When<\/em>\u00a0are these feature creep?<\/p>\nWell, they\u2019re not easy questions to answer.\u00a0Let\u2019s start by acknowledging that there are serious risks in adding more and more to your research. And infuriatingly, risks in not adding.<\/p>\n
Because no research project is ever entirely comprehensive, there\u2019s always the possibility of doing more than we initially planned. When we find ourselves faced with adding more, we need to take ourselves firmly in hand and ask whether we really need the data equivalent of more guns on deck to answer our research question. And can we afford the time to add on data \u2013 not only the time to generate but also to analyse a whole new lot of stuff? \u00a0Will adding on this additional bit mean that we then need to add on even more \u2013 the equivalent of the guns need carved stands for their operators?<\/p>\n
And if you think this situation doesn\u2019t happen, well\u2026 I have seen more than one doctoral researcher add more and more data just because they could. It seemed interesting. Perhaps even helpful. But at the end they found themselves with stuff they couldn\u2019t analyse or include \u2013 and they also ran perilously close to their absolute deadline. While their research wasn\u2019t the equivalent of the sinking Vasa, it was a near miss.<\/p>\n
But there are the risks of not adding on. Because we don\u2019t know what we are going to see and hear during our research, we do come across things that we hadn\u2019t anticipated. And some of those things start out being of potential interest and, when we follow them up, turn out to be really important. We just can\u2019t foresee all of the significant events, documents, occasions, groups, phenomena we may find. And when we encounter something of possible importance, then we have to decide whether to take the risk and follow it up \u2013 or not. Is this just an ornamentation to the research \u2013 like extra carvings and decks \u2013 or is it actually something that could change the research for the better?<\/p>\n
And if you think this situation doesn\u2019t happen, it certainly does. A lot. And after all, this is why we do research. We hope to find the unexpected. We hope to fall over something that is\u00a0new to us. Something that helps us understand the situation we are researching. I certainly know doctoral researchers who come to a point in their work where they\u2019ve had to make a choice about whether to follow a potentially interesting line of data generation or not. In most cases, adding on or changing direction has paid off.<\/p>\n
This kind of useful adding on \u2013 or following your nose, going where the data leads you \u2013 is not really the same as feature creep. It may look the same as feature creep at the start. You don\u2019t know whether this additional work is going to lead anywhere. So you do need to work out how long you are going to give it before you give up.<\/p>\n
The question to ask at this point is whether you are looking at feature creep or not.<\/p>\n
And deciding whether you are looking at a situation where you need to set follow-on, add-on temptation aside or go with it is tricky. The answer may not be immediately obvious. As painful as it may be, there are times in research when you need to say I\u2019m sticking to my plan and noting there is more I could do = that\u2019s for next time. And working out the answer to the risky feature creep question is something that doctoral researchers really do need to discuss with supervisors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve recently been reading a design manual \u2013 don\u2019t ask \u2013 and came across the term feature creep. Designers define feature creep as \u201ca continuous expansion or addition of new features\u201d. And this feature creep is a problem. The term feature creep is often used in software development where the continued addition of new functions […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":49585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[295426],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-49584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-feature-creep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe risk of research feature creep - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The risk of research feature creep - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve recently been reading a design manual \u2013 don\u2019t ask \u2013 and came across the term feature creep. Designers define feature creep as \u201ca continuous expansion or addition of new features\u201d. And this feature creep is a problem. The term feature creep is often used in software development where the continued addition of new functions […]\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-30T19:59:33+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/feature-creep.png\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"398\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"headline\":\"The risk of research feature creep\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-30T19:59:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":977,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2019\\\/09\\\/feature-creep.png\",\"keywords\":[\"feature creep\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/the-risk-of-research-feature-creep\\\/\",\"name\":\"The risk of research feature creep - 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<\/p>\n