I was faced with the same question recently, and have to say, finding anything remotely directive in approach is very very hard. The closest I found as far as some guidelines on what to look at and how to begin was in this short article:  http://kanbantool.com/blog/agile-kanban-for-research-work. Not backed by much data, but worth giving a shot, I thought.

I was faced with the same question recently, and have to say, finding anything remotely directive in approach is very very hard. The closest I found as far as some guidelines on what to look at and how to begin was in this short article: 

Agile Kanban for Research Work