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11.3 Managing Your Research Project

Learning objectives.

  • Identify reasons for outlining the scope and sequence of a research project.
  • Recognize the steps of the research writing process.
  • Develop a plan for managing time and resources to complete the research project on time.
  • Identify organizational tools and strategies to use in managing the project.

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

  • Choose a topic.
  • Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
  • Conduct research.
  • Organize research
  • Draft your paper.
  • Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

Jorge had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Jorge chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review Jorge’s schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Jorge planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

Jorge's schedule

  • Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
  • Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
  • Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Plan your schedule realistically, and consider other commitments that may sometimes take precedence. A business trip or family visit may mean that you are unable to work on the research project for a few days. Make the most of the time you have available. Plan for unexpected interruptions, but keep in mind that a short time away from the project may help you come back to it with renewed enthusiasm. Another strategy many writers find helpful is to finish each day’s work at a point when the next task is an easy one. That makes it easier to start again.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Revisit the schedule you created in Note 11.42 “Exercise 1” . Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Some people enjoy using the most up-to-date technology to help them stay organized. Other people prefer simple methods, such as crossing off items on a checklist. The key to staying organized is finding a system you like enough to use daily. The particulars of the method are not important as long as you are consistent.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

Key Takeaways

  • To complete a research project successfully, a writer must carefully manage each phase of the process and break major steps into smaller tasks.
  • Writers can plan a research project by setting up a schedule based on the deadline and by identifying useful project resources.
  • Writers stay focused by using organizational tools that suit their needs.
  • Anticipating and planning for potential setbacks can help writers avoid those setbacks or minimize their effect on the project schedule.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

managing your research project

11.3 Managing Your Research Project

Learning objectives.

  • Identify reasons for outlining the scope and sequence of a research project.
  • Recognize the steps of the research writing process.
  • Develop a plan for managing time and resources to complete the research project on time.
  • Identify organizational tools and strategies to use in managing the project.

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

  • Choose a topic.
  • Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
  • Conduct research.
  • Organize research
  • Draft your paper.
  • Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase The first phase of a research project in which the writer gathers and organizes information. A good rule of thumb is to allot half the available time for research. of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase The second phase of a research project in which the writer drafts, revises, and edits the paper. Plan to spend half the time available on this phase. (You may spend additional time if your instructor reviews your rough draft and provides feedback.) (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule A document outlining the tasks involved in each step of the research project with a target date for completing each step. that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources The documents, tools, or people that a writer relies on to complete a research project. Examples of project resources include library databases, personal computers, style guides, and tutors. you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

Jorge had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Jorge chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review Jorge’s schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Jorge planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

managing your research project

  • Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
  • Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
  • Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Plan your schedule realistically, and consider other commitments that may sometimes take precedence. A business trip or family visit may mean that you are unable to work on the research project for a few days. Make the most of the time you have available. Plan for unexpected interruptions, but keep in mind that a short time away from the project may help you come back to it with renewed enthusiasm. Another strategy many writers find helpful is to finish each day’s work at a point when the next task is an easy one. That makes it easier to start again.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Revisit the schedule you created in Note 11.42 "Exercise 1" . Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Some people enjoy using the most up-to-date technology to help them stay organized. Other people prefer simple methods, such as crossing off items on a checklist. The key to staying organized is finding a system you like enough to use daily. The particulars of the method are not important as long as you are consistent.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

Key Takeaways

  • To complete a research project successfully, a writer must carefully manage each phase of the process and break major steps into smaller tasks.
  • Writers can plan a research project by setting up a schedule based on the deadline and by identifying useful project resources.
  • Writers stay focused by using organizational tools that suit their needs.
  • Anticipating and planning for potential setbacks can help writers avoid those setbacks or minimize their effect on the project schedule.
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Research projects & dissertations

Managing a research project.

The following guide has been created for you by the  Student Learning Advisory Service . For more detailed guidance and to speak to one of our advisers, please book an  appointment  or join one of our  workshops . Alternatively, have a look at our  SkillBuilder  skills videos.   

The stages of a research project

The basic stages involved in undertaking a university research project are as follows:

1. Choose your research area

Usually, it is best choose an area that you have already studied or are studying within your academic field. Not only will this help you identify potential research, but you can be confident in finding a suitable supervisor and reliable sources within the university. Choosing an area that you also find particularly interesting will help sustain your engagement. 

2. Conduct preliminary research (scope out the topic)

Survey current research surrounding your chosen subject area. Reflect on it carefully, and take advice from academic staff to establish what has already been written on your chosen subject area. This will enable you to identify what you can do that has not been done before.

3. Decide your research topic

Clearly define and delineate your research topic. The more clearly you do so the more confidence and clarity you will have in what you are trying to achieve, and the easier it will be for you to monitor your progress. If you’re uncertain what you’re trying to achieve, how will you know whether you’re on course or not?

At this stage you might also formulate a provisional research question – that is, the question your research will answer:

Research topic: Investigate ‘A’ and ‘B’ to see if/how they interrelate.

Research Question: ‘To what extent is A caused by B?’

4. Decide your methodology

As you are deciding your topic, you should be investigating and considering your research methodology – how you will conduct your research. Is it going to be experimental, observational, theoretical, textual, qualitative, quantitative? Will it involve human subjects? Are there ethical considerations – specific protocols, procedures or approaches to follow? Think about the research method you have chosen; what advantages does it give? What insights might it yield? What difficulties might it pose? How has it been used before in your field of study?

5. Submit/present your research proposal for approval

Most schools have a formal deadline for receiving research proposals/dissertation plans, and a formal approval process. In some cases this is an assessment stage – so make sure you know exactly what you need to submit, and when, in order to progress with your project. Your school will have given you guidance about what your proposal should include. Generally, the common elements are:

  • Your main research question/problem/title
  • Questions or concerns that will help you solve your main research problem
  • A brief literature review or list of key texts/sources
  • An overview of your methodology
  • A timeline showing your main research project tasks

6. Finalise your topic and methodology

You may need to revise your research plan in the light of feedback you receive during the approval process. Many students are overambitious in their aims; academic staff have a much clearer idea of what is achievable and necessary in terms of a successful research project, so be guided by their advice. You may also need to modify your methodology in the light of your initial research, or a pilot study. It may be necessary, for example, to alter a questionnaire that isn’t generating the data you were expecting.

7. Conduct your research (fieldwork)

This might take place in a laboratory, in a library or archive, at a computer, on the streets or in a field. Whatever the location, this is the practical activity of collecting raw information or data. Be aware that what you think you are going to find out, and what you actually do find out, can often be very different, so be prepared to alter your research aims/question accordingly.

8. Analysis/data processing

Whatever your research topic, you will need to analyse and process the information you have collected in order to make sense of it. This might involve statistical analysis, generating graphs, charts or tables, organising information into categories, or critical appraisal of texts or events. As well as finding out something, you need to understand what it means within your academic field.

9. Writing up

This is the process of producing the written document – your dissertation or thesis – upon which your research project will be assessed. Allow enough time to improve and revise your work through a series of drafts, and to edit and proof-read the final document – including ensuring that any graphs/images referred to in the text are properly numbered and labelled, and that your referencing is error-free – before formatting and binding the finished document. Do not underestimate how long the writing up process will take.

10. Submission

All academic research projects are time constrained, so you will have a specific deadline for submitting your work. With longer research projects, you will also have intermediate deadlines (e.g. progress/upgrade boards). Consequently, you will need to time-manage each stage of your work to ensure that you complete the overall project on time.

Project managing your research

Any complex project involving multiple activities and deadlines requires some form of management. Using simple project management techniques will allow you to keep control of your research project – to schedule your work more effectively, to identify how much time you have to spend on each stage, to create intermediate milestones that will tell you if you’re on schedule or not (and allow you to respond accordingly) and give you a clear overview of your progress.

One simple but highly effective technique is to produce a Gantt chart. This provides you with a clear visual plan of your research project, based on scheduling the different stages involved against a time base. The example below (Figure 1) is based on the ten basic research project stages, scheduled against two (hypothetical) formal deadlines – submission of the proposal in week 10 and submission of the finished dissertation in week 24:  

Figure 1: Simple research project Gantt chart    

This example is typical of an undergraduate or taught Masters’ dissertation. Longer research projects (PhD, Masters by research, etc.) will generally have more activities spread over a longer timeframe (See below, Figure 2, for an example of a project plan for a humanities PhD).  

