Excellence in R&D For the Federal Government ~ Five Best Practices From Defense Alliance

Research and Development is hard; and it’s harder if you’re doing it for the Federal government.? Every phase has its special challenges:? pursuit and capture of the contract or grant; satisfying the customer with the work performed; commercializing and protecting the innovation beyond the government customer; and leveraging the success to capture more work and pursue new innovations.? Years of witnessing our amazing Defense Alliance small business members reveals five best practices for achieving excellence when performing R&D for the government.

1. Be practical, realistic and literal with your deliverables to the government; work to deliver precisely what they ask for, on time, within budget, and no more.? Save the visionary stuff, the stretch goals, and the dreams for yourself.? Both reality and vision are important; but the government only talks that way; it doesn’t walk that way.? Our diagram reinforces this:? Starting from the bottom, the Fed’s pyramid leads to one outcome they are specifically seeking; your firm’s pyramid is inverted – signifying the project’s potential to broaden out into other markets and customers, and more R&D projects and innovations.

2. Have a definitive, well-researched commercialization plan for how you plan to sell your innovation beyond the government’s objectives – even if you are doing early-stage R&D.? This may seem like something of an exception to #1; but it is only in the sense that the government has to care about your future success, by statute, not because it wants to.? And remember to stress how future commercial sales can lower government-supplied product in the long run.? They do care about cost in most cases (unless your project kickoff involves a visit by several black Suburbans, as some of our members have experienced).

3. Communicating your R&D progress to the customer is as important as the work and the outcome itself.? Bad news is never welcome of course; but no news and obfuscation is far worse.? You should have a detailed plan of action and milestones available as the project kicks off.? Milestones can be missed from a technical perspective – it’s research after all – but full, on-time disclosure of both success and failure is paramount.? Projects can be adjusted as the science reveals outcomes, but trust is hard to rebuild if outcomes are obscured and delays are unexplained.

4. Don’t be overly concerned about protecting your innovation.? First, the government has no interest in tying up your product, at least until their specific deliverables are met – and often that can be negotiated as well.? Second, guarding information always leads to slower project execution, inability to find technology partners if needed, and other negative outcomes.? And third, depending on the industry, patent protection is overrated and expensive (both securing IP and defending it if necessary down the road) in an era when innovation is moving much faster than the U.S. Patent and Trade Office.? You may be better off relying on trade secrets or just getting it produced and moving on to your next product.

5. Finally, look for opportunities to humanize your work for the customer.? In the technical world we tend to forget that while the science is generally driving the potential outcomes of R&D, people still determine how those outcomes are ultimately applied.? Data and PowerPoints don’t provide solutions, your firm’s ability to put a better product in a Soldier’s hands does.? That means ensuring the right people are communicating outcomes to the right people on the government side, perhaps early on if you need to gather better information on requirements; and later on as a project is nearing its end point when you may be looking for follow-on or adjacent funding sources to continue development.

The Federal government is the largest single investor in R&D solutions, by far.? It’s also an atypical investor that has a unique personality as a customer.? Following these five best practices may lead to more success as a small business innovator.

Chip Laingen ~ 2023