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Asked by 575expd39 to Craig, Flavia, Giuditta, Jack, Sheona on 7 Nov 2015.
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Jack Carlyle answered on 7 Nov 2015:
A little bit of both. It’s always good to come up with a few ideas before you begin any project, but you’ll always end up discovering something unexpected which can change the course of the work entirely. Always plan ahead, but never be afraid to ditch the plan!
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Flavia de Almeida Dias answered on 7 Nov 2015:
Most of the work I currently do is an ongoing big project which lasts many months to a few years. So there is some planning before starting to do it, but in science one never knows what is going to happen – otherwise we would not need to research it at all! So things change a lot during the project, and new things always come up, other things get left behind, more people join you project, some people leave, it is always very dynamic.
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Giuditta Perversi answered on 9 Nov 2015:
It depends on the type of project, surely.
I tend not to overplan, when possible, so I do an outline for a few days and then I get down to work, especially because for creating new materials and stuff you know from the beginning that it’s a trial-and-error kind of effort. What’s the point of a huge plan if you are going to change course in the meantime anyway?
There are other types of project that require a bit of long term planning, though. You know that you will need to ask other people for time, resources or instruments, they might not come earlier than a handful of months and you need to get there with a list of things already prepared.
In a case like that, the plan will need to be bigger and discussed with more people, even accounting for a certain degree of flexibility (the concept that accidents happen is a bit of a constant in science!).
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