Figure 2: Humanities PhD example Gantt chart

In project management, the scheduling of individual activities is always worked backwards from the deadline. Thus, the amount of time that you have to complete each task is a function of the overall project schedule. As shown above, some tasks have to be carried out consecutively (i.e., you can’t start the next task until you’ve completed the previous one), but other tasks can be carried out at the same time, or started before the previous task has been completed, (e.g. you might be able to start analysing your data whilst you’re still collecting it). What you also need to bear in mind with undergraduate dissertations is that your research project constitutes only one part (25%) of your academic activities, and that you’ll be working on other assignments, reading, exam revision, etc, at the same time. As such, it is important that you make full use of the available time period and balance your priorities accordingly.

Tip: With longer-term projects such as these, it can be difficult to stay focused and motivated. Try to dedicate some time to your project every day/week (depending on your other academic commitments) and break your tasks down into smaller chunks so that they are more manageable. The Pomodoro technique can also be helpful for generating small bursts of concentration. If you are struggling, maybe read an article on your topic to remind yourself of your interest in the area, or talk to fellow students or your supervisor(s).    

Enago Academy

How to Manage Your Research Project

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You hear it everywhere: the project was delayed and over-budget. Whether it be bridges, space shuttle launches, or federally funded science projects, poor research project management can lead to abysmal consequences. Consider the example of the BepiColombo mission, a project to send an orbiter and lander to Mercury. While originally budgeted at 450 million euro for a 2008 mission, only the orbiter was developed in 2013 and at a cost of over 1 billion euro!

In academic sciences, project management for scientists is important. While a contract might be extended for a federal grant, the funders will remember who could not manage a project correctly. Meanwhile, if working on a degree, such as a PhD,  managing a large research project is critical for sticking to a timeline. Given that the typical constraints of a project include the science goals, time, risks, and costs, research project management becomes critical to the success.

Why Project Management Matters in Science

Successfully obtaining and completing a research grant requires intellectual and scientific self-awareness. In this honesty, a scientist can better predict the true costs and requisite time to complete his or her projects. Furthermore, having a detailed and well-designed project plan is foundational to convince a funder that you can do a project efficiently.

Managing a scientific research project often requires a variety of organizational and leadership skills. Scientists naturally acquire these skills over time due to experiences with failed experiments, planning a research question, and writing manuscripts. Yet, a principal investigator also needs to be aware of the more abstract caveats of a research laboratory and its personnel. Research teams are affected by internal politics, including the resources of their institution and the skills and motivation of the team members, The practical demands of any project can be easily over-looked; therefore, management techniques are needed to overcome the constraining factors.

So, what can a scientist do? Being a skilled and creative scientist isn’t enough – they must also manage projects carefully.

Key Areas to Manage

When managing a research project, there are several concerns that an investigator might have. There are various important considerations for conducting science team meetings, which include preparation, participation, conduct, and follow-up. Furthermore, information flow should be carefully maintained to provide sufficient information so that all team members understand the process and the project. Finally, a researcher must be ever vigilant of the boundaries of the project (i.e., the scope of the research). Without careful monitoring, the scope of the research may creep into a new field.  A project might thus lose its focus and the planned goals may never be achieved. It is important to remember the desired outcome and plan tasks, while regularly reviewing the progress and modifying the next steps accordingly.

Management Tools

Several tools exist to help manage a research project, including Evernote for science , citation management software programs (e.g., Endnote or Mendeley) , calendars that can be synced across devices or shared with collaborators (e.g., Google Calendar) , and drives that can help researchers share or backup data for collaborations or protection from cyber attacks that can result in data loss.

In addition to these ubiquitous tools, there are additional management tools that can help a researcher be both a scientist and a project manager. One such tool is LabGuru , which offers a collaborative project planning platform and allows for document storage. Meanwhile, a schedule developer that allows for timelines, flow charts and activities/responsibilities to be communicated, such as Microsoft Project and GANTT charts provide more centralized tools.

  As scientists prepare to manage large research projects, one should make several considerations within the project constraints. Furthermore, many research project management tools are available to facilitate the requisite tasks. As academic sciences become more competitive due to limitations in funding and resources, a well-managed and realistic project plan can be one way to guarantee research success.

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  • © 2020
  • Managing Your Academic Research Project
  • Jacqui Ewart 0 ,
  • Kate Ames 1

Griffith University, Nathan, Australia

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Central Queensland University, Brisbane, Australia

  • Provides academics with a road map to manage large and diverse projects
  • Contains interviews with project managers and industry partners
  • Offers handy tips and hints in breakout boxes so that readers can see and absorb them at a glance
  • Presents insights from professionals and practitioners into the project management process

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Front matter, introduction to managing your academic research project.

  • Jacqui Ewart, Kate Ames

Working with the Right Team on Academic Research Projects

Approaching a multi-year or large academic research project, research, data and milestones, setting up for success: contracts, accountability and budgets, relationships, outputs versus outcomes.

This book is an essential resource for academics managing a large and complex research project. It provides important practical insights into the processes that inform such research projects and delivers insights into the delicate balance between industry, stakeholder and academic needs. It gives practical advice about developing relationships with diverse partners and colleagues and managing the expectations of the various parties involved and on avoiding pitfalls. This book uses examples from Australian research projects, but it contains insights relevant to researchers all around the world.

  • Project Management for Academics
  • Academic Research Project Management
  • Negotiating Industry and Academic Relationships
  • Project Management Framework
  • Funding Bodies for Research
  • Stakeholder Relationship
  • Research Project Management
  • Research and Data
  • Multi-Year Research Project
  • Budgets and Reporting for Project Management
  • Research Team
  • research ethics

Jacqui Ewart

Jacqui Ewart is a Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Griffith University in Australia. Jacqui’s main research interests focus on news media representations of Muslims and disasters communication. After working as a journalist and communications manager for more than a decade, she moved into academia where she has led several large research projects with multiple industry government partners and has worked with industry and academic colleagues internationally. She has authored, co-authored and edited five books and published in international journals in a wide range of fields.

Kate Ames has a background in media and communication, having worked as a journalist and editor before a long career in military public affairs. She has been an academic since 2001 and more recently, has led complex innovation projects in learning design at CQUniversity. Her research interests are in storytelling in the public sphere, encompassing broadcast talk, regional media, disastercommunication, health promotion, and distance learning.  

Book Title : Managing Your Academic Research Project

Authors : Jacqui Ewart, Kate Ames

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9192-1

Publisher : Springer Singapore

eBook Packages : Education , Education (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Hardcover ISBN : 978-981-15-9191-4 Published: 02 October 2020

Softcover ISBN : 978-981-15-9194-5 Published: 03 October 2021

eBook ISBN : 978-981-15-9192-1 Published: 01 October 2020

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XVII, 125

Number of Illustrations : 1 b/w illustrations

Topics : Research Skills , Project Management , Research Methodology , Research Ethics , Higher Education

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Designing and Managing a Research Project: A Business Student’s Guide

  • Edition: Fourth Edition
  • By: Michael J. Polonsky & David S. Waller
  • Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Online pub date: February 08, 2021
  • Discipline: Business and Management
  • Methods: Focus groups , Case study research , Professional communication
  • DOI: https:// doi. org/10.4135/9781544316499
  • Keywords: conflict , interviews , literature reviews , qualitative research , research design , research questions , students Show all Show less
  • Print ISBN: 9781544316468
  • Online ISBN: 9781071849279
  • Buy the book icon link

Subject index

Designing and Managing a Research Project: A Business Student’s Guide is a practical, step-by-step guide that shows business students how to successfully conduct a research project, from choosing the topic to presenting the results. The authors have applied their many years of experience in supervising student projects to provide examples of actual research problems and to offer practical solutions. The inclusion of topics such as supervision, group work and ethics, and both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, along with examples from real student research provide a unique perspective. The new Fourth Edition includes broader types of student project examples, such as an Economics thesis, additional international business cases, increased coverage of Questionnaire Design and Institutional Review Boards, and an integrated case throughout the book on “High Performance Shoes” with supporting materials and data. Additional resources including case studies, PowerPoint slides, and test bank are available on the authors’ website at http://polonskywaller.com!

Front Matter

  • Acknowledgments
  • Chapter 1 | • Introduction
  • Chapter 2 | • Choosing a Topic
  • Chapter 3 | • The Role of the Supervisor
  • Chapter 4 | • Group Work, Group Dynamics, and the Role of Conflict
  • Chapter 5 | • Ethical Considerations
  • Chapter 6 | • Planning the Research Project
  • Chapter 7 | • Literature Review
  • Chapter 8 | • Data Gathering
  • Chapter 9 | • Qualitative Data Collection and Issues in Analysis
  • Chapter 10 | • Quantitative Data Analysis
  • Chapter 11 | • Presenting the Results
  • Chapter 12 | • Identifying the Implications and Establishing Recommendations
  • Chapter 13 | • Writing the Report
  • Chapter 14 | • Oral Presentations
  • Chapter 15 | • Concluding Remarks

Back Matter

  • About the Authors

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Project Management for Research

The tools you need to make your research project a success.

