How Do I Scope, Shape and Configure My Research Project?

Abstract

In this chapter, we show that in order to make your research feasible and realistically achievable, you need to make scoping and shaping choices, pertaining to the nature of the research activities that you will use to gather the evidence you need and configuring choices, pertaining to the patterns and connections between those research activities. Such choices move you toward the ‘pointy end’ of research where you assemble the evidence you need to address your research questions/hypotheses. Appropriately scoping, shaping and configuring research will typically require adaptations and trade-offs in response to impediments or constraints you experience or can foresee down the track in order to achieve project feasibility. We also argue that you may, in addition, need to build up some type of conceptual framework to help guide your scoping, shaping and configuring activities.