Overview
The approach or methodology section is usually the longest part of a proposal and the one where feasibility is judged. NIH reviewers score it under Rigor and Feasibility; NSF reviewers ask whether the plan is well reasoned and includes a way to assess success; Horizon Europe evaluators score the methodology under Excellence and the work plan under Implementation. In each case, a reviewer wants to see what you will do, why that design answers the question, how you will analyze the results, what could go wrong, and when each piece will be finished.
We work from your aims and research design to build a methods narrative and a work plan together. For each aim or work package, we set out the design, sample or materials, procedures, analysis plan, expected results, potential problems and alternative strategies. We then translate that into tasks, milestones and deliverables, estimate effort with you, and draw a Gantt chart that shows dependencies and critical paths.
The work plan is also where inconsistencies hide. We check that months, person-effort, deliverable dates and budget periods agree across text, tables and chart, because reviewers do.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Principal investigators whose reviews criticized feasibility or lack of detail in the approach
- Horizon Europe work package leaders and coordinators building the Implementation section
- Applicants to fellowships or small grants who need a credible one-page timeline
- Teams combining laboratory, field and computational work that must be scheduled together
- Doctoral researchers learning to plan a funded project for a fellowship application
Common problems we help with
- The methods describe what you will do but not why, or how you will analyze the data
- There is no sample-size or power justification for key experiments or surveys
- Everything starts in Month 1 and finishes in the last month
- Work packages overlap, and nobody is clearly responsible for each deliverable
- Risks are listed generically ('delays may occur') without mitigation
- The Gantt chart, milestones table and narrative give different dates
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Review of the design against your aims or objectives and the funder's rigor expectations
- Drafting or editing of the approach section per aim: rationale, design, procedures, analysis, expected results, pitfalls and alternatives
- Rigor elements such as sample size reasoning, randomization, blinding, controls, relevant biological variables and reproducibility where applicable
- Work package structure with objectives, tasks, leads and participating partners
- Milestones and deliverables with dates and means of verification
- Risk register with likelihood, impact and mitigation for each critical risk
- Gantt chart showing tasks, dependencies, milestones and review points
- Consistency check between work plan, personnel effort and budget periods
Not included
- Designing your experiments or analysis from nothing without your scientific input
- Committing partners to tasks or dates they have not agreed
- Project management software setup or ongoing project management after award
- Promising that reviewers will judge the plan feasible
What you receive
- Approach section draft
- Aim-by-aim or work-package-by-work-package methods narrative in tracked changes, with questions where decisions are yours.
- Work package tables
- Structured tables of objectives, tasks, leads, effort and outputs in the funder's format where one is prescribed.
- Milestones and deliverables list
- Numbered milestones and deliverables with due months and how completion will be verified.
- Risk and mitigation table
- Critical risks with likelihood, impact, owner and mitigation or fallback strategy.
- Gantt chart
- An editable chart (Excel, PowerPoint or your preferred tool) and a high-resolution figure for the proposal.
How it works
Aims and design review
We confirm the aims, design and main activities and list open methodological decisions.
Methods narrative
We draft or restructure the approach per aim or work package, with you supplying technical detail and choices.
Work breakdown
We define work packages, tasks, leads, milestones and deliverables and agree effort estimates.
Timeline and risks
We sequence tasks, identify dependencies and critical paths, and build the risk table and Gantt chart.
Consistency pass
We reconcile dates and effort with the budget and the rest of the proposal.
Planning tools and conventions
- Work breakdown structure
- Dividing the project into work packages and tasks with single owners, so every deliverable has a lead.
- Milestones versus deliverables
- Milestones mark decision or control points; deliverables are tangible outputs such as a dataset, report or prototype.
- Gantt chart with dependencies
- Bars for tasks, diamonds for milestones and links for dependencies, with buffers before critical milestones.
- Risk register
- Likelihood and impact ratings, mitigation and contingency, and early-warning indicators for high risks.
- Go/no-go decision points
- Pre-specified criteria that decide whether a phase proceeds, useful for phased awards and technology development.
- Power and sample-size reasoning
- Justifying sample sizes from expected effects, variability and attrition, with our sample size and power analysis service when a formal calculation is needed.
Methods that show rigor, not just activity
Reviewers are persuaded by reasoning more than by lists of techniques. For each aim we help you say why this design answers the question, how bias and confounding are controlled, how data will be analyzed and what result would support or refute the hypothesis. Then we add what could go wrong and what you would do instead, which signals experience rather than weakness.
- Rationale: why this design and not an obvious alternative
- Analysis plan: named methods, software and handling of missing data
- Expected results and how they will be interpreted
- Pitfalls and alternative approaches
A timeline that survives contact with reality
Most unrealistic timelines ignore start-up: hiring staff, ethics or animal protocol approval, data-sharing agreements and procurement can take several months. We build these into the first phase explicitly and schedule dependent tasks after them. We also leave time at the end for analysis, dissemination and reporting, which are often squeezed into the final month.
The Gantt chart should be readable at a glance. We group tasks by work package, mark milestones and review points, and avoid charts so detailed that they become unreadable in a PDF.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Illustrative risk table rows
A fictional three-year mixed-methods education study across twelve schools. Two rows from the risk and mitigation table show the level of specificity we aim for.
Risk: school recruitment falls short (likelihood medium, impact high)
Mitigation: letters of support from the regional education office obtained before submission; recruitment starts in Month 3 with a reserve list of four additional schools; milestone M2 (Month 6) checks that at least ten schools have signed agreements, otherwise the reserve list is activated.
Risk: delayed ethics approval (likelihood medium, impact medium)
Mitigation: application submitted in Month 1 using the pilot-approved instruments; Months 1–4 used for literature synthesis and instrument translation, which do not require approval; the Gantt chart shows fieldwork starting in Month 5 with a two-month buffer.
Illustrative example with an invented project. Real risk tables are built from your design and constraints.
What you’ll need to provide
- Aims or objectives and the funding opportunity's instructions for the approach and work plan
- Your draft methods, protocols or analysis plans
- Team members, partners, their roles and approximate availability
- Known constraints: ethics timelines, recruitment windows, equipment delivery, field seasons
- Budget draft or personnel effort estimates if available
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number of aims or work packages and partners
- Whether the methods narrative, the work plan or both are in scope
- Complexity of dependencies and phased or go/no-go structures
- Funder templates that require specific tables
Turnaround depends on
- How settled the scientific design is at the start
- Speed of partner responses on tasks and effort
- Deadline proximity
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Which tool do you use for Gantt charts?
Whichever you can edit afterwards, most often Excel or PowerPoint, and we supply a clean figure for the proposal. If your consortium uses a project management tool, we can export to it or recreate the chart from it.
Can you help if my methods are highly technical?
Yes. You supply the technical content; we make sure the logic, rigor elements and structure are explicit and consistent. For statistical design questions we can bring in formal power analysis.
Do I need a risk table for an NIH application?
NIH does not use a formal risk table, but reviewers expect potential problems and alternative strategies for each aim. EU and many other funders require a risk table explicitly. We follow the format your funder expects.
Our budget is already fixed. Can the work plan still change?
It can, but changes may require budget adjustments. We flag any mismatch so you and your research office can decide.