This toolkit includes a variety of tools for managing your research projects including recommendations for general project management software and tools to help you and your team manage activities from grant writing to implementation and project closeout.

Explore the toolkit below:

Grant Writing + Project Development

A Gantt Chart is a popular project management tool; it is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project’s schedule. The chart allows for organizing and viewing project activities and tasks against pre-established timeframes.

Gantt Chart Template Gantt Chart Instructions Gantt Chart Example

Graphic display of the flow or sequence of events that a product or service follows; it shows all activities, decision points, rework loops and handoffs.

Process maps allow the team to visualize the process and come to agreement on the steps of a process as well as examine which activities are duplicated. Process maps are used to:

  • Capture current and new process information
  • Identify the flow of a process
  • Identify responsibility of different business functions
  • Clearly show hand-off between functions
  • Identify value added and non-value added activities
  • Train team members in new process

Process Map Template Process Mapping Guide Process Map Example 1 Process Map Example 2

The Data Management Plan (DMP) defines the responsibilities related to the entry, ownership, sharing, validation, editing and storage of primary research data.

A data management plan must not only reflect the requirements of the protocol/project but also comply with applicable institutional, state and federal guidelines and regulations. The DMP Tool details your agencies expectations, has suggested language for REDCap and exports a properly formatted plan.

DMP Tool NIH Data Management & Sharing (DMS) Policy

The Project Charter's purpose is to define at a high level what the Project Team will deliver, what resources are needed and why it is justified.

The Project Charter also represents a commitment to dedicate the necessary time and resources to the project. It can be especially useful when organizing a multi-disciplinary, internally funded team. The document should be brief (up to three pages maximum).   

Project Charter Template Project Charter Instructions Project Charter Example

Milestones are an effective way to track major progress in your research project.

A Gantt Chart is an effective tool for setting and tracking milestones and deliverables. It is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project’s schedule.  

The proposal budget should be derived directly from the project description.

The proposal budget should follow the format specified by the sponsor. The Office of Sponsored Programs Budget Preparation webpages provide descriptions of the standard budget categories, lists of typical components of those categories, Ohio State rates where appropriate and other details to help ensure your budget is complete. Budget Preparation Resources from Office of Research The 398 grant form from the NIH is a template that includes standard categories required for an NIH grant (and many others) that you can use to develop a preliminary budget.

PHS 398 Forms PHS 398 Budget form for Initial Project Period Template PHS 398 Budget Form for Entire Proposal Project Template

The Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan first assists the research team in anticipating risk that may occur during the research project before it happens.

The plan then specifies when to act to mitigate risk by defining thresholds and establishing action plans to follow. As a fundamental ethical requirement research risks are to be minimized to the greatest extent possible for all research endeavors. This includes not only prompt identification measures but also response, reporting and resolution. Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan Template Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan Example

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) organizes the research project work into manageable components.

It is represented in a hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the research project team. It visually defines the scope into manageable chunks that the team can understand.  WBS Instructions and Template WBS Structure Example

Implementation

A Gantt Chart is a popular project management tool; it is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project’s schedule.

The chart allows for organizing and viewing project activities and tasks against pre-established timeframes. A Gantt Chart can also be used for tracking milestones and major progresses within your research project.

The purpose is to define at a high level what the Project Team will deliver, what resources are needed and why it is justified.   

It is represented in a hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the research project team. It visually defines the scope into manageable chunks that the team can understand.  WBS Instructions + Template WBS Structure Example

A communications plan facilitates effective and efficient dissemination of information to the research team members and major stakeholders in the research project.

It describes how the communications will occur; the content, security, and privacy of those communications; along with the method of dissemination and frequency.

Communications Plan Template Communications Plan Example

The Data Management Plan (DMP) defines the responsibilities related to the entry, ownership, sharing, validation, editing, and storage of primary research data.

A data management plan must not only reflect the requirements of the protocol/project but also comply with applicable institutional, state, and federal guidelines and regulations. The DMP Tool details your agencies expectations, has suggested language for REDCap, and exports a properly formatted plan.

DMP Tool DMP Tool Instructions Ohio State Research Guide: Data

The chart allows for organizing and viewing project activities and tasks against pre-established timeframes. Gantt Chart Template Gantt Chart Instructions Gantt Chart Example

This tool helps you capture details of issues that arise so that the project team can quickly see the status and who is responsible for resolving it.

Further, the Issue Management Tool guides you through a management process that gives you a robust way to evaluate issues, assess their impact, and decide on a plan for resolution.

Issue Management Tool Template Issue Management Tool Instructions Issue Management Example

A Pareto Chart is a graphical tool that helps break down a problem into its parts so that managers can identify the most frequent, and thus most important, problems.

It depicts in descending order (from left to right) the frequency of events being studied. It is based on the Pareto Principle or “80/20 Rule”, which says that roughly 80% of problems are caused by 20% of contributors. With the Pareto Principle Project Managers solve problems by identifying and focusing on the “vital few” problems. Managers should avoid focusing on “people” problems. Problems are usually the result of processes, not people.

Pareto Chart Template Pareto Chart Instructions Pareto Chart Example

Closeout, Transfer + Application

Completing a project means more than finishing the research. 

There remain financial, personnel, reporting, and other responsibilities. These tasks typically need to be completed within a timeline that begins 60 to 90 days before the project end date and 90 days after. Specifics will vary depending on the project and the funding source. The Office of Sponsored Programs “Project Closeout” webpage provides a description closeout issues, a list of PI Responsibilities and other details to help ensure your project is in fact complete.  Project Closeout Checklist Project Closeout Resources from Office of Research

A communications plan facilitates effective and efficient dissemination of information to the research team members and major stakeholders in the research project. 

It describes how the communications will occur; the content, security and privacy of those communications; along with the method of dissemination and frequency.

Project Management Software

An open-source project management software similar to Microsoft Project.

OpenProject  has tools to create dashboards, Gantt Charts, budgets, and status reports. Activities can be assigned to team members and progress monitored. OpenProject also has a tool for Agile Project Management. While the software is free, OpenProject must be installed and maintained on a local server and there will probably be costs associated with this. Talk to your departmental or college IT staff.

A secure, web-based project management system.

Basecamp  offers an intuitive suite of tools at a minimal cost: ~$20/month or free for teachers. Basecamp facilitates collaboration between research team members with features such as to-do lists, messaging, file sharing, assignment of tasks, milestones, due dates and time tracking.  

A project management tool that organizes tasks, activities, responsibilities and people on projects.

Trello can help manage research projects by keeping everyone on time and on task. It uses a distinctive interface based on cards and lists and may be especially useful for smaller projects.

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This page has been reproduced from the Vitae website (www.vitae.ac.uk). Vitae is dedicated to realising the potential of researchers through transforming their professional and career development.

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Managing a research project

Having been successful in attracting funding for your project, you will now have to lead it from set-up to completion. The following pages take you through the key stages:

1. Settting up a research project

2. Monitoring a research project

3. Reporting on your research project

4. Making the most of your research project

and provide you with some project management tools for researchers .

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5.1: Managing Your Research Project

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Learning Objectives

  • Identify reasons for outlining the scope and sequence of a research project.
  • Recognize the steps of the research writing process.
  • Develop a plan for managing time and resources to complete the research project on time.
  • Identify organizational tools and strategies to use in managing the project.

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

  • Choose a topic.
  • Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
  • Conduct research.
  • Organize research
  • Draft your paper.
  • Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

Jorge had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Jorge chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review Jorge’s schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Jorge planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

A 7-week calendar is shown, arranged in rows by week, Sunday through Saturday. Steps of the project are outlined throughout the month

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

  • Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
  • Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
  • Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Plan your schedule realistically, and consider other commitments that may sometimes take precedence. A business trip or family visit may mean that you are unable to work on the research project for a few days. Make the most of the time you have available. Plan for unexpected interruptions, but keep in mind that a short time away from the project may help you come back to it with renewed enthusiasm. Another strategy many writers find helpful is to finish each day’s work at a point when the next task is an easy one. That makes it easier to start again.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)

Revisit the schedule you created in Exercise 1. Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Some people enjoy using the most up-to-date technology to help them stay organized. Other people prefer simple methods, such as crossing off items on a checklist. The key to staying organized is finding a system you like enough to use daily. The particulars of the method are not important as long as you are consistent.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{3}\)

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

key takeaways

  • To complete a research project successfully, a writer must carefully manage each phase of the process and break major steps into smaller tasks.
  • Writers can plan a research project by setting up a schedule based on the deadline and by identifying useful project resources.
  • Writers stay focused by using organizational tools that suit their needs.
  • Anticipating and planning for potential setbacks can help writers avoid those setbacks or minimize their effect on the project schedule.

