Your R&D team is underperforming. What are you doing wrong?

If you see this happening... then it is a good moment to take one step back, maybe even with help of fresh eyes of an outsider. Does your team has really all the tools and qualifications for the assigned task? Would it make sense to re-align the R&D goals with your current team's abilities/resources or to adjust the abilities/ressources of your team toward your current R&D goals? Not changing anything in such a situation and hoping for the best is a sure bet for failure (or, at the very least, cements perpetual frustration...).

In my experience it can be lack of Vision but the most important factor is overload. Many times the work is underestimated and the team is expected to perform. We need to understand that this is an R&D project and there are many uncertainties that can be encountered which are not planned.

??R&D teams may underperform if they are not aligned with clear objectives or a compelling vision. ??Teams need to understand their goals and how their work contributes to the overall mission of the organization. ??Effective communication is key to the success of any team. Lack of communication, miscommunication, or a breakdown in collaboration can lead to inefficiencies and underperformance. ??Encouraging open and transparent communication channels can help address these issues.

If a whole team is underperforming is almost always a people management issue.R&D managers should always take care of fueling curiosity in their collaborators. The statement does not imply that only the fun part of R&D should be proposed, but fullfill even the most boring task with a clear purpose is essential. Moreover, the R&D management should always take into account the personality and attititude of the collaborators, in order to accomodate (in some cases anticipate) the team aspiration and build an environment in which those desires can find their true potential. Last but not least, being an umbrella from external factors (cash flow limitations, project closures, top bottom decisions etc.).

If your R&D team is underperforming, it may indicate issues with leadership, communication, resource allocation, or goal clarity. Perhaps you're not providing clear direction or enough creative freedom. Overloading the team with unrealistic expectations without adequate support or failing to foster a culture of innovation and collaboration could be contributing factors. Lack of recognition for their efforts and progress can also demotivate the team. It's crucial to reassess your management approach, ensure resources match project demands, encourage open communication, and realign goals to inspire and empower your R&D team towards improved performance.

It’s a responsibility of a leader to know the strength of team and priorities of the organisation. If team is not performing mean the leader don’t know the strength, weakness, priorities of the organisation. If he knows and still team is not performing means he doesn’t have any vision, work and execution plan. Many times instead of talent, good leadership skills can deliver beyond exception. We should be kind enough while communicating with team. Team should be well informed, involved, interested and inspired for delivering best of team.

We should revise the plans and do new task assignments based on staff skills to fix this state and then use better task monitoring ways to keep in touch with the process.

remember 7P Rule: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Project Performance to what extent planning shall be?. Instead of boiling the ocean, try rolling wave planning, it helps a lot to navigate short-term and long-term targets.

Over-commitment and and under-performing is a dangerous combo that leads to failure. Not planning for bugs/hurdles/misc situations is another reason for failures. Your plan should incorporate the lessons learnt from all your/your team's past mistakes

In my experience, poor planning and/or poor execution of the planned tasks are the major problems behind underperformance. In many plans, KPIs, milestones, and deliverables are missing, and Gantt diagrams do not exist, which leads to serious problems, especially in larger teams or consortia.

Lack of feedback: ??R&D leaders often fail to solicit or provide adequate feedback to team members. ??Feedback is crucial for learning, improvement, and innovation. ??Create a culture of feedback where everyone feels comfortable giving and receiving constructive feedback. ??Feedback should be regular, timely, specific, actionable, and supportive. ??Sources of feedback can include customers, peers, mentors, and managers.

I have recently encountered my underperformance as a research group leader. The important point for every person in a team - you as a leader should understand, what your teammate is expecting from you. Is it guidance? May be it is expertise? May be just a listener to formulate her/his hypothesis? It is your job as a leader to find a way to better communication.

Here are 5 key aspects which gets an effect with inadequate feedback from stakeholders of R&D 1. Wasted Resources:Without timely and constructive feedback,teams may invest resources in projects that are off-track. 2. Innovation Stagnation:Hinderance in innovation/exploring new ideas effectively. 3. Low Morale: Team may feel disengaged if their efforts are not recognized or if they don't receive feedback on their work, leading to low morale and decreased productivity. 4. Missed Opportunities:Miss opportunities on emerging trends. 5. Quality Issues:Inadequate feedback can result in products or solutions with quality issues or shortcomings, as there may not be sufficient validation or testing processes in place. Dr. Vinay Kumar Putta

Esto si que es sencillo. Siempre hay que escuchar a todo el mundo y por una sencilla razón alguien puede tener muchas mejores ideas que tú y a veces proceden del sitio más inesperado. Lo de ganarás pero no convencerás es una mala estrategia.

I want to share my 3C: 1. Care, the members must really, genuinely, sincerely care for the work. 2. Communication, caring shall generate good communication amongst members and leader. 3. Cooperation, the first 2C then shall generate cooperation amongst members and leader. These 2C are the key to getting good feed back.

Well, I believe majority of present day research should be a collective effort and not an individual race. As the modern research is highly interdisciplinary. All other factors mentioned are the result of low Engagement whether its a poor planning, feed backs, lack of learning, lack of collaborations, they all are linked with a single factor low engagement. Sadly, professors are mostly busy or sometimes are lazy enough to not be a part of the research and allow his students to run the show.

Team should have well aligned to their deliverables. Each team member must have to know clear objectives & outcomes from the tasks. Planning is also important to engage the resources. Many good resources not able to deliver their best if the team engagement & planning is poor.

