Surgery and Research: A Practical Approach to Managing the Research Process

Following a practical project management method is essential in completing a research project on time and within budget. Although this concept is well developed in the business world, it has yet to be explored in academic surgical research. Defining and adhering to a suitable workflow would increase portability, reusability, and therefore efficiency of the research process. In this article, the authors briefly review project management techniques. The authors specifically underline four main steps of project management-definition and organization, planning, execution, and evaluation-using practical examples from their own multidisciplinary plastic surgery research team.