Since this is for a thesis can I ask what problem you are trying to solve with your software? I ask because there are many established project management tools out there - Trello, JIRA, MS Project etc - all of which offer role-based access controls. Have you identified a problem with these systems that needs to be resolved?

Welcome to PMSE @Stoic. I think this is a useful question but it would be useful to add some context so people can frame their answers appropriately. What are you trying to acheive? What in parcticular are you unclear about?

Like Marv I'm not sure where you can ask this - Quora maybe? This paper - dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2009.09.013 - might be of interest. Choose something very narrow (like, really narrow). Anything else will be insurmountable because solving huge problems is a long term (and most likely) group endeavour. Good luck.

What's driving the '9 month' deadline? Is that a business-imposed date or did the project team provide that estimate? I ask because it sounds like a deadline has been imposed for work that you don't (yet) know how to complete. If that's the case (and if it's possible) some re-estimation and expectation management might ease the process.

Hi jdog. As you suggest, I think it would make sense to divide this up into multiple questions. There's a lot going on here! Some of this is really about business strategy and business development which might not be a good fit for PMSE but scopre creep, risk management and scope creep would all work I think.