Shops
Goods per Shop
Etc
Food
Drink
Etc
Hot
Tea
Coffee
Cold
Etc
The goal is to drill down as deeply as possible to identify the areas that you can impact on
directly. Then to understand those areas in the context of the big picture. This will help
determine the correct choice in terms of better best fit to your strengths, the best
opportunities etc. E.g: here maybe we decide the coffee shop should sell hot chocolate?
Complete a Decision Tree to identify how you could increase the number of
citations you get.
Within a Career:
What/where is your goal?
The 5 Ps: Plan
A postdoc?
What are they going to be looking for when you finish? (not mutually exclusive, so may want to do all
of these)
X
•
•
•
number of papers: “Better is the enemy of the good enough”
How are you going to get them?
Therefore: Which project is most likely to result in a paper?
Can you join collaborate/network to get on more papers? (ISSI, conferences, etc.)
Y citations:
The work itself: Which project is most likely to result in a RELEVANT paper.
•  How are you going to maximise the probability your work gets cited? (good (citable) figures, broad
applicability/context….)
•  Should you try to maximise your number of collaborators to increase visibility OR is it going to be
more respected if you are one of only a few authors on the paper.
The publicity: Talk and present posters at conferences and be very open to peoples input. Are you
talking to the right people? Is timing relevant?
A very specific set of skills (maybe the most important for a career outside academia)
•  How are you going to ensure that you are highly proficient at the relevant language? (What courses
at UCL or online do you need to do)
Be flexible: Planning this too rigidly might mean you miss better opportunities, but you should have an
idea of where you want to get to and how you would get there.
Within a Career:
What/where is your goal?
The 5 Ps: Plan
A postdoc?
What are they going to be looking for when you finish? (not mutually exclusive, so may want to do all
of these)
X
•
•
•
number of papers:
How are you going to get them?
Therefore: Which project is most likely to result in a paper?
Can you join collaborate/network to get on more papers? (ISSI, conferences, etc.)
Within a Career:
What/where is your goal?
The 5 Ps: Plan
A postdoc?
What are they going to be looking for when you finish? (not mutually exclusive, so may want to do all
of these)
Y citations:
The work itself: Which project is most likely to result in a RELEVANT paper.
•  How are you going to maximise the probability your work gets cited? (good (citable) figures, broad
applicability/context….)
•  Should you try to maximise your number of collaborators to increase visibility OR is it going to be
more respected if you are one of only a few authors on the paper.
The publicity: Talk and present posters at conferences and be very open to peoples input. Are you
talking to the right people? Is timing relevant?
Within a Career:
What/where is your goal?
The 5 Ps: Plan
A postdoc?
What are they going to be looking for when you finish? (not mutually exclusive, so may want to do all
of these)
A very specific set of skills (maybe the most important for a career outside academia)
•  How are you going to ensure that you are highly proficient at the relevant language? (What courses
at UCL or online do you need to do)
Be flexible: Planning this too rigidly might mean you miss better opportunities, but you should have an
idea of where you want to get to and how you would get there.
Within a Career:
What/where is your goal?
The 5 Ps: Plan
A postdoc?
What is your currency? (not mutually exclusive, so may be several of these, but one likely dominates)
X
•
•
•
number of papers:
How are you going to get them?
Therefore: Which project is most likely to result in a paper?
Can you join collaborate/network to get on more papers? (ISSI, conferences, etc.)
Y citations:
The work itself: Which project is most likely to result in a RELEVANT paper.
•  How are you going to maximise the probability your work gets cited? (good (citable) figures, broad
applicability/context….)
•  Should you try to maximise your number of collaborators to increase visibility OR is it going to be
more respected if you are one of only a few authors on the paper.
The publicity: Talk and present posters at conferences and be very open to peoples input. Are you
talking to the right people? Is timing relevant?
A very specific set of skills (maybe the most important for a career outside academia)
•  How are you going to ensure that you are highly proficient at the relevant language? (What courses
at UCL or online do you need to do)
Be flexible: Planning this too rigidly might mean you miss better opportunities, but you should have an
idea of where you want to get to and how you would get there.
Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, Einnovate
Embrace: Understand the community, the field and the needs and trends of the ‘userbase’. Obtain the relevant skills. When you do a literature review and visit conferences
consider:
•  Where are the current gaps/opportunities?
•  Where is the field going?
•  What do/will people need?
~Timescale: 1-1.5 years of your PhD
Extend: Establish relationships with organisations/people with similar goals. Offer tools
and services (and research) adding and promoting additional features.
•  Start collaborating
•  Have a skill or tool (maybe a type of data analysis or model) that is valuable, relevant
and people want
•  Promote it.
~ 9months – 2 years
Innovate: Move into a leadership role and change the rules.
•  Become the world expert in that topic, analysis, model
•  Do something in that area that others haven’t done before, but could be a game
changer.
Finish PhD
Activity
Start to Embrace your field:
•  Where are the current gaps?
•  Where is the field going?
•  What do people need?
3 minutes
Activity
Start to Embrace your field:
•  Where are the current gaps?
•  Where is the field going?
•  What do people need?
3 minutes
Select one of these gaps and with a partner determine what the broad steps or PLAN is to
start filling the gap (ends, ways, means):
3 minutes
The 5 Ps: Strategy Position
What is your domain or niche? How does it fit the questions from the previous embrace
activity:
•
Where are the current gaps? Where is the field going? What do people need?
Find an under-studied topic. Make sure there is demand for it. Is it RELEVANT (valuable)?
How does it fit the big picture?
