Academic research that’s delivered in a timely manner will play a crucial role in guiding us through the current global chaos. Early completion and publication of that research will be enhanced when modern project management practices are utilised throughout any research initiative. This guide will greatly assist all those engaging in formal academic-based research initiatives.

Iain Fraser, Project Management Institute (PMI) Fellow, Author, Company Director, New Zealand

Dr Sandy Mandic has managed to write a book suitable for use in any form of research project management, a unique feat by any standards. The flow of the narrative and compelling relevant visuals makes it one of the best informational texts I have ever read. The aforementioned combination makes it easy for the reader to follow, understand and remember. The bonus of well-placed tips is the icing on the cake. Highly recommended for those engaged in medium to large-size academic research and any other research outside academia. This book is a testament to the fact that project management is a skill for life

Kosam Nyamdela, MBA, MBusAn, CMgr, FIML, Director of the Board – Institute of Managers and Leaders Australia and New Zealand (IMLANZ); Past President – Project Management Institute of New Zealand (PMINZ), New Zealand

“Compass Guide for Research Project Management – 1st Edition” by Sandra (Sandy) Mandic, PhD, PMP, serves as a practical guide for those involved in managing research projects. With over 20 years of experience, Sandy’s practical insights are a real asset to anyone seeking to improve their research management skills. She covers key aspects like defining the project’s scope, assembling the team, handling resources and time, and managing deliverables to yield desired outcomes. What’s more, her book is not just about planning and managing; it also emphasises the importance of monitoring progress, managing risk and conducting ethical research. Sandy’s wisdom, drawn from extensive interactions with a diverse range of researchers and collaborators from various sectors and cultures, gives this book a unique flavour. It’s an honest, straightforward guide based on real-world experiences, and it doesn’t shy away from the challenges of research project management. Whether you’re new to the field or have years of experience, you’ll find valuable advice and ideas in this book to enhance the success of your research projects.

Dr Hafez Alavi, Transport Lead, HA Consulting, Australia

The “Compass Guide for Research Project Management” is a masterfully created and much needed text to help researchers negotiate the challenges of project management. Dr Mandic shares her expert insights and practical experience in leading large and complex research projects in a way that is easy to read and modular in format but offers a huge depth of knowledge. The use of visual aids is a particular advantage of this book, as they really help to bring alive the steps one needs to take to develop, manage and sustain multifaceted research projects. With so much of academic research project management left to individuals to learn on-the-go, Dr Mandic is offering a helping hand when it is most needed. This book will be a massive help to researchers within and beyond academia, and for all project sizes and scopes. This book will help to ensure project managers, researchers, funders and research users get the best outcomes from research projects.

Associate Professor Debbie Hopkins, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Generosity. This is the first word I use to describe this brilliant book, in which Dr. Sandra Mandic fearlessly shares all her rich academic project management experience, with real-world examples and many tools that will certainly make her readers’ lives much easier, more productive and happier.

We academics are taught how to design research projects, but we are never taught to manage the complexity of the projects we design. This is the gift Dr. Mandic offers us in her book. A simple, didactic and powerful guide for the development of impact projects! Thank you, Dr Mandic!

Associate Professor, Ricardo Brandao de Oliveira, University of Rio de Janeiro State, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Compass Guide for Research Project Management (1st Edition, Sandra Mandic, AGILE Research Ltd, 2023) is written to help individuals and teams project manage research projects. It is targeted at researchers and research project managers, research students and their supervisors, and research staff and professionals involved in research activities.

The book is an invaluable resource explaining and tailoring project management processes for the challenging world of research projects, presenting them in easy to understand lessons, advice and tips.

The book, divided into six parts, is excellently structured: Part-1 (10 pages) provides an overview of the fundamentals of project management; Part-2 (63 pages) describes how to plan a research project; Part-3 (39 pages) describes how to manage a research project; Part-4 (18 pages) describes how to monitor project progress; Part-5 (26 pages) describes how to deliver research outputs; and Part-6 (4 pages) describes how to wrap-up a research project (reflecting on and integrating lessons-learned).

The book addresses the current gap in research project support and advice that exists between the preparation of research project proposals and research data analysis and interpretation. The book explains the difference between a research proposal and a project plan.

