I don't think research should be as structured as software development
In many ways, it already is: good research requires meticulous log keeping in order to reproduce results, and equal effort must be spent on maintaining references to other literature, or you risk missing a citation in a published paper.
In many ways, it already is: good research requires meticulous log keeping in order to reproduce results, and equal effort must be spent on maintaining references to other literature, or you risk missing a citation in a published paper.