May 01, 2005
A large part of your job as a research/technology manager is understanding people, not just evaluating how well they have performed. Evaluation is the easy part; much harder is predicting how people...
Learning Center
IRI resources assist your day-to-day R&D functions and help in problem solving. Search by keyword, topic, or your R&D role to find tools to help you manage your organization's R&D and innovation process more effectively.
Talent Management
May 01, 2005
Surprisingly little empirical information is available to help laboratory managers attract and retain productive R&D workers. Most employee attitude surveys do not focus on the specific...
May 01, 2005
First, consider that over a 50-year period (and your author has been working for that time), U.S. R&D expenditures have increased from $5 billion per year to just over $300 billion. At the same...
March 01, 2005
“Tom Evers,†XYZ Corporation’s research VP, reviewed the year’s accomplishments with his staff and it was painfully obvious that he was not at all pleased. He expressed mild dissatisfaction with most...
March 01, 2005
Firms have no choice today but to disperse their new product units in order to access dispersed knowledge and skills. As a result, there is a general movement toward “virtual†R&D teams (1). But...
November 01, 2006
Remember when the management gurus told you your job was to build teamwork? Now the in-word is collaboration, because innovation of all kinds requires high levels of interactivity, not only within...
September 01, 2006
Life scientists are frustrated by aspects of their organizations that they feel make it harder to accomplish the goals for which they were trained and hired. They report unclear goals, communication...
September 01, 2006
Total rewards is a promising approach to rewards management that has been adopted by such technology-intensive firms as IBM, Microsoft, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. Total rewards takes a...
July 01, 2006
Catherine and Marcus leave college with advanced technical degrees and spend 20 years climbing the corporate ladder until today they are vice presidents of R&D and CTOs of comparable firms. They...
July 01, 2006
“Pete Gettings,†XYZ’s personnel director was briefing “Tom Evers,†R&D vice president, on the latest, alarming, retirement statistics he had read (1). “The essence is that American companies are...
July 01, 2006
As the 76 million baby boomers, who represent 28 percent of the U.S. working population, begin retiring, organizations face a knowledge and capability crisis. The experience, knowledge, skills, and...
July 01, 2006
Science, art, or both? When it comes to successful integration of acquired employees into an established organization and culture, both references are relevant and critical to eventual success. While...
May 01, 2006
If you’ve felt confused about how you should deal with diversity in your laboratories, that’s understandable, since there are at least three possible meanings of the term, and they each call for...
May 01, 2006
In today’s global environment, new product development often requires the collaboration of cross-functional team members living and working indifferent countries. Dissimilar languages, cultures and...
March 01, 2006
Annual appraisal time was approaching at the XYZ R&D Laboratories and “Tom Evers,†vice-president, and “Pete Getting,†personnel director, were in a serious discussion of the process and, in...
January 01, 2006
You lead an R&D organization, either a department, team or project. How do you go about getting the best possible performance from your people? How are you organizing their work? Do you think...