This initiative exists to reduce ambiguity in how research and engineering work is prioritized, continued, or stopped. Without explicit research tracks and entry/exit criteria, technically strong work may continue without contributing to the project’s primary goals or publication objectives. This procedure ensures that work performed within HAAG is intentionally aligned with defined research outcomes and that decisions to proceed or stop are made consistently.
- Establish a small number of clearly defined research tracks for the project.
- Require explicit entry criteria before work is counted toward a track.
- Define exit criteria that determine when a track is complete, paused, or closed.
- Enable consistent decision-making across weeks and contributors.
- Improve alignment between day-to-day work and long-term publication goals.
This initiative operates on a weekly cadence.
Each week includes the following checkpoints:
- Track assignment confirmation.
- Progress update against track-specific goals.
- Evaluation against entry or exit criteria.
- Decision logging for continue, pivot, or stop outcomes.
All checkpoints are documented as part of the weekly progress report.
- Define a finite list of active research tracks.
- Assign each track a short name, primary goal, and required deliverables.
- Publish the active track list in a shared project document.
- Document required evidence to enter each track.
- Document required baseline experiments or analysis.
- Do not begin track work until entry criteria are met.
- At the start of each week, assign each major work item to one track.
- Record the assignment in the weekly report.
- Do not assign work to multiple tracks simultaneously.
- At the end of each week, compare progress to exit criteria.
- Choose one outcome: Continue, Pause, or Exit.
- Record the decision and rationale.
- Mark tracks as complete when exit criteria are met.
- Archive supporting artifacts.
- Explicitly pause or close tracks that stall.
- Every major work item is assigned to exactly one research track.
- Entry and exit decisions are explicitly documented.
- Fewer open-ended investigations persist across multiple weeks.
- Completed tracks result in publishable results or documented negative findings.
- New contributors can understand priorities by reviewing track status.
- Over-structuring may discourage exploratory research.
- Entry criteria may be set too high.
- Exit decisions may be delayed.
- Documentation overhead may reduce perceived velocity.
These risks should be reviewed periodically and adjusted as needed.