Community Forum – Ideation

What portion of researcher time and spend is used for ideation?

What portion of R&D researcher time and spend is used for IDEATION? Do you have any data on typical time and spend that you would be able to share? What portion of time is spent on the other buckets – Ideation, Proof of Concept, Research/Development, Commercialization – for your R&D researcher time and spend?  – Dave Clary, Chief Sustainability Officer, Albemarle Corporation 

Community Response

Bruce Merrifield, Chief Executive Officer, Pridco Management
Maybe you might consider that it’s not the time, it’s the process. Entrepreneurial creativity exists in the dark corners of every organization. The problem is that the environment in which creative ideas surface often is weak and it takes an aggressive search process to “dig” them out….(a primary responsibility of every CTO).

You have to meet with small groups of people…what are you guys doing; what magic wand would radically increase the value of this work; does this technology have derivative possibilities; what other ideas do you have…(c’mon it’s ok to mention them). Every idea is a good idea until “it” itself proves it’s not…so let’s think about what it would take to make “it” happen. Is “it” a platform technology with several applications? So we don’t have in-house skills or resources needed in some areas…with whom might we joint venture with? Let’s go back now and dig into what it might take…

The results can be remarkable, and the sources of the ideas most unpredictable…been there all along.

Have a response to add? Email us!