R&D is as much a creative process as it is an intellectual one. Team members need to believe in and be excited about what the project is trying to achieve. Additionally, they must have the freedom to try out their own ideas of achieving the ultimate goal. Ultimately, this is how amazing breakthroughs are made instead of simply tepid results.

Los desafíos complejos requieren de equipos amplios y diversos. Un buen liderazgo en I+D debe poder generar un esquema de estímulos, incentivos y recompensas materiales y simbólicas para que todos los integrantes del equipo puede combinar de forma adecuada los objetivos generales y los personales. También conviene anticiparse y saber que habrá logros que podrán compartirse con colegas científicos y darse a conocer como resultados académicos y otros que formarán parte de los activos propios e internos de la compa?ía. Saber administrar esta tensión permitirá que los equipos de I+D transiten con mejor resultado la vida entre colegas con las metas corporativas.

Having always worked on long and complex projects, one of the lessons I've learnt is that it's important to acknowledge/celebrate the intermediate successes. It helps keeping the momentum, and creates a positive mindset that helps engaging untill the end.

First, prioritize based on available capacity, likelihood of success and market interest. Secondly, it must be clear to every modern organization that NPDs’ and R&Ds’ execution is not just an engineering task. The final success requires multidisciplinary efforts and a diligent/committed cross functional support, otherwise you are set for failing already from the start.

R&D and New Product Development are team sports. Organizations that include members of the commercial, manufacturing, supply chain, engineering, and product management functions are more successful than those that don't. Nominate a member from each function to the core project team.

La colaboración insuficiente quizás no se puede explicar solamente por problemas de comunicación, confianza o voluntad. Se debe considerar también que los equipos de I+D tiene incentivos, presiones y objetivos diferentes a otras áreas de la organización. Por empezar, los tiempos. En I+D todo suele tener plazos más largo. También la actitud frente a una dificultad. En I+D suele asumirse como una oportunidad de aprendizaje mientras que para otras áreas solo importa superar el problema sin darle espacio a la reflexión sobre la forma en que se superar. Se necesitan espacios para alinear incentivos, prácticas e intereses y reconocer finalmente que la I+D es el resultado de un esfuerzo que va más allá del equipo de I+D.

Effective R&D leadership mandates fostering robust collaboration, tapping into team members' and stakeholders' diverse strengths and insights. By cultivating a respectful, trusting environment, we enable open, fruitful exchanges and teamwork. Clear, consistent communication and enabling cross-disciplinary dialogues are pivotal. Such collaboration enhances creativity and productivity and ensures our projects embody comprehensive, innovative solutions, reflecting the collective expertise and perspectives integral to impactful R&D outcomes.

Virtual meetings/Video conferencing already created a distance within the teams. The team should meet quiet often to discuss about the tasks rather than just taking status updates

Underperforming R&D teams may result from: -Absence of effective two-way communication channels between the team and leadership, resulting in a disconnect between organizational vision, business priorities, and strategies on one end, and the ground-level realities, challenges, and gaps faced by the team on the other. -Failure to cultivate a culture of innovation, freedom, accountability, and willingness to take risks, hindering creative problem-solving and forward-thinking steps. -Lack of clearly defined and measurable SMART goals at both departmental and individual levels. -Insufficient collaboration with external industrial partners and academia, resulting in missed opportunities for knowledge sharing and leveraging external expertise.

I had bitter experience in my leadership of R&D. CEOs don't like tbe coaching and caring versons. All needs overnight results. Finally retired and peacefully spending time with grandson.

Management in a R&D setting means setting the scene for your team but not to micromanage your reports. Too many managers fall in the trap because they are managers, they believe to have to understand the last bit of their technical subject matter experts and therefore demand very granular documentation and timelines. By doing so they neglect that this neither enables nor ensures they grasp all and their reports are not feeling trusted. To be efficient a high level of trust and collaboration is essential, not an in depth control from management side.

R&D teams need to have a *Back to School* approach. R&D teams are forever learning. Devote a few hours in a week for learning. It is always better if the faculty is from within the team. This would help in... * Introduction to a broad spectrum of learning * Sharpening their existing skills * Create a Go-to person within the team * Result in effective communication, trust and respect for fellow team members HR should act as a facilitator!

Continuous lack of feedback within an innovation team is one of the most spread mistakes in innovation management. The long-term perspective that this kind of initiative needs has to be associated with short-term feedback loops.

- Recognise that the team is technically capable. - Boost morale - Build trust - Align resources - Give short term goals towards the larger objective - Training and team building A trustworthy team having high morale is what you need to boost R&D productivity.

One more question to ask would be -- what do we mean by underperformance in this context? High cost and delays in finding solutions is one, the other is not finding solutions at all. We can then analyze these buckets separately. One could improve the first part by better training, better planning, and better monitoring. For the latter, one needs to see if the team is diverse enough, people have right experience, and the environment is conducive to inquiry. It will be a multifactorial problem, requiring careful response.

Most important is to have a right balance of Leaders, Managers and Executors. All these roles have distinct requirements and equally important. No Leader can succeed without good Mangers and no manger can succeed without an excellent team of executors. Many organisations have complicated structure with multiple levels without any clear distinction between the role and responsibility. This creates confusion.

Lack of focus, too many priorities. Need top down guidance on business objectives to cull the long list of projects down to the ones that will have the greatest impact.

A gap in communication, lack of clarity in strategy, bossy leadership, lack of emotional intelligence, no appreciation n recognition….these are several of the factors that could lead to low performance in R&D team.