Thinking about what kind and how much data your project will generate before you begin will help you prepare for managing your data. In general data fall in to four categories that can affect how it is managed: observational, experimental, simulated, or derived/compiled. In your data management plan, write down a detailed description of how data will be generated or obtained. Think about when, where, and how much data will be produced. Include information on the software that will be used and how the data will be processed (Krier and Strasser).
For more detailed information, see the Data Types section of the DMPTool's Data Management General Guidance, or complete the Research data explained module of the MANTRA Research Data Management Training tutorial.