It is important to create an analysis plan prior to attempting to answer research questions. Sometimes, the plan needs to be left open in places because the nature of the data will dictate how the analysis is conducted, but the plan should aim to anticipate this as far as possible, and where the plan needs to be changed in the light of findings that emerge, this should be documented.

The BCIO can be used in this process as follows:

1. Use BCIO Search to identify all the relevant variables to use in the analysis as entities in the BCIO.
2. For each research question, create a full description of the relevant analyses and give each one a label.
3. Create a spreadsheet with each BCIO entity as a row and the analyses in which it will be included as a column. In each of the cells created, enter the label for the analysis to which the entity is contributing.