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Paper Information
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: April 2012
- HBS Working Paper Number: 12-094
- Faculty Unit(s): Technology and Operations Management
11 May 2012Working Paper Summaries
Creating an R&D Strategy
by Gary P. PisanoThis note by Gary P. Pisano provides a framework for designing an R&D strategy. It starts with the simple notion that a strategy is a system approach to solving a problem. An R&D strategy is defined a coherent set of interrelated choices across decision concerning: organizational architecture, processes, people, and project portfolios. To illustrate the framework, we use examples of three pharmaceutical companies and examine how their different R&D strategies were rooted in different assumptions about the core driver of R&D performance. This suggests that the very first question to be answered in strategy development is: What's our shared understanding of the root cause of the problem we are trying to solve? Key concepts include:
- A good strategy provides consistency, coherence, and alignment.
- The "game plan" for an R&D organization can be broken down into 4 strategic levers: architecture, processes, people, and portfolio. Together, decisions made in each of these categories constitute the R&D strategy.
- R&D performance results from the interaction of many different decisions and choices, including the size and location of R&D facilities, the division of labor between various groups, the choice of technologies used inside the R&D organization, the selection of personnel, the allocation of resources, the design of processes for managing projects, and other factors.
Gary P. PisanoHarry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business AdministrationSenior Associate Dean for Faculty DevelopmentContactSend an email→ More Articles Find Related Articles
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