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How to Prioritize and Manage Your Research Projects

managing your research project

How long is your to-do list? Having a seemingly never-ending list of experiments, deadlines, and other tasks to complete can feel overwhelming. That daunting to-do list can actually be counterproductive and make it difficult for you to decide which jobs to prioritize and tackle first.

Effective prioritization and management of your research projects will help make your workload more manageable, boost your productivity, and maximize the impact of your efforts. To get started, follow these seven steps for managing your projects.

1. Set SMART Goals

Working toward a goal can keep you motivated and productive as you execute your projects. Before you begin prioritizing your tasks, set SMART goals for yourself:

  • Specific. What exactly do you want to accomplish?
  • Measurable. How do you specifically measure success?
  • Attainable. Do you believe you can achieve it?
  • Realistic. Is it possible to achieve?
  • Time-sensitive. When is the deadline?

2. Create a Comprehensive List

The first step to managing your work is creating a comprehensive list of all your projects.

  • Start by writing down every existing and new project that you can think of, even those that may just be ideas at this time.
  • Next, break down your projects and large tasks into the smaller tasks that are required to complete the project.
  • Now you are ready to begin prioritizing your tasks.

3. Prioritize Strategically

Rank the items in your list from high to low priority to help you focus on executing high priority tasks first. Here are three criteria that you can use to help you determine priority.

  • Urgency Certain projects such as grant or fellowship applications will have firm deadlines that have to be met. Write down those deadlines in your list and ensure that you give yourself enough time to complete the tasks before they are due.
  • Importance Think about the potential impact of your tasks. For example, if you aim to answer a particular research question, the most important experiments are those that can result in data to directly address the question.

Nouraiz from ETH Zurich mentioned this tip for prioritizing experiments:

Think about results (figures in papers) in advance. And perform only those experiments that are required without investing useful time on other irrelevant experiments.

  • Effort Some tasks take longer than others to complete. One way to keep your to-do list from growing out of control is to tackle quick and easy tasks as soon as you receive them. Take this approach carefully to ensure that quick tasks are not getting in the way of accomplishing your larger but more important ones.

Rank your tasks according to these criteria, then prioritize those tasks with high urgency, high importance, and low effort. Deprioritize or reconsider those with low urgency, low importance, and high effort.

4. Align with Supervisor and Key Collaborators

Communication is crucial for effective project management, especially with your supervisor and any lab members involved in your projects. Ask your supervisor for advice on your priorities. Once your priorities are set, inform any individuals that you work very closely with. Ensuring alignment will help strengthen collaborations and avoid any unexpected roadblocks in the future.

5. Create an Action Plan

Now that you have clear priorities and goals, it’s time to create an action plan. Take a few minutes at the end of each week to plan for the next one by creating a weekly to-do list. Similarly, at the end of each day, take a few minutes to review and adjust your plans for the following day. This approach will help keep you focused in the day ahead while giving you the flexibility to adapt to the state of your research. As you plan, be mindful of what you can actually accomplish in a day—it’s easy to overestimate.

Researcher using a centrifuge

How to Plan Ahead to Optimize Your Time in the Lab

See more tips for creating an effective action plan for your research.

Read the Article >

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Planning Template

Access a collection of templates and spreadsheets, including a planning template that works for our scientists. See if it works for you.

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6. Execute with Focus and Quality

  • Focus Your to-do list may seem overwhelming, but if you focus on one task at a time, you may be surprised by how much you can accomplish.

See what Clare from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre had to say:

...I have learned to prioritize the most important experiments. Once you are in the middle of one experiment, focus, and don’t get distracted by your other thoughts. Doing the most important experiment properly and getting results is much more efficient than doing three experiments without getting good results.

In other words, resist the temptation to multitask. Many people work on multiple tasks simultaneously, believing that it helps them improve their performance. This is a false belief. They only feel efficient by multitasking. In fact, a study has found that only 2.5% of individuals show no performance decrements when multitasking. 1

Researcher opening an incubator door

Eight Counter-Productive Habits that Researchers Should Break

Find out what other habits may be holding you back from moving your research forward.

Read Now >

  • Quality Concentrate on quality instead of quantity. Rather than rushing to complete more experiments as fast as you can, focus on doing experiments properly so you don't have to redo them later. This also applies to other tasks such as data analysis.

Israel from the University of British Columbia shared this tip:

One of the senior students in my department gave me what I think is the most useful advice in grad school. He told me to save no effort and always make figures that are publication-quality. Following that advice, I can put up presentation slides together, as well as posters for conferences in no time.

7. Review and Improve

As you complete your week, take a few minutes to reflect on the progress that you have made. Consider whether there are any opportunities for improvement by asking yourself the following questions:

  • Should I shift my priorities based on the results I’ve obtained?
  • Should I add or remove tasks from my list?
  • Can my procedures be performed more efficiently next time?
  • Can the tools I’m using keep up with my goals?
  • Is it time to rethink my tools and technologies to allow for greater productivity?

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Efficient Tools and Technologies for Life Science Research

Accomplish more in less time and with less effort by making smarter choices for the tools you use in the lab, including cell isolation and cell culture technologies.

  • Watson JM and Strayer DL. (2010) Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychon Bull Rev 17(4): 479-85.

More efficient immune cell separation.

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Starting steps for research project success

managing your research project

Research projects are an important part of a student’s academic career. They’re an integral part of the learning process, providing students with the opportunity to explore a particular topic in-depth, develop research skills, and make an original contribution to their field of study.

That said, they can also be a source of stress for many students, particularly if it’s their first time writing a research project. The best way to approach a project of this size is to break it down into smaller steps and ensure you’ve laid the groundwork before you even begin writing.

In this article, we’ll look at different elements of beginning a research project, including writing a proposal, starting steps, and how to use monday.com to organize all your research and tasks in one place.

What is a research project?

A research project is an organized effort to investigate a specific question or topic. It can involve either quantitative or qualitative research methods and can include surveys, interviews, or literature reviews.

The goal of a research project is to answer a question or hypothesis by exploring new ideas and testing theories.

In an academic setting, research projects are typically conducted by students, faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, or graduate students, and may involve collaborations with outside organizations.

How to write a research project proposal

Before beginning to write a research project, you need to first write a proposal. A research project proposal is a document used to outline the specific goals, methods, and resources required for a research project. It’s used to present the planned research to potential sponsors or other stakeholders in order to receive approval to proceed with the project.

There are several elements to include in a project proposal that will not only help guide your research but help show why your topic is relevant and worth pursuing.

  • Title: Develop a clear and concise title for your research project proposal.
  • Introduction: Give background, including the purpose and importance of the research.
  • Objectives: List the specific objectives of your research project.
  • Methodology: Describe the methods and techniques you will use.
  • Resources: Describe the resources you will need to carry out your project.
  • Timeline: Provide a timeline for completion and bring up any potential obstacles or risks.
  • Expected outcomes: Identify the expected outcomes, including possible implications.
  • Budget: Estimate the costs of completing the project and any necessary funding.
  • References: Provide references that you’ll cite that help prove your topic is relevant.

Looking at examples of other research project proposals will be helpful to visualize what yours should look like. Here are examples of successful project proposals in the field of social policy and criminology as well as a Ph.D. project in politics .

A project proposal template from monday.com can help you build out your project proposal. This template will ensure that you aren’t missing any essential elements that can result in your research project getting rejected or needing to edit and resubmit a new proposal.

5 starting steps for writing a research project

While there are many different steps to the writing portion of a research project, the initial setup of your project will not only set you up for success but will make the writing go a lot more smoothly. Here are five steps you should take when you’re just starting your research project.

1. Find the right supervisor

A good supervisor will provide guidance on the design, methods, and structure of your research project, as well as advice on how to best analyze and interpret data. A good way to find the right supervisor is to speak with faculty members in a department, a trusted professor, or a colleague to discuss who might be the best fit. When you have a list of potential advisors, send them an email to introduce yourself and your project before asking to meet to discuss the next steps.

2. Choose your topic

After finding a supervisor, they may be able to help you narrow down your topic. The more specific your topic, the better you’ll be able to sharpen the direction of your research so that you can explore your topic in greater depth. It can also save time by allowing you to tighten the scope of your research and focus on the most relevant aspects of the topic.

