Friday, August 24, 2012

Have you heard about how to manage a research project?



...it is a kind of hard the first time in years, but let's try it!



Ok, what about the title? Have you managed one of them? Or, have you participate on one of them? Most people love buying cutting edge products; they are glad for the discover of a new formula for their baldness, and they (including me) have been waiting for years for a cure to cancer. On the develop of those products there is involved a bid deal of creativity, scientific knowledge, hours of experts thinking and also hours and hours of planning. Even if you have the greatest idea ever, if you want to make it real, it will be extremely difficult without basic ideas of research project management. I could make a mental scheme of what does a research project HAS TO HAVE in the matter of management, and here is it:

Speaking on PMI terms, as a beginner research project manager you must first emphasize on three knowledge areas: scope, cost and time.

  • In the case of scope, it is pretty obvious that we must always have in mind our principal goals for our project. It is important that you had set realistic objectives according to a previous study. Moreover, the usefulness and feasible of what you want to develop is a factor you must consider before spending long hours maybe for nothing. 
  • About the cost, if you want to dedicate your life to serious research you have to make your future investigation look attractive for investors. Another point to consider is that you won't like that at the middle of your project suddenly it costs the double and your sponsor stops the research; consequently, now you don't have a job. 
  • About time, it gets more importance on several projects, specially when you have a product on the competition, that means there is other researchers that are looking for what you are looking. Also, like any project, if you don't do it on time, maybe it will be too late to be useful for your sponsor.
Now that we identified the main topics, how can we optimize our performance on these three points? That's the big query I want to sketch out. My little experience on research projects mixed with my knowledge on PMI's standard and Scrum agile framework did make several conclusions that I'm glad to present as recommendations for those ones who are involved on research.
  1. You must use documentation. It is not nice at the beginning but you will be graceful in the middle of the project, when you really need it. Also it is an important active for your organization; correct documentation of projects make important contributions for coming projects and also lessons learned in order to not commit the same error twice. This recommendation deals with the three knowledge areas explained above. 
  2. Try your meetings be as short as you can. People waste time with long meetings and usually doesn't have nothing to do on them because the problem is out of his range. It is recommend that meetings long only 5 minutes with only three question for each one on the meeting: What did you do yesterday? What are you going to do today? Is there anything that could badly interfere with what are you going to do today? So everybody knows what people is doing and after the meeting people who can solve others problems match to talk about how to solve them. Is is simple and effective. Remember that a researcher is a pretty busy guy and  usually also a expensive man, you won't like to make him waste time. This recommendation attacks crucially to time stuff.
  3. Reinforce the objectives every time you can. As I already told you, you can use the 5 minutes meeting explained in the last topic in order that everybody know what people is doing, and also if the people is going in the right direction. You must correct and lead people to specific objectives that were identified like the most important. Scope management is reinforced by this practice.
  4. Monitor people with the help of your documentation. You can ask people do things, but if you don't know what you have to require you will be in a problem. But the solution is right there! You have documented everybody's tasks and also the time that them have to be done. It is extremely helpful, just do it. 
  5. Technological surveillance avoid throwing money and time to the trash. Imagine a crazy scenario at 1904 where you are involved in a research for how can a spaceship can go at light speed to travel to the next galaxy. The next year (1905), Einstein postulate that the speed of light with respect to any inertial frame is independent of the motion of the light source. In other words, it is impossible to go at light speed! If you don't realize about that discover at time, you will spend time and money in a research that can't be done and consequently destined to be a total failure. Staying updated of the new advances on your field is important for your project. As you can see this is crucial if you want yo maintain your sponsor's budget happy and keep your job. 
  6. And finally, and also the most important under my criteria, think pretty much about your SOW. First, what is SOW? In simple words it is the case of business, the economic reason why the research project is being think to be done. Don't mess up things, I'm not telling you to think only on money, many people love doing research just for fun and I confess I consider myself like one of them. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that you can see to wider horizons. Wouldn't still be funny and even more rewarding if your research could help people and science, in other words, the development of humanity. Even if it is only a grain of sand, you'll see by the end that it really worth it. So, before you start an investigation, please think really well about why did you choose that topic and check the "state of the art" of the field. The "state of art" will offer you the cutting edge methods on the field that are used by the most important researchers on the field. You can smell the tendencies on the field and figure out what are the opportunities you will have involving on the investigation. About the case of business, by the time you check the tendencies in the field you will be able to make a strong idea of what is the best option and the best possibility for that.

As you can see, there are many factors to consider in your research project management equation. The compilation present here is only my point of view based on my experiences. However, the most important factor is YOURSELF and how motivated about doing research are you. Are you prepared to contribute with the world?

Expecting for your replies.
See you soon.

*Special thanks to Doctor in Mechanical Engineering Alberto Coronado Matutti and PMP, Lic. Diana Balboa Coronado for their collaborations with enjoyable informative talks that help my ideas to get organized.