The program begins with the Research Process and Research Methods Workshops lasting for two weekends (Saturday and Sunday). At these workshops you will be able to refine your topic and its aims, and prepare more thoroughly your approach to the investigation. You will fully understand alternative research methods and designs and how/where to use them. You will have met with others undertaking the program. By the end of the workshops you will be able to commence work on your thesis investigation.

During the course of the program you will be required to attend three Tutorial Workshops (Sundays) and four further evening Set Meetings. At these Set Meetings we shall ask you to report to your colleagues on the progress you have made with your thesis, the problems and difficulties you have encountered and the kind of help you need. You will seek help from your colleagues, including tutorial staff, and will determine what you will do in the next period ahead.

This will constitute your individual learning contract for that period. At the early Set Meetings, we shall concentrate mainly on problems of objectives and methods. In the later stages it is likely that the major emphasis will be on the preparation of your thesis.

During the course of the program you will be assigned a thesis supervisor to supervise your research studies, and you will be required to consult with your thesis supervisor. Such consultation will normally be about the development, preparation and presentation of your thesis. It is the responsibility of the candidates to take initiatives to ensure that they meet with their thesis supervisor as and when they need guidance.

You will also be suggested to meet other candidates. These self-help groups are an important part of the approach. They provide you with the opportunity to supplement one another's ideas, to test out thinking and to discuss and share in the development of the thesis work.

At the end of the program you will be required to submit a thesis of such level and quality as to be acceptable for the degree of MMS. It is a postgraduate degree awarded to a candidate who, on the completion of an approved program of management studies and research methods presents a successful thesis and satisfies the examiners in an oral defence on matter relevant to the subject of the thesis.