3. Develop a thesis

A thesis serves as the main point or argument and provides direction and focus to a project, allowing you to collect and organize information more efficiently. A clear and concise thesis statement guides readers in understanding the project’s purpose and ensures that readers will be able to follow the main thread of your argument.

4. Create a timeline

When you begin your research, it’s important to create a timeline to set a framework for the project and ensure that it’s completed on time. It also keeps you organized on various tasks and ensures all steps are accounted for, from researching to writing and editing. Finally, a timeline can help you stay motivated and on track.

5. Write your outline

Outlines provide structure and clarity and allow you to organize your thoughts in a logical order. An outline serves as a roadmap for your research, allowing you to focus on the important points and not get sidetracked. It may also help identify gaps in your research, which can be addressed before beginning the writing process.

monday.com can help you organize your research project

Given all the different steps to take before you even begin writing, staying organized and on top of each task will ensure your project runs seamlessly. Project management tools such as monday.com can help you stay organized so that you don’t overlook an important step in your project. There are a few specific monday.com features that make it an excellent tool for anyone working on a research project.

Track your project with timelines

project timeline in monday.com

Create a timeline to see when different elements of your research project are due and see if you’re on time with your project proposal’s timeline.

Organize your tasks in one place

task management in monday.com

There are tons of small tasks in each research project, from planning a project, collecting and organizing data, communications, surveying, and more. With monday.com’s task management tools, you can make sure you’ve accounted for all tasks you need to complete so that you don’t miss a thing.

Use a template to make a visual plan

The student planner template allows you to visualize your project plan. Not only is this a good place to track tasks, but you can also add in information such as budgets, contact information, priorities, and even attach files for each access to your project’s information all in one place.

How do you start a research project?

When starting a research project, the first step is to create a research question or hypothesis that will be the focus of the project. Next, you’ll want to begin gathering information, finding a supervisor, forming your thesis, and outlining your project.

What are some examples of research projects?

Research projects vary widely depending on the field. For example, in biology, some research projects have focused on investigating the effects of a medication or therapy on a specific group of patients or looking at the role of genetics in disease.

How do I find a research project topic?

There are many different ways to find a topic. For starters, consider which topics interest you. From there, you can research online, speak with professors or advisors, and attend conferences and workshops to find ideas.

Make sure you have all you need to start writing

Writing a research project takes a lot of time, dedication, and focus. They can also be stressful, especially if it’s your first time writing one. Following the steps and guidelines here will make your research project more successful. Additionally, using a project management work tool like monday.com to organize your research project is one of the best ways to alleviate the stress of staying on top of your tasks and timeline so that you can better focus on the research itself.

managing your research project

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Writing from Research

18 Managing Your Research Project

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

  • Choose a topic.
  • Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
  • Conduct research.
  • Organize research
  • Draft your paper.
  • Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

managing your research project

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

This student had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. The student chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review the following schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that the student planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

A calendar showing a calandar with tasks of different days. Longer image description is available.

Exercise 18.1

  • Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
  • Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
  • Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Writing in Process

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Exercise 18.2

Revisit the schedule you created in Exercise 18.1. Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Exercise 18.3

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

Image Descriptions

Figure 18.2 Image Description: A list of dates between March 22 and May 2 with a plan for what tasks for a research paper should be completed on what days. An * marks key target dates.

  • Tuesday: Choose topic.
  • Wednesday: Preliminary research.
  • Thursday: Write research questions and working thesis.
  • Friday: Write research proposal.
  • Saturday: Nothing.
  • Sunday: Nothing.
  • *Monday: Research proposal due.
  • Tuesday: Look for sources online.
  • Wednesday: Library.
  • Thursday: Evaluate sources; make source cards.
  • Friday: Take notes.
  • Saturday: Take notes.
  • Sunday: Take notes.
  • Monday: Take notes.
  • *Tuesday: Finish note cards.
  • Wednesday: Organize notes.
  • Thursday: Organize notes.
  • Friday: Write outline.
  • Saturday: Write outline.
  • *Monday: Outline due.
  • Tuesday: Write draft.
  • Wednesday: Write draft.
  • Thursday: Write draft.
  • Friday: Off. Trip to NYC.
  • Saturday: Off. Trip to NYC.
  • Monday: Conference with Professor Habib at 2pm.
  • *Tuesday: Finish writing draft.
  • Wednesday: Nothing.
  • Thursday: Revise draft.
  • Friday: Revise draft.
  • Saturday: Library?
  • Monday: Nothing.
  • *Tuesday: Finish revising draft.
  • Wednesday: Edit draft.
  • Thursday: Writing Centre at 4:30.
  • *Friday: Finish editing draft.
  • Saturday: Create Works Cited page.
  • *Monday: Final draft due.

[Return to Figure 18.2]

Text Attributions

  • This chapter was adapted from “ Managing Your Research Project ” in Writing for Success  by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution (and republished by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing). Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.   CC BY-NC-SA .

Media Attributions

  • Figure 18.1 “Visual Summary” © Polina Joffe is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 .

Provincial English by Allison Kilgannon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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managing your research project

Case Western Reserve University

Research Lifecycle

At Case Western Reserve University, research is central to our mission—but navigating the research lifecycle can be a complicated process. 

The Office of Research and Technology Management is here to help. Whether you’re looking to develop a proposal, familiarize yourself with certain policies or bring your idea to market, we have staff and resources to support you in your efforts.

computer screen with gear icons illustration

Step 1: Administrative setup Establish accounts and undergo training that’s needed to conduct research at CWRU

hand holding a gear illustration

Step 2: Find funding Identify a funding opportunity that matches your research 

checkmark, document and stamp illustration

Step 3: Develop and submit your proposal Apply for an award to fund your project

paper with check illustration

Step 4: Set up your project Establish the project in CWRU’s system and ensure documentation aligns with award terms

shield with checkmark illustration

Step 5: Conduct your research and manage your award Ensure proper grants administration while your research is underway

two gears illustration

Step 6: Close out your project Complete final reports and other necessary documentation/ tasks for a smooth project closeout

lightbulb with gears illustration

Step 7: Promote and commercialize your work Turn to the Technology Transfer Office for help with commercializing your discoveries and inventions

Step 1: Administrative Setup

Register with the research administration systems to conduct research at CWRU. For funded research, you’ll need to complete a Spiderweb Profile, complete a COI Disclosure Form and set up your Sparta Grants and Sparta COI accounts. You may need additional CWRU accounts or agency-specific logins, depending on the type of research you’re conducting. Establishing these accounts at the onset will enable a smoother process for funding your research, and research administrators can help you avoid predictable pitfalls along the way.

Always Needed for Funded Research

  • CWRU Network ID : If you don’t already have one, have your department administrator request an ID for you. The UTech Help Desk can also be of assistance
  • A complete Spiderweb profile : Using your CWRU Network ID, you’ll need to personally set up your profile on Spiderweb . 
  • SpartaGrants Account : Once your Spiderweb profile is complete, you’ll need to be added to SpartaGrants . In the system, you’ll select “Sparta Request Person” under the Administrative tab, then have your department administrator email [email protected] to request that you be added to a specific department and routing number.
  • SpartaCOI Account : Once in Sparta, email [email protected] for account activation.
  • Conflict of Interests (COI) Disclosure Form : This needs to be completed once you receive notification the form is available. The COI Office is available to assist.
  • An ORCID ID : The Kelvin Smith Library offers a guide for creating an ID. Review and complete the steps to create an ORCID ID . 

Sometimes Needed, Depending on the Type of Research

  • For human subjects research: If you’re submitting to the CWRU Institutional Review Board (IRB) or University Hospitals' IRB, you’ll need to complete CREC certification  and request a SpartaIRB account . Please note that CREC certification has to be completed before an IRB protocol will be approved. 
  • For recombinant DNA research : You’ll need to request an IBC account by contacting [email protected]
  • For vertebrate animal research : You’ll need to request an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) account by contacting [email protected]
  • For submissions to certain federal agencies: You’ll need to set up agency-specific logins and/or ensure they're up to date. For instance, to submit a proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), you’ll need an eRA Commons ID.

What Slows Down the Process

  • Your SpartaCOI account cannot be created until your Spiderweb profile is completed. 
  • SpartaIRB accounts cannot be created without either a CWRU Network ID and email address or a University Hospitals user ID and email address. 
  • Inconsistent email addresses in CREC and SpartaIRB will halt your progress; the same email address is necessary to link CREC training to your SpartaIRB account. 
  • Incomplete CREC training slows the process.

Who Can Help

If you’re overwhelmed with the steps above—don’t be! Help is only a question away.

