Yesterday I met with one of the managers I want to be part of my reference group. I explained the project to him and what I wanted him to help me with – allowing me to interview some of his staff and recommending some people in his team for me to interview.

I started off by saying that I had been given ethical permission by the organization and from the institution where I am registered for the award.

I was not sure at the start of my introduction whether he would be sympathetic to my request to help me but as I went on he said the project sounded interesting and he would be happy to provide some names of staff for me to interview. I said that I needed to keep the project narrow in scope and that I had identified four teams including his as the population to study but he said that he thought that the Finance manager would also be interested in the project and would probably be willing to include her staff as well.

I will contact her shortly and see if this is a possibility although I don’t want the project to get too unmanageable and of course time is tight.

I’m going to get back to the other managers I spoke to about a month ago on Monday next week to see if they will give me some staff names so I can get started.