Proposal Case 004: The Cost of a Late Start

Some projects don’t fail because of effort — they struggle because they start too late.

A doctor from a hospital in Kelantan contacted me on a Thursday night, hoping to deliver a full set of analysis results by Monday morning. The timeline was extremely tight.

During our initial 15-minute discussion, it became clear that the study still had several unresolved issues:

• The research objective was vague.

• The data derivation plan was not defined.

• There was no analysis plan.

• The variables and tabulations were unclear.

Recognising the urgency, I offered to work with her over the weekend through multiple consultation sessions, effectively running a short statistical sprint.

Over five hours of focused collaboration, we managed to:

• Clarify the study objectives and align them with measurable outcomes.

• Derive key variables required for analysis.

• Perform initial univariate analyses, including chi-square tests for categorical variables and correlation analysis for continuous data.

Given the limited time, she continued the remaining work independently. There was no follow-up, and the final outcome remained unknown.

This case serves as a strong reminder:

Good research begins with a good proposal — and involving a statistician early can save far more time than rushing at the end.