  • For assistance getting your CWRU ID, work with your department administrator or contact the [U]Tech Help Desk online or at 216.368.4357.
  • The Sparta Team is available to help with all things Spiderweb or SpartaGrants  and can be reached at [email protected]
  • The COI Team can be reached at [email protected] or 216.368.7600 to help with SpartaCOI questions. 
  • The CWRU IRB Team can be reached at [email protected] or 216.368.0134 to help with SpartaIRB questions.
  • The IBC Team can help with iRIS questions and can be reached at  [email protected]  or 216.368.0838.
  • The IACUC Team can be reached at  [email protected]  or 216.368.3815.
  • And lastly, the CREC Team can be reached at [email protected] or 216.368.5963 for guidance with all things related to Continuing Research Education Credit Program.

  Meet the ORTM team

Step 2: Find Funding 

There are a variety of resources available to you as you seek monetary backing for your research project. We recommend the following: 

  • Familiarize yourself with funding sources: There’s a wide range of funding opportunities you could explore. Public or private funds? Internal or external? Industry funding? Foundations? Explore types of funding . 
  • Get updates on opportunities from ORTM: Stay up to date with the latest opportunities by signing up for ORTM’s Funding Opportunities newsletter. Subscribe to the Funding Opportunities newsletter .
  • Explore Limited Submission Opportunities:  To help ensure a fair process amidst a competitive funding environment, CWRU has established procedures for limited submission programs—opportunities in which a funder limits the number of proposals it will accept from each institution. Review the procedures and view active opportunities .
  • Learn About Large-Scale Grant Support: At CWRU, the Strategic Partnerships and Research Collaboration (SPARC) Team supports proposal development for complex, center-level grants and contracts greater than $10 million. Get to know the SPARC Team .

Explore Funding

Step 3: Develop and Submit Your Proposal

Once you’ve identified the funding opportunity you’d like to apply for, there are several steps you need to take in order to submit your proposal—though additional steps may be required, depending on the nature of the opportunity.

Preparing Your Proposal

  • Please confirm your eligibility to submit a proposal , as required by your department or school. This process will vary depending on your school or college.
  • Carefully read the full Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA) and related application guide , making a note of all required proposal components and other relevant information. 
  • Find collaborators .
  • Identify subawardees and understand the Subaward Process .
  • Assess need for generating preliminary data.
  • Develop your budget , and make sure you’re detailed. View guidelines for developing your budget .
  • Set meetings with senior key personnel to determine a timeline and outline who’s responsible for preparing various components of the application, including: budgets, figures, research narrative components, letters of support, required supplementary documents, etc.  Familiarize yourself with the proposal submission timeline .
  • Complete the funding proposal in SpartaGrants . Get training for SpartaGrants .

Submitting Your Proposal

Once you’re ready to submit, work with your department’s research administration team to complete the funding proposal and your application package in SpartaGrants prior to the departmental deadline. Learn how to submit in SpartaGrants . 

CWRU prefers the use of SpartaGrants for funding opportunities that will allow system-to-system submissions. Learn more about proposal submission methods and procedures . 

A CWRU Authorized Institutional Signing Official must sign and submit the proposal to the funder. Understand ORTM’s process for reviewing proposals .

Award notifications can come through in a variety of ways, be it by email to the university or to the PI. 

Proposal Development

Proposal Submission

Step 4: Set Up Your Project

Once receiving the official notice of a grant award from the sponsor, work with your department administration to set up the award. Steps include: 

  • Review and verify the sponsor award and CWRU’s internal notice of award to ensure that you understand all award requirements .
  • Execute any agreements  and review the terms and conditions.
  • Execute the subcontracts , if required. 
  • Checking the project’s regulatory compliance . 

Regulatory Compliance Check

Ensure you’ve fulfilled all regulatory compliance requirements. This may include:

  • Conflict of Interests committee (COI)
  • Effort Reporting
  • Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
  • Institutional Review Board (CWRU IRB)
  • Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC)
  • Export Control
  • Data Sharing ( Review the CWRU Custody of Research Data Policy )

Award Acceptance and Setup

Step 5: Conduct Your Research and Manage Your Award

Here, researchers get into the crux of their work. PIs and research administrators each have distinct responsibilities in award management. By working together, they help ensure a project is managed with efficiency and accountability while maintaining compliance. Here are some key components of award management:

  • Understand everyone’s role in managing the project : Review PI responsibilities  and Research Administrator responsibilities .
  • Manage project finances : Think of the award as a small business—managing financial reports, reviewing expenses, and understanding all reporting obligations. 
  • Follow applicable procedures for post-award changes : Changes to the project budget after receiving awards must be approved from the granting agency/sponsor. 
  • Ensure good stewardship of the award : Researchers should review the terms and conditions of their Notice of Award (NOA) so they are aware of all reporting obligations

Ongoing Award Management

Step 6: Close Out Your Project

To accurately forecast expenses and make any financial adjustments, grant closeout should commence four months before a project’s end date.  Review the list of project closeout tasks .

Though each agency has its own guidelines, most sponsors require a final technical report and a financial report upon completion of an award. 

Required closeout reports may include:

  • Final technical report, also known as the final scientific report
  • Financial report
  • Patent/invention report* 
  • Property report 

*Keep in mind that the PI is responsible for notifying the Technology Transfer Office  as soon as an invention is conceived. The TTO team is responsible for submitting inventions to agencies at the time of invention.  Review the steps in the final invention/patent reporting process .

Award and Project Closeout 

Step 7: Promote and Commercialize Your Work

Interested in commercializing your discoveries and inventions? As the coordinator of intellectual property (IP) on campus, the Technology Transfer Office (TTO)  can:

  • Discuss your invention and provide guidance on the disclosure, evaluation and protection processes. Explore TTO’s inventor resources .
  • Help develop a strategy and explore the various options, including licensing to an existing company, creating a new business start-up or conducting further research and development within the university for future commercialization potential. See the commercialization process .

Explore Commercialization and Industry

This is “Managing Your Research Project”, section 11.3 from the book Successful Writing (v. 1.0). For details on it (including licensing), click here .

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license. See the license for more details, but that basically means you can share this book as long as you credit the author (but see below), don't make money from it, and do make it available to everyone else under the same terms.

This content was accessible as of December 29, 2012, and it was downloaded then by Andy Schmitz in an effort to preserve the availability of this book.

Normally, the author and publisher would be credited here. However, the publisher has asked for the customary Creative Commons attribution to the original publisher, authors, title, and book URI to be removed. Additionally, per the publisher's request, their name has been removed in some passages. More information is available on this project's attribution page .

For more information on the source of this book, or why it is available for free, please see the project's home page . You can browse or download additional books there. To download a .zip file containing this book to use offline, simply click here .

managing your research project

11.3 Managing Your Research Project

Learning objectives.

  • Identify reasons for outlining the scope and sequence of a research project.
  • Recognize the steps of the research writing process.
  • Develop a plan for managing time and resources to complete the research project on time.
  • Identify organizational tools and strategies to use in managing the project.

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

  • Choose a topic.
  • Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
  • Conduct research.
  • Organize research
  • Draft your paper.
  • Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase The first phase of a research project in which the writer gathers and organizes information. A good rule of thumb is to allot half the available time for research. of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase The second phase of a research project in which the writer drafts, revises, and edits the paper. Plan to spend half the time available on this phase. (You may spend additional time if your instructor reviews your rough draft and provides feedback.) (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule A document outlining the tasks involved in each step of the research project with a target date for completing each step. that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources The documents, tools, or people that a writer relies on to complete a research project. Examples of project resources include library databases, personal computers, style guides, and tutors. you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

Jorge had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Jorge chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review Jorge’s schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Jorge planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

managing your research project

  • Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
  • Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
  • Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Plan your schedule realistically, and consider other commitments that may sometimes take precedence. A business trip or family visit may mean that you are unable to work on the research project for a few days. Make the most of the time you have available. Plan for unexpected interruptions, but keep in mind that a short time away from the project may help you come back to it with renewed enthusiasm. Another strategy many writers find helpful is to finish each day’s work at a point when the next task is an easy one. That makes it easier to start again.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Revisit the schedule you created in Note 11.42 "Exercise 1" . Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Some people enjoy using the most up-to-date technology to help them stay organized. Other people prefer simple methods, such as crossing off items on a checklist. The key to staying organized is finding a system you like enough to use daily. The particulars of the method are not important as long as you are consistent.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

Key Takeaways

  • To complete a research project successfully, a writer must carefully manage each phase of the process and break major steps into smaller tasks.
  • Writers can plan a research project by setting up a schedule based on the deadline and by identifying useful project resources.
  • Writers stay focused by using organizational tools that suit their needs.
  • Anticipating and planning for potential setbacks can help writers avoid those setbacks or minimize their effect on the project schedule.

managing your research project

A generative AI reset: Rewiring to turn potential into value in 2024

It’s time for a generative AI (gen AI) reset. The initial enthusiasm and flurry of activity in 2023 is giving way to second thoughts and recalibrations as companies realize that capturing gen AI’s enormous potential value is harder than expected .

