How can you balance speed and quality in R&D?

While setting the scope, it is important to keep in mind the impact. You do not want to work on incremental improvements, rather substantial changes. Innovation is all about matching a problem with solutions that will create value. Value can only be created when you work on impactful problems. Ambitious goals will motivate you to think out of box and usually lead to innovative solutions.

Balancing speed and quality in research and development (R&D) can be a challenging task, but with the right approach, it's possible to achieve both. Here are some strategies you can consider; 1) Clearly define your R&D objectives and prioritize them based on their importance and potential impact, 2) Adopt an agile approach to R&D, which involves breaking down projects into smaller, manageable tasks, 3) Use rapid prototyping techniques to quickly create and test early-stage prototypes, 4) Identify and address potential risks and challenges, 5) Continuously assess and refine your R&D processes by gathering feedback from team members and stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and implement changes that enhance both speed and quality.

Those who work in R&D are often enthusiastic, putting their skills to good use. To achieve the best balance between speed and quality, one must be clear about the question that need to be answered. Delays very often come from unclear goals. A researcher who does not have clear goals will tend to digress, lengthening the time, spending time to understand the real goal. The answer cannot always be serendipity-based. Success often comes from good planning to achieve clear goals. Simple concept, but too infrequently applied, in my experience.

Fail fast and succeed even faster. Try your ideas within days. For that you need all the tools in house to prototype and test your ideas. One strong tech leader with enough recognition within the company to be free to operate with excellent engineers having the ability to work in a small team. No marketing leader in early phases.

In the realm of R&D, a key to balancing speed and quality is orchestrating a strategic symphony. From the outset, it's crucial to dive into comprehensive research, understanding the big picture. We kick off milestones by crafting proof of concepts, ensuring the feasibility of our innovation. Identifying smaller, manageable tasks further empowers us to maintain momentum without compromising on precision. The team's technical expertise are evaluated to ensure a harmonious collaboration. As we navigate the journey, vigilant progress tracking allows us to adapt and refine our course. Also, the watchful eye of risk mitigation ensures that we maintain equilibrium, accelerating toward our goal without sacrificing excellence that defines our work.

It is always a good idea to maintain outside view through the process. You need to be close to the beneficiaries or the customers throughout the process to ensure you are solving their challenging problems, and sometimes even work together. Outside view also allows you to keep track of what the competitors are doing, to ensure you are offering a differentiated solution at the end.

Iteration and learning are crucial to R&D efforts that have an invention as an end goal. Critical to the process is the generation of data that can be trusted to inform design-make-test learning cycles. In addition, data needs to be reviewed objectively, with concerns and perspectives openly sought from team members and external experts, as needed. A clear vision of the desired product's features need to be understood, along with tradeoffs that can be considered as prototyping progresses. Stakeholders need to be informed of the team's efforts, with honest engagement on whether speed can be exchanged for quality - is delivering a less-than-desired product on time acceptable? Often that is a poor long term decision.

It is fine to experience set backs. You need to remember no set backs may suggest that your targets are not ambitious enough. Set backs are part of the innovation process. You need perseverance to power through the long and maybe enduring innovation process. Taking time to understand the set backs and remaining positive are essential. Many great scientific discoveries would not have happened without perseverance, including recent Nobel prize winning MRNA discovery that has enabled COVID 19 vaccine development.

Innovation is a long enduring process, and team work and collaboration are essential that you bring the impactful solution to the market in a timely manner. Many complex system problems typically require diverse knowledge and expertise, team work makes it possible and collaboration makes it efficient.

Scaling is about impact. It is only possible for exponential growth through scaling. R&D is an expensive process, and scalability is key to have high return on investment. It can be done through platform approach, through programmability and through artificial intelligence. Ecosystem is also key for scaling as you can rely on your users to improve your solutions and scale the impact.