how do you plan what experiments to do

Question: how do you plan what experiments to do
- Keywords:
  experiment,
  method,
  plan
Asked by smug532cham6 to jesshawkins, Michael C on 30 Sep 2025. This question was also asked by reham a.
- Jess Hawkins answered on 30 Sep 2025:
  
  It depends on what has happened the day before. When I started, I was guided by more experienced researchers in what reaction I should do next, or what experiment. Now I am at the end of my PhD, I have a plan of what I’d like to write about and each week I write a list of the experiments I am going to do to reach that. Sometimes they don’t work, so being able to tweak the plan each week is ideal!
- Michael Capeness answered on 3 Oct 2025:
  
  I normally have a set of questions about my research I want to know the answer to (we call this a hypothesis). Firstly I would check if anyone else has figured out the answer first to save me a lot of effort! If not, I’ll try and make a plan, starting with smaller experiments, to work out the best way to find the answer to my big question. If those experiments don’t work, I’ll try again (just to make sure), but if they don’t work a second time, I’ll think about a different approach or maybe conclude that answering my question isn’t possible.

Question: how do you plan what experiments to do