With 2024 shaping up to be the year for gen AI to prove its value, companies should keep in mind the hard lessons learned with digital and AI transformations: competitive advantage comes from building organizational and technological capabilities to broadly innovate, deploy, and improve solutions at scale—in effect, rewiring the business  for distributed digital and AI innovation.

About QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI arm, helps companies transform using the power of technology, technical expertise, and industry experts. With thousands of practitioners at QuantumBlack (data engineers, data scientists, product managers, designers, and software engineers) and McKinsey (industry and domain experts), we are working to solve the world’s most important AI challenges. QuantumBlack Labs is our center of technology development and client innovation, which has been driving cutting-edge advancements and developments in AI through locations across the globe.

Companies looking to score early wins with gen AI should move quickly. But those hoping that gen AI offers a shortcut past the tough—and necessary—organizational surgery are likely to meet with disappointing results. Launching pilots is (relatively) easy; getting pilots to scale and create meaningful value is hard because they require a broad set of changes to the way work actually gets done.

Let’s briefly look at what this has meant for one Pacific region telecommunications company. The company hired a chief data and AI officer with a mandate to “enable the organization to create value with data and AI.” The chief data and AI officer worked with the business to develop the strategic vision and implement the road map for the use cases. After a scan of domains (that is, customer journeys or functions) and use case opportunities across the enterprise, leadership prioritized the home-servicing/maintenance domain to pilot and then scale as part of a larger sequencing of initiatives. They targeted, in particular, the development of a gen AI tool to help dispatchers and service operators better predict the types of calls and parts needed when servicing homes.

Leadership put in place cross-functional product teams with shared objectives and incentives to build the gen AI tool. As part of an effort to upskill the entire enterprise to better work with data and gen AI tools, they also set up a data and AI academy, which the dispatchers and service operators enrolled in as part of their training. To provide the technology and data underpinnings for gen AI, the chief data and AI officer also selected a large language model (LLM) and cloud provider that could meet the needs of the domain as well as serve other parts of the enterprise. The chief data and AI officer also oversaw the implementation of a data architecture so that the clean and reliable data (including service histories and inventory databases) needed to build the gen AI tool could be delivered quickly and responsibly.

Never just tech

Creating value beyond the hype

Let’s deliver on the promise of technology from strategy to scale.

Our book Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI (Wiley, June 2023) provides a detailed manual on the six capabilities needed to deliver the kind of broad change that harnesses digital and AI technology. In this article, we will explore how to extend each of those capabilities to implement a successful gen AI program at scale. While recognizing that these are still early days and that there is much more to learn, our experience has shown that breaking open the gen AI opportunity requires companies to rewire how they work in the following ways.

Figure out where gen AI copilots can give you a real competitive advantage

The broad excitement around gen AI and its relative ease of use has led to a burst of experimentation across organizations. Most of these initiatives, however, won’t generate a competitive advantage. One bank, for example, bought tens of thousands of GitHub Copilot licenses, but since it didn’t have a clear sense of how to work with the technology, progress was slow. Another unfocused effort we often see is when companies move to incorporate gen AI into their customer service capabilities. Customer service is a commodity capability, not part of the core business, for most companies. While gen AI might help with productivity in such cases, it won’t create a competitive advantage.

To create competitive advantage, companies should first understand the difference between being a “taker” (a user of available tools, often via APIs and subscription services), a “shaper” (an integrator of available models with proprietary data), and a “maker” (a builder of LLMs). For now, the maker approach is too expensive for most companies, so the sweet spot for businesses is implementing a taker model for productivity improvements while building shaper applications for competitive advantage.

Much of gen AI’s near-term value is closely tied to its ability to help people do their current jobs better. In this way, gen AI tools act as copilots that work side by side with an employee, creating an initial block of code that a developer can adapt, for example, or drafting a requisition order for a new part that a maintenance worker in the field can review and submit (see sidebar “Copilot examples across three generative AI archetypes”). This means companies should be focusing on where copilot technology can have the biggest impact on their priority programs.

Copilot examples across three generative AI archetypes

  • “Taker” copilots help real estate customers sift through property options and find the most promising one, write code for a developer, and summarize investor transcripts.
  • “Shaper” copilots provide recommendations to sales reps for upselling customers by connecting generative AI tools to customer relationship management systems, financial systems, and customer behavior histories; create virtual assistants to personalize treatments for patients; and recommend solutions for maintenance workers based on historical data.
  • “Maker” copilots are foundation models that lab scientists at pharmaceutical companies can use to find and test new and better drugs more quickly.

Some industrial companies, for example, have identified maintenance as a critical domain for their business. Reviewing maintenance reports and spending time with workers on the front lines can help determine where a gen AI copilot could make a big difference, such as in identifying issues with equipment failures quickly and early on. A gen AI copilot can also help identify root causes of truck breakdowns and recommend resolutions much more quickly than usual, as well as act as an ongoing source for best practices or standard operating procedures.

The challenge with copilots is figuring out how to generate revenue from increased productivity. In the case of customer service centers, for example, companies can stop recruiting new agents and use attrition to potentially achieve real financial gains. Defining the plans for how to generate revenue from the increased productivity up front, therefore, is crucial to capturing the value.

Upskill the talent you have but be clear about the gen-AI-specific skills you need

By now, most companies have a decent understanding of the technical gen AI skills they need, such as model fine-tuning, vector database administration, prompt engineering, and context engineering. In many cases, these are skills that you can train your existing workforce to develop. Those with existing AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities have a strong head start. Data engineers, for example, can learn multimodal processing and vector database management, MLOps (ML operations) engineers can extend their skills to LLMOps (LLM operations), and data scientists can develop prompt engineering, bias detection, and fine-tuning skills.

A sample of new generative AI skills needed

The following are examples of new skills needed for the successful deployment of generative AI tools:

  • data scientist:
  • prompt engineering
  • in-context learning
  • bias detection
  • pattern identification
  • reinforcement learning from human feedback
  • hyperparameter/large language model fine-tuning; transfer learning
  • data engineer:
  • data wrangling and data warehousing
  • data pipeline construction
  • multimodal processing
  • vector database management

The learning process can take two to three months to get to a decent level of competence because of the complexities in learning what various LLMs can and can’t do and how best to use them. The coders need to gain experience building software, testing, and validating answers, for example. It took one financial-services company three months to train its best data scientists to a high level of competence. While courses and documentation are available—many LLM providers have boot camps for developers—we have found that the most effective way to build capabilities at scale is through apprenticeship, training people to then train others, and building communities of practitioners. Rotating experts through teams to train others, scheduling regular sessions for people to share learnings, and hosting biweekly documentation review sessions are practices that have proven successful in building communities of practitioners (see sidebar “A sample of new generative AI skills needed”).

It’s important to bear in mind that successful gen AI skills are about more than coding proficiency. Our experience in developing our own gen AI platform, Lilli , showed us that the best gen AI technical talent has design skills to uncover where to focus solutions, contextual understanding to ensure the most relevant and high-quality answers are generated, collaboration skills to work well with knowledge experts (to test and validate answers and develop an appropriate curation approach), strong forensic skills to figure out causes of breakdowns (is the issue the data, the interpretation of the user’s intent, the quality of metadata on embeddings, or something else?), and anticipation skills to conceive of and plan for possible outcomes and to put the right kind of tracking into their code. A pure coder who doesn’t intrinsically have these skills may not be as useful a team member.

While current upskilling is largely based on a “learn on the job” approach, we see a rapid market emerging for people who have learned these skills over the past year. That skill growth is moving quickly. GitHub reported that developers were working on gen AI projects “in big numbers,” and that 65,000 public gen AI projects were created on its platform in 2023—a jump of almost 250 percent over the previous year. If your company is just starting its gen AI journey, you could consider hiring two or three senior engineers who have built a gen AI shaper product for their companies. This could greatly accelerate your efforts.

Form a centralized team to establish standards that enable responsible scaling

To ensure that all parts of the business can scale gen AI capabilities, centralizing competencies is a natural first move. The critical focus for this central team will be to develop and put in place protocols and standards to support scale, ensuring that teams can access models while also minimizing risk and containing costs. The team’s work could include, for example, procuring models and prescribing ways to access them, developing standards for data readiness, setting up approved prompt libraries, and allocating resources.

While developing Lilli, our team had its mind on scale when it created an open plug-in architecture and setting standards for how APIs should function and be built.  They developed standardized tooling and infrastructure where teams could securely experiment and access a GPT LLM , a gateway with preapproved APIs that teams could access, and a self-serve developer portal. Our goal is that this approach, over time, can help shift “Lilli as a product” (that a handful of teams use to build specific solutions) to “Lilli as a platform” (that teams across the enterprise can access to build other products).

For teams developing gen AI solutions, squad composition will be similar to AI teams but with data engineers and data scientists with gen AI experience and more contributors from risk management, compliance, and legal functions. The general idea of staffing squads with resources that are federated from the different expertise areas will not change, but the skill composition of a gen-AI-intensive squad will.

Set up the technology architecture to scale

Building a gen AI model is often relatively straightforward, but making it fully operational at scale is a different matter entirely. We’ve seen engineers build a basic chatbot in a week, but releasing a stable, accurate, and compliant version that scales can take four months. That’s why, our experience shows, the actual model costs may be less than 10 to 15 percent of the total costs of the solution.

Building for scale doesn’t mean building a new technology architecture. But it does mean focusing on a few core decisions that simplify and speed up processes without breaking the bank. Three such decisions stand out:

  • Focus on reusing your technology. Reusing code can increase the development speed of gen AI use cases by 30 to 50 percent. One good approach is simply creating a source for approved tools, code, and components. A financial-services company, for example, created a library of production-grade tools, which had been approved by both the security and legal teams, and made them available in a library for teams to use. More important is taking the time to identify and build those capabilities that are common across the most priority use cases. The same financial-services company, for example, identified three components that could be reused for more than 100 identified use cases. By building those first, they were able to generate a significant portion of the code base for all the identified use cases—essentially giving every application a big head start.
  • Focus the architecture on enabling efficient connections between gen AI models and internal systems. For gen AI models to work effectively in the shaper archetype, they need access to a business’s data and applications. Advances in integration and orchestration frameworks have significantly reduced the effort required to make those connections. But laying out what those integrations are and how to enable them is critical to ensure these models work efficiently and to avoid the complexity that creates technical debt  (the “tax” a company pays in terms of time and resources needed to redress existing technology issues). Chief information officers and chief technology officers can define reference architectures and integration standards for their organizations. Key elements should include a model hub, which contains trained and approved models that can be provisioned on demand; standard APIs that act as bridges connecting gen AI models to applications or data; and context management and caching, which speed up processing by providing models with relevant information from enterprise data sources.
  • Build up your testing and quality assurance capabilities. Our own experience building Lilli taught us to prioritize testing over development. Our team invested in not only developing testing protocols for each stage of development but also aligning the entire team so that, for example, it was clear who specifically needed to sign off on each stage of the process. This slowed down initial development but sped up the overall delivery pace and quality by cutting back on errors and the time needed to fix mistakes.

Ensure data quality and focus on unstructured data to fuel your models

The ability of a business to generate and scale value from gen AI models will depend on how well it takes advantage of its own data. As with technology, targeted upgrades to existing data architecture  are needed to maximize the future strategic benefits of gen AI:

  • Be targeted in ramping up your data quality and data augmentation efforts. While data quality has always been an important issue, the scale and scope of data that gen AI models can use—especially unstructured data—has made this issue much more consequential. For this reason, it’s critical to get the data foundations right, from clarifying decision rights to defining clear data processes to establishing taxonomies so models can access the data they need. The companies that do this well tie their data quality and augmentation efforts to the specific AI/gen AI application and use case—you don’t need this data foundation to extend to every corner of the enterprise. This could mean, for example, developing a new data repository for all equipment specifications and reported issues to better support maintenance copilot applications.
  • Understand what value is locked into your unstructured data. Most organizations have traditionally focused their data efforts on structured data (values that can be organized in tables, such as prices and features). But the real value from LLMs comes from their ability to work with unstructured data (for example, PowerPoint slides, videos, and text). Companies can map out which unstructured data sources are most valuable and establish metadata tagging standards so models can process the data and teams can find what they need (tagging is particularly important to help companies remove data from models as well, if necessary). Be creative in thinking about data opportunities. Some companies, for example, are interviewing senior employees as they retire and feeding that captured institutional knowledge into an LLM to help improve their copilot performance.
  • Optimize to lower costs at scale. There is often as much as a tenfold difference between what companies pay for data and what they could be paying if they optimized their data infrastructure and underlying costs. This issue often stems from companies scaling their proofs of concept without optimizing their data approach. Two costs generally stand out. One is storage costs arising from companies uploading terabytes of data into the cloud and wanting that data available 24/7. In practice, companies rarely need more than 10 percent of their data to have that level of availability, and accessing the rest over a 24- or 48-hour period is a much cheaper option. The other costs relate to computation with models that require on-call access to thousands of processors to run. This is especially the case when companies are building their own models (the maker archetype) but also when they are using pretrained models and running them with their own data and use cases (the shaper archetype). Companies could take a close look at how they can optimize computation costs on cloud platforms—for instance, putting some models in a queue to run when processors aren’t being used (such as when Americans go to bed and consumption of computing services like Netflix decreases) is a much cheaper option.

Build trust and reusability to drive adoption and scale

Because many people have concerns about gen AI, the bar on explaining how these tools work is much higher than for most solutions. People who use the tools want to know how they work, not just what they do. So it’s important to invest extra time and money to build trust by ensuring model accuracy and making it easy to check answers.

One insurance company, for example, created a gen AI tool to help manage claims. As part of the tool, it listed all the guardrails that had been put in place, and for each answer provided a link to the sentence or page of the relevant policy documents. The company also used an LLM to generate many variations of the same question to ensure answer consistency. These steps, among others, were critical to helping end users build trust in the tool.

Part of the training for maintenance teams using a gen AI tool should be to help them understand the limitations of models and how best to get the right answers. That includes teaching workers strategies to get to the best answer as fast as possible by starting with broad questions then narrowing them down. This provides the model with more context, and it also helps remove any bias of the people who might think they know the answer already. Having model interfaces that look and feel the same as existing tools also helps users feel less pressured to learn something new each time a new application is introduced.

Getting to scale means that businesses will need to stop building one-off solutions that are hard to use for other similar use cases. One global energy and materials company, for example, has established ease of reuse as a key requirement for all gen AI models, and has found in early iterations that 50 to 60 percent of its components can be reused. This means setting standards for developing gen AI assets (for example, prompts and context) that can be easily reused for other cases.

While many of the risk issues relating to gen AI are evolutions of discussions that were already brewing—for instance, data privacy, security, bias risk, job displacement, and intellectual property protection—gen AI has greatly expanded that risk landscape. Just 21 percent of companies reporting AI adoption say they have established policies governing employees’ use of gen AI technologies.

Similarly, a set of tests for AI/gen AI solutions should be established to demonstrate that data privacy, debiasing, and intellectual property protection are respected. Some organizations, in fact, are proposing to release models accompanied with documentation that details their performance characteristics. Documenting your decisions and rationales can be particularly helpful in conversations with regulators.

In some ways, this article is premature—so much is changing that we’ll likely have a profoundly different understanding of gen AI and its capabilities in a year’s time. But the core truths of finding value and driving change will still apply. How well companies have learned those lessons may largely determine how successful they’ll be in capturing that value.

Eric Lamarre

The authors wish to thank Michael Chui, Juan Couto, Ben Ellencweig, Josh Gartner, Bryce Hall, Holger Harreis, Phil Hudelson, Suzana Iacob, Sid Kamath, Neerav Kingsland, Kitti Lakner, Robert Levin, Matej Macak, Lapo Mori, Alex Peluffo, Aldo Rosales, Erik Roth, Abdul Wahab Shaikh, and Stephen Xu for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Barr Seitz, an editorial director in the New York office.

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COMMENTS

  1. 11.3 Managing Your Research Project

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  12. 11.3: Managing Your Research Project

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  21. Getting Started on the Open Science Framework (OSF)

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  28. A generative AI reset: Rewiring to turn potential into value in 2024

    It's time for a generative AI (gen AI) reset. The initial enthusiasm and flurry of activity in 2023 is giving way to second thoughts and recalibrations as companies realize that capturing gen AI's enormous potential value is harder than expected.. With 2024 shaping up to be the year for gen AI to prove its value, companies should keep in mind the hard lessons learned with digital and AI ...