Outlook: Newsletter of the Society of Behavorial Medicine

Spring 2019

Lab Hacks: Innovative Success Techniques for Running a Productive Lab

Sarah E. Snider, PhD, Alexandra M. Mellis, Bradley Appelhans, PhD, Leonard H. Epstein, PhD, and Warren K. Bickel, PhD, Trans-Disease Processes SIG members


Running a successful and productive laboratory is a skill set that must be learned and mastered on the job. While traditional success activities--such as holding and leading regular team meetings, consistent grant writing and collaboration, and conference attendance--each provide value, how do successful PI’s and their labs stay accountable and consistently inspired to create new ideas? The Transdisease Processes SIG (?) set out to collect “lab hacks” from PI’s at different stages in their career to harness innovative success and productivity techniques for running a lab.

Hack #1:

“Form a weekly accountability group with another early-career faculty. Hold each other accountable to making progress towards tasks that do not typically have accountability built into the process (e.g., papers, grants). This will help you keep making progress towards the most important parts of your career when small, daily tasks threaten to take up your time.”

Melissa Crane, PhD
Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine
Rush University Medical Center
 

Hack #2:

“I treat my desk as expensive, prime property (like Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive). When working, only the task at hand is on my prime property. All other tasks are relegated to other ‘neighborhoods’. This focuses my attention and minimizes feelings of being overwhelmed.”

Lynda H. Powell, PhD
The Charles J. and Margaret Roberts Professor of Preventive Medicine
Rush University Medical Center
 

Hack #3:

“My lab is training post-doctoral (neuroscience, applied behavior analysis, cognitive science) and graduate students (clinical psychology, community health, and health behavior) in a team science environment. The breadth of expertise and interests is by design. The lab is organized by grants, in which each grant has a coordinator, staff, and graduate or postdoctoral trainees. Every other week the lab has an idea playground in collaboration with other faculty. Presenters need to read outside of their narrow areas of expertise to present NEW ideas to the group.” 

Leonard H. Epstein, PhD
SUNY Distinguished Professor and Division Chief, Behavioral Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
University at Buffalo
Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences
 

Hack #4:

“The most important lab hack that I have implemented has resulted from one of the objects of my research; namely, the discounting of the future. If almost everyone discounts the future, including the excellent and ambitious individuals working in my lab, then to help them to be more productive, I decided to arrange more proximal goals and deadlines. To accomplish this, I instituted 100-day plans. Every 100 days, we have a multi-hour meeting for everyone in the lab.  I provide lunch and we plan everything that the lab has to do in the next 100 days (e.g., how many participants need to be recruited for each study, what data needs to be analyzed, what presentations developed, what grant or manuscripts need to be submitted).  Each member of the team comes up with the goals that they are responsible for. Then every 25 days, we briefly review and update goal status. We strive to meet 80% of our goals by the end of the 100 days. If we succeed, we are happy, and if we missed our mark we address why and improve. We have recently planned our 28th 100 days and in my view, this process is a driver of my lab’s success.”

Warren K. Bickel, PhD
Virginia Tech Carilion Behavioral Health Research Professor
Director, Addiction Recovery Research Center
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC