Research Projects

Research Projects focus on planning and delivering research to produce valid, funded findings.

What makes these projects distinctive

Research Projects carry their own signature challenges. The ones that most often decide success or failure are funding and scope constraints, ethics and compliance, uncertain, open-ended outcomes — so the plan should be built around managing exactly these.

Typical phases

1. Initiation — business case and charter
2. Planning — scope, schedule, budget, risks
3. Execution — building the deliverables
4. Monitoring & control — tracking against baseline
5. Closure — acceptance, handover, lessons learned

Sample WBS outline

• Initiation & business case
• Planning (scope, schedule, budget)
• Research plan & ethics
• Data collection
• Analysis
• Findings/report
• Dissemination
• Testing / quality assurance
• Deployment / handover
• Closure & lessons learned

Key deliverables

• Research plan & ethics
• Data collection
• Analysis
• Findings/report
• Dissemination

Top risks to plan for

• Funding and scope constraints
• Ethics and compliance
• Uncertain, open-ended outcomes

Key roles

Typical duration

6 months–3+ years, depending on scale and complexity.