I particularly liked the applied tips and value-added advice that are sprinkled throughout the book. For example, the section “Securing Research Funding for Academic Research” lists nine points that will increase the chances of your research project being funded, and contains a section “What Matters Most in Different Research Grant Applications in Academia” – invaluable resources for people seeking research grants!

I found the simplified project management templates provided as a resource in Part-2 “How to Plan Your Research Project” especially useful. I have seen and reviewed many such templates and the ones in this book are focussed and not overdone.

The book is an easy to read resource, is well structured, and contains many graphics to clarify relationships and emphasise key points.

This is a long overdue resource. Research projects can be challenging. It’s been suggested in research on research projects that the failure to apply good project management in research projects is a greater cause of problems than methodological issues. Finally we have a resource that addresses that problem.

As the book describes, knowing how to plan, manage and monitor research projects will significantly improve the chances of successfully delivering a research project’s planned research outputs.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone working in research

Grant Avery, Director, Outcome Insights, New Zealand

I loved reading this book! In fact, after I began reading it, I could not put it down and do other things until I read it to the end. This book is impressive. The content is excellent, and the format is very visual and attractive. Almost every page of the book has either an infographic or an example – or both!

Sandra’s lifelong eagerness to have everything organized and shared in the public domain is a driving force behind many of her personal and professional endeavours, including the creation of the Compass Guide books. Knowing Sandra and her work, she must be thinking along the lines: “Since I have learned something, let’s write everything down for whoever will find it useful.” That is an admirable attitude because doing that requires many hours of hard work that only Sandra knows about. Shaping and reshaping thoughts in one’s head to present them in a visual, practical, and well-organized way is always a great challenge. Yet Sandra designed over 120 infographics for this book to make it user-friendly and enjoyable for the readers. I look forward to seeing this book in bookstores and libraries around the world…

Professor Palma Chillón, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

“Compass Guide for Research Project Management” by Sandra Mandic is an invaluable resource for anyone involved in academic research or research project management.  

I highly praise the book for its timeliness and relevance in today’s global chaos, where academic research plays a crucial role. The use of modern project management practices is emphasized, providing readers with practical guidance on completing and publishing research effectively.

Dr. Mandic’s kindness in sharing her academic project management experience shines through in the book. I appreciate the real-world examples and tools provided, which make researchers lives easier, more productive, and happier. The book addresses the complexity of managing research projects, filling a gap in traditional research training that focuses on project design.

The visual and attractive format of the book is great, with numerous infographics and examples throughout. The well-organized structure of the book, divided into six parts, guides readers through the fundamentals of project management, planning, managing, monitoring, delivering research outputs, and reflecting on lessons learned. The inclusion of practical tips and valuable advice adds great value to the content.

From securing research funding to simplified project management templates, the book covers a wide range of topics and provides valuable resources for researchers seeking success. It is easy to read, understand, and apply, making it a must-read for anyone involved in research projects

Faiz Rasool, PhD, SPC, DAVSC, PMI Certified Instructor for DA Coach, Scrum & Senior Scrum Master, and PMP; PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, PMI-CDP, Director, PM Training School, Auckland, New Zealand

If you want your research project to run smoothly, with less stress and more fun, this is the book for you. It’s a real gem and it will be a helpful guide both for those new to managing research and for people who’ve been at it for years. Thank you, Sandy, for sharing your wisdom and experience on these pages.

Louise Baker BSc (Hons), MSC, PMP, Technical Director, Resolve Group, New Zealand

As someone who has worked in industry for over 20 years, I find Dr. Mandic’s latest book “Compass Guide for Research Project Management” highly informative, and a must read for anyone looking to successfully deliver projects. Dr. Mandic has outlined all the necessary steps to understand the requirements for creating highly effective teams and successfully managing any project, whether in academia, industry, or government settings. The book is comprehensive and detail oriented, yet very easy to follow and understand. The diagrams, infographics and tips clearly convey the core messages of the book and make the book fun to read. The worksheets allow the reader to learn, practice and enhance one’s project management skills. The book explains the realities faced in everyday project management and provides solutions to overcome the challenges. I highly recommend this book before starting any new project, as it provides the best practical advice for achieving project goals and delivering outputs.

Mandana Asadi, P.Eng., Manager of RF Engineering and Optimization, Rogers Communications Inc., Canada

Overall, the “Compass Guide for Research Project Management” is a comprehensive and practical resource for researchers and project managers. The book is well-organized, and the author’s writing style is clear and concise. The book covers all aspects of research project management, from planning to final assessment, making it a valuable resource for both PhD students and experienced researchers.

