Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

It seems there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the product of research.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about the product of research. I saw this article about risk in research. The idea is that researchers are often risky. Huh?

Risk management asks, “What could possibly go wrong?”

That is something we do when managing a project that is supposed to produce a system, service, or something like that. Build a new car in six months. Whoa, that isn’t much time for that task. What are the risks? There are many things that could go wrong given the short span of time for that task.

Now let’s move to research. Let’s try a new idea on an old problem. We are trying to produce a system, service, or something like that. We are trying to understand if the new idea works on the old problem. What might be wrong with the new idea? Many things. Let’s try it and see.

I research: I try a new idea on an old problem. The idea doesn’t work. That is successful research. We learned that this idea doesn’t work. Great. Let’s use that knowledge. For example, we have learned that standing on the top of a step ladder is dangerous. That idea for gaining more height failed. The knowledge of that failure and danger is good. We know not to do that.

Trying new ideas on old problems when the ideas fail is not risk. That is good research. It seems that the people at that publication I linked would know that by now. Shame on them for not understanding research and risk.