Every business large or small should have research and development components to its ongoing operations. The fact that this does not always happen is a motivation behind this blog. The other motivation is to organize some thoughts on the subject arising from almost three decades in the space, and possibly illustrate them with a few examples.
An R&D project might be as simple as a retail operation using sales data to devise a means to better tune their stock selection to the needs of customers, or it might be a big multi-national running a multi-million dollar investigation of the future of an entire market segment. The key characteristics of an R&D project are that it has a structured investigative approach and it seeks to solve a problem, improve a process or understand a phenomenon. Most desirably, the result is captured and applied in some way – either in posing new questions for investigation, or for improving the fortunes of a business.
With a wealth of R&D leadership behind me, this blogger seeks to draw from the combined resources of industry research and experience in creating and guiding R&D programs to improve the status quo. It’s fitting that in looking at the world of research and development, one finds that there has been much research into the craft of research, to help us learn to do it better.
In industry there are often big commitments made to run an effective R&D program, yet often the issues that hold us back remain poorly addressed across many projects, while the core work of R&D progresses on at breakneck speed. This blog will seek to tackle many of the core how/why questions around effective R&D. For example:
- Problem capture and idea generation – creativity
- Project selection – which great idea to “run-with”
- Promotion of R&D projects
- Planning and forecasting R&D projects
- Completing an R&D project – when are you done?
- Transfer of R&D outputs into exploitation
- Motivation and creativity for researcher/developers
- Post R&D best practices – learning for the next go-around
This is not an exhaustive list by any means. And the phenomena of the blog is particularly well suited for exploring side-bars. But of all these areas-of-exploration perhaps the issue of technology-transfer stands out as the most challenging nut to crack in most R&D organizations.
In many companies, R&D outputs are seen as an impediment by product teams, distracting them from the hectic product-pushing and support of day-to-day work. In other organizations, R&D is simply support for product groups, implementing the next feature, responding directly to customer issues with poor product fit to their particular problems. In some situations, R&D exists as an esoteric exercise done to advance general knowledge without a means or perceived need to make it figure into the market success of the corporation.
The best solutions to improving the interface between the market and R&D appear to be built around an effective definition of how projects are launched in the first place. Ensuring communication channels are open, stakeholders are involved, and projects are launched with a clear definition of goals, outputs and how completion is defined.
To achieve a thorough discussion on R&D programs will require that we look at all phases of R&D programs. Hopefully you will find this blog a good mix of R&D management ideas and practical guidance that can help you with problems you might face.
To look at R&D and its benefits from a pragmatic and broad perspective can’t help but enable us to do it better. I will endeavour to illustrate how it should fit into the plans of every company, from a one-person tailor on a side-street, to a brand-new start-up to a multi-billion dollar global operation.
Ironically, it appears that even the research into research methods is often poorly transferred into practice. Looking at the ‘big issues’ identified in 1980’s books on the topic I see items that continue to challenge organizations today. Can a social-media-based discussion help change that? Probably not in a big way, but discussion is always a helpful part of information dissemination.
So follow along if the topic interests or intrigues you, and feel free to participate through comments, or through twitter at @rossgk.