10.5 Determining the Scope

Most problems are complex. One of the most important tasks in planning is, therefore, to break problems down into smaller pieces that can be handled. A Ph.D. project that aims to solve world hunger, find a general cure for cancer or to find an infinite source of clean energy will almost certainly fail. This is not because these problems are impossible to solve but because they are too extensive for a limited project. The problem is very old. How does one eat a mammoth? It obviously has to be done one bite at a time. (In the end, it turns out, we actually managed to eat them all.)

The scope defines the limits of the work to be done. It involves choosing what to do and, also, what not to do. The simple reason for keeping ambitions at a realistic level is that it increases the chances of success. The problem of a Ph.D. thesis should not be too difficult to solve. The purpose of research studies is to learn the craftsmanship of research. Ph.D. students demonstrate this knowledge by making an original contribution to knowledge, but if they were expected to revolutionize their research fields, very few doctors would be graduated. This is not to say that the research problem should be trivial. The point is that you learn better by doing something that can actually be done. Almost every important problem must be broken down, scoped and treated bit by bit in order to reach a solution.

Scoping a research project has three important aspects. The first is the scientific one of identifying the most interesting parts of the problem. This defines the goal of the project. The other two aspects are practical ones, since all work is necessarily conducted with limited resources in a limited time. Project managers often illustrate these three limitations by a triangle where one side cannot be changed without affecting the others. If the goal becomes more ambitious the project will require either more time or more resources. The latter are often fixed, since research projects have a definite level of funding for a fixed period. What remains is to decide how to spend them. Should time and money be devoted to developing new methods or building new equipment? Do you need comprehensive information in a limited area or is it valuable to cover more aspects of the problem in less detail? Break the problem down to individual tasks, focus on them one at a time, and choose a track that is both feasible and aligned with your goal. Once the track is settled you have locked the triangle. When new ideas pop up, as they tend to do in research projects, you must reprioritize. You cannot add activities without taking others out, unless more time or money is granted.

Incidentally, you will have realized by now that the word “problem” is not a negative word in research. The research problem is the challenge that sparks the scientist's imagination – the very motive for doing research. When you have identified interesting problems that can actually be handled, it is time to formulate the individual research tasks. The process starts by generating hypotheses.