What are some ideas for research projects?

What are some good resources for planning and managing research projects?

• Research projects have some characteristic that distinguish them by ohter types of projects. You have some idea about the goal, and know some initial path to hit the goal, but of course within the project you realize other alternatives to achieve the goal and you need to evaluate each of them, do kind of quick and dirty investigation to estimate how these path/methods are reliable. Furthermore, you always get new ideas which can be extended to the current project, or making new research project. How do you plan such a project ?!

• Answer:

  Since there are a variety of research project types, I can't speak to the specifics of your research environment.  But I can tell you that what you say about managing a project is absolutely correct. Project plans happen in a static environment, whereas project management occurs in a dynamic environment. To handle the contingencies you outline in your question, I'd recommend taking a look at Yottaflow's Project Software. http://www.yottaflow.com/solutions/project-tracking Yottaflow develops templates that approximate the structure of your project (dates, personnel, etc.), and then allows you & your team to negotiate & modify that structure as the project unfolds. It also provides you with real time status updates so you can make changes in a timely way, and the comment feature in Yottaflow allows you to keep everyone else up to date so that no one is left out of the loop. Yottaflow might be useful for at least a part of what you're trying to accomplish.