Professor Uglješa Marjanović, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

This is the third book in the series of Dr. Mandic’s Compass Guides for research training with a comprehensive approach to research project management. The book is full of practical examples with templates based on extensive experience of the author to help researchers to develop their own projects and manage them successfully. This is a great guide for all postgraduate students and early career researchers throughout their research journey but also important and inspiring for academic supervisors to improve their guardianship processes. The Compass Guide is remarkably well illustrated which makes it easier for readers to follow the ideas presented in text. I will be recommending this book to all my students and colleagues and using it myself in my academic work.

Professor Josef Mitáš, Professor, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

This is a well-rounded technical book that provides tools for researchers to plan and manage their research projects. The author’s extensive research experience helps the reader understand all the steps involved in managing research projects. The book is well organized and covers the fundamentals of research project management, from project conception to reporting research results. The book contains recommendations, tips, examples and visual summaries of the material to reinforce concepts. A simple and an easy-to-understand writing style makes this book a more enjoyable reading than other published technical documents on this topic. This book is designed for individuals who have previous experience in managing research projects and is also useful for those who support young researchers and supervise research students. Overall, “Compass Guide for Research Project Management” is a great example of a technical book that strikes a balance between the technical and practical sides of research projects management.

Javier Brazo-Sayavera, PhD, Associate Professor, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

Being both a self-study resource and a complementary part of the three-book series, Compass Guide for Research Project Management by Sandra Mandic fills a gap in research work teaching and learning aids. Not only does it excel in quality, but it also meets standards of systematic, concise, and understandable writing. The written content is additionally made clear with colored infographics, images, figures, and vector graphics. To arouse interest, the Author uses a travel metaphor. By asking the reader to buckle up and embark on an exciting journey of learning how to plan and manage research projects, the Author generates excitement and zeal for coming to grips with painstaking research work that brings a reward worth the effort at the end. Along the way, the invisible guide keeps the reader on the right track by offering a rich store of instructions, tips, examples, and ready-made worksheets. Thus, this hands-on resource will make learning about research project management simple and enjoyable for any researcher profile, be it academic researchers, research project managers, research staff, or professionals involved in research activities. With this in mind, we can only tell Sandra to keep up the excellent work.

Mira Milić, Professor – Retired, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

Dr Mandic really knows her stuff. In this book Dr Mandic skilfully weaves together the essentials of project management and academic research. This guide details authentic issues faced in research projects and uses examples drawn from her own wealth of experience. The result is a superb planning tool that will help you get the best out of your research.

Charlotte Flaherty, Senior Communications Advisor, Otago Regional Council, Dunedin, New Zealand

What makes this Sandra Mandic’s book unique? This book is written for a wide audience and links the project management field and academic research through author’s extensive international research experience. The special value of this book is in guidelines, numerous tips and real-world examples that will help researchers – and those involved in research activities – successfully plan, manage and monitor their research projects.

The book is written in a unique prose style (quite rare in the scientific fields from which the author comes) with over 120 engaging infographics and in some ways reflects an author’s personal journey. All of those aspects make this book unique and enjoyable to read. This Compass Guide book represents a navigational instrument that will never leave you disoriented in finding an appropriate way to manage your research projects – or mentor others on how to do it.

Prof. Dr. Stevo Popović, Associate Professor, Faculty for Sport and Physical Education, University of Montenegro, Nikšić, Montenegro; Co-Director of Balkan Institute of Science and Innovation

This is the third useful Compass Guide book written by Sandra Mandic. This book contains plenty of information, great practical tips and advice for those involved in research and many real-world examples. I very much like the structure of the book which answers questions ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ about research project management and an excellent comparison of differences between a research proposal and a project plan. The use of numerous infographics throughout the book is marvelous which makes the presented material very clear and sticks easily in our brains! I particularly love the infographic presenting components of the Research Project Management Framework which links the project ‘scope’, ‘time’ and ‘resources’ with the ‘project’, ‘team’ and ‘deliverables’ and different phases of research project management (planning, managing, monitoring and delivery). Overall, this is a very valuable resource and worth reading and referring to multiple times. Thank you, Sandy, for generously sharing your knowledge and experience!

Professor Susana Aznar Laín, University Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain