CyberSoft provides consulting services to Clients that have internal technology Research & Development (R&D) operations. One common area for improvement is around end-to-end technology R&D management.

Invariably the R&D function is as an adjunct to an existing group that isn’t strong in formal technology R&D project management – for example: IT operations, asset management, finance etc.

The Objective

Firstly to work with the Client to educate key stakeholders that R&D Project Management should be considered a core competence – demonstrating that it can deliver a significant competitive edge when deployed successfully.

Secondly to develop, document and socialize appropriate R&D project management frameworks.

The Approach

R&D is composed of a complex array of capabilities and underpinning technical and relational skills. This requires a climate of empowered teams supported by strong management and leadership.

R&D management needs to be seen by stakeholders, staff and investors as simple (possibly light weight) and not overly bureaucratic. In its early phases it must be seen to be facilitating rather than reducing creativity.

Many people, particularly those involved in R&D, are apprehensive about being subjected to formal project management. They:

• Can feel ‘uncomfortable’ with too much structure - ‘it restricts my creativity’
• May not want to be held to detailed plans that seem inappropriate for R&D projects.
• ‘If I knew how to do it then it wouldn’t be research!’.
• Struggle with being asked to “schedule an invention” or be creative to someone else’s timeline.
• May not see the value of using project management techniques when there are so many uncertainties in their projects. After all how do you plan the unknown?

The fear of too much structure is mostly a cultural issue. The use of project management techniques is often associated with large engineering or IT projects, where detailed plans are normal (and essential), milestones and deadlines have very specific dates and there is a high degree of control and oversight.

In contrast the R&D culture can be characterised by a desire for little structure, a need to experiment without a lot of oversight, and an interest in exploring interesting and perhaps valuable sidetracks.

Our approach is to emphase that project management is really about working with people, including R&D people, business owners, investors, stakeholders etc to accomplish the important objectives. Namely the need “to commercialise new technology or business opportunities that deliver superior returns to the Client”

It is the people - not the procedures and techniques - that are critical to accomplishing this objective. Procedures and techniques are merely tools to help people do their jobs. There needs to be flexibility in any tool – they should be used to help the project participants - not to micro-manage and critique them.

Snakes on a Plan

R&D planning is often either inadequate or almost avoided altogether because of the large amount of perceived uncertainty in R&D.

In R&D the plan itself is not nearly as important as the process of planning, by which we carefully consider all of the various aspects and challenges of the project and how to meet them.

We encourage and guide better definition of project objectives at all levels and stages, even if the objective is to be modified later. Better planning and re-planning is actively encouraged, with the understanding that things will more likely than not need to change, but that planning will still help everyone to work more effectively and efficiently.

It is part of a cycle in which business strategy creates the basis for technology R&D strategy, which in turn leads to a portfolio of R&D projects to deliver the technology strategy.

Our approach of not presenting a ‘conveyer belt’ process where ideas fall in one end and a commercial product automatically falls out the other resonated with key creative and technical staff. If it were that straight forward then the success rate for commercialised R&D would be 100% as opposed to the 10-30% actually obtained (actual milage varies between industries and technologies).

Success comes from the iterative nature of each phase in conjunction with the continual feedback and exploitation of knowledge gained.

Client Outcome

By better setting of R&D objectives and better planning of R&D projects, even in spite of all the uncertainty, the effectiveness and the efficiency of R&D resources are improved. Better R&D management helped the Client to:

• See the big picture -Better understand the difficult tasks ahead and when they will happen - put things first by prioritizing important tasks above less-important tasks
• Minimize efforts on unfruitful sidetracks
• Stay focused on the objectives
• Make better estimates of time and resource needs
• Improve communication among key personnel
• See the need to look at alternative approaches or technologies
• Make better decisions when dealing with tradeoffs between time, performance and resource constraints