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Example: Research Design & Progress Document

Author/Source: Chris Blattman, claudeblattman.com

Key Ideas

  • This is a synthetic example of a living research design document maintained by the /weekly-review skill -- part research design, part project history, part pre-analysis plan, kept current with project realities.
  • The document includes a change log tracking weekly updates, a strategic orientation (north star + why this matters + critical success factors), an executive snapshot (study design at a glance, current status by phase, team roster), a full paper plan with multiple tracks, and detailed data/measurement notes.
  • The paper plan distinguishes between Track A (predictive/descriptive papers) and Track B (experimental papers), each with research question, design, identification strategy, key data, target journals, and timeline.
  • The main experimental paper includes full power calculations (updated with actual ICC from Cohort 1 baseline data), estimation strategy with primary specification and robustness checks, and explicit threats to identification with mitigation strategies.
  • Measurement concerns are tracked as living items: sensitive survey items with low response rates led to the adoption of list experiments and endorsement experiments at midline.

Summary

This article provides a full synthetic example of the "Research Design and Progress" document that serves as the second tab of a project's Google Doc hub in the Blattman project management system. The fictional project is the same "Nairobi Digital Futures" RCT used in the dashboard example. The document demonstrates how a living research design evolves over weeks of /weekly-review updates, incorporating decisions from meetings, updated data, and revised plans.

The document is structured in sections: project state and change log, strategic orientation (the "north star" research question and why it matters), an executive snapshot with the study design at a glance, current status by phase, and team roster. The paper plan section is particularly detailed, laying out multiple planned papers across descriptive and experimental tracks. For the main experimental paper, the document includes the full estimation strategy (with LaTeX-formatted equations), power calculations updated with actual ICC estimates from collected data, a catalog of threats to identification with specific mitigation strategies, and target journals. Data and measurement notes track administrative data partnerships, survey instrument versions, and specific measurement concerns with their proposed solutions. Ethical considerations cover adverse events protocols, market association consent, and data security.

Relevance to Economics Research

This example is essentially a template for how an economics research team could maintain a living pre-analysis plan and project record using AI tools. The level of detail in the estimation strategy, power calculations, and identification threats mirrors what would appear in a formal pre-analysis plan or top-journal submission. The key innovation is that this document stays current with project realities through automated weekly updates, rather than being written once and gradually becoming stale. For economists running multi-year projects, the change log tracking when and why the research design evolved (e.g., switching from direct self-report to list experiments based on baseline response rates) provides exactly the kind of documentation that strengthens credibility and simplifies the writing of methods sections.