Positioning for career: Examples:
1) Are you the person who has model X?
2) Are you the person who knows the most about feature Y (having analysed and thought about
it most)?
3) Are you the person who has an analysis technique to do valuable things with data?
4) Is IDL going to position you well as a programming language for the future (if not, which is)?
5) Are you the person with an excellent contact base.
The 5 Ps: Strategy Position
•
Stay nimble! – Ends, ways, means
•
Identifying new markets (research fields) – means, ways, new ends
•
Future-proofing your career (e.g: planetary science in 2020)
•
Where else is your work relevant?
Example strategic positioning for a career:
Why identifying your position can be really valuable:
David Kipping: identified that no-one was looking for exo-moons. -> 19 first author papers, 8
coauthored during his PhD.
Lead to 2 fellowships immediately after his PhD (including the Carl Sagan fellowship).
The 5 Ps: Strategy Position and Pattern
Strategically positioning your research:
How does your research fit into the BIG, MEDIUM & SMALL PICTURE? This will help you to
sell it to the various audiences and future-proof ensure you are always valuable
E.g: I recently got a comment from Dr Jonny Nichols, who I think is very good at this. I was
writing a proposal for X-ray observations of Jupiter. The comment said something like:
Jupiter is the prototype of a rotationally dominated magnetosphere and provides a
local analogue for more distant bodies such as rapidly rotating brown dwarfs,
exoplanets and pulsars
Case study: Ipods and Itunes
The 5 Ps: Strategy Position and Pattern
Consistency in external Behaviour
E.g: Burberry are a high-end fashion company
It is unlikely that customers would buy a
Burberry mop and bucket or toilet roll and worse, it
Would lead to confused customers and a tarnished
Reputation
Once you have a position ensure that you utilise your expertise.
Ensure that people recognise your position before you move on from it. Present on that
topic frequently, so that people know they can approach you about it.
Pattern is about ensuring your external presentation matches your goals. Do people
recognise your niche?
The 5 Ps: Strategy Position and Pattern
Activity: Using your embrace answers, work with a partner to identify:
A)  what do you think a possible position might be?
B)  How does your research fit into the big picture?
C)  What new markets could you reach? What would be the pattern between the old market
and new one?
BONUS) How could you ensure that your expertise was recognised in the new field?
6 minutes
The 5 Ps: Strategy as Perspective
Consistency in internal Behaviour – Focus
Case Study: Maccy Ds – streamlined processes to get
the customer their burger as efficiently as possible.
What skills do you want/need?
What language is best to learn? Is it relevant and flexible?
What lecture courses (possibly online) are relevant?
What other groups in the world are relevant, when might it be worth contacting them and
can you visit them?
Supervisor
a)  What are your supervisors strengths and weaknesses, how do they fit the field and how
can this help you to attain your goals.
b)  Is their supervision style (too hands on/off) appropriate for you? If not, it is possible to
change but you should make this decision sooner rather than later. Or how should you
adjust your behaviour to get the most out of the relationship.
Activity:
The 5 Ps: Strategy as Perspective
Set a strategic goal/position:
What skills do you think you need to obtain?
Where do you need to brush up on your knowledge?
How does your supervisor fit into the field and your goals?
3minutes
The 5 Ps: Strategy as Perspective
A possible perspective for success:
Just start writing a paper. This will:
•  Keep you focused
•  Formalise your plan for completion
•  Cut the crap
•  Ensure you are rigorous with everything
•  Remove the barriers to writing up.
The 5 Ps: Strategy as Ploy
Academia is less about bluffing and more about just keeping your cards close to your
chest until an idea has reached fruition and is ready to announce.
Interests and Motivations:
•  Supervisors
•  Other Researchers
•  Prospective employers
•  Politics
•
•
•
•
•
Do they want:
A job done cheaply?
Publications?
a model?
An answer?
Tips from all my PhD mistakes so far:
•  Position, position, position. Be the person who does X (whether it’s: the exomoons
person, the negative ions person, the person who has ‘that’ model).
•  Focus on the goals and ensure you have the means to get there.
•  When you have found something – write it up!
•  Identify who knows and works with who, so that you can judge their opinions in the
context of their relationships. Science is a much more human field than people think.
•  Think very hard about whether you have to use IDL
•  Understand the big, medium and little picture context for your work before you start
writing a paper. Write the paper for the medium picture context. (they don’t need to
know how your code works)
•  Get out there and see what is available. If you’ve never done one, think about doing an
internship and taking a few months out of your PhD.
If you’re a goldfish, don’t climb trees!
-– Don’t position yourself to lose.
Q & A Session with any 3rd/4th years present
Anon: Go through LT-plan with supervisor, but bare in mind Ploy – spin it right.
Get supervisor on same page from get-go, so that constructive criticism is useful.
How senior in the field is your supervisor? Do they need publications – what are their motivations
– do they want useful code, publications, information…
Defined projects subsequently VS context-shifting/multitasking
Think about thesis from day 1 and check in about the thesis frequently.
Not students in conventional sense – hired to do a job Clearly defined framework. Clearly defined test this parameter. Your responsibility to ensure you
get out of it what you want to, bear in mind your supervisors motivations.
Exactly like parent-child relationship
‘Ignorance is not bliss’ – learn the fellowship game and how serious things are.
Anon: Your supervisor is using you as cheap labour
Anon: Politics also surrounding your supervisor.
Anon: learn reference management software early
writing up methodologies as you are doing your research as it really helps when you write your
research chapters
networking is really important.
develop lots of transferrable skills as these will be particularly important if people want to work
outside of academia