When we started writing this book back in 2020, Mykola, Stephen and I, we all agreed that we did not want another academic or business management book. We wanted to make something that’s both practical and educational. We wanted to go deep, but we also wanted to cover a large number of topics.

How do you do that? How do you satisfy all these requirements? So we decided on a simple and catchy objective that would help us decide on what to write about and what to leave out. Here it is:

The book’s main aim is that everyone who reads this book learns something new, begins to see new opportunities for positive change within their workplace, and becomes a better R&D manager.

So, the main target audience of the book is R&D managers. If you go on LinkedIn and search for R&D managers, you’ll get around 800,000 hits. Which is no surprise really, since corporate R&D spending is close to $1.5 trillion. Clearly, someone needs to manage all those projects. And from what we know, almost half of these people have received no formal R&D management training. What they almost surely have received however is a postgraduate degree or a PhD in their subject matter expertise, and just like in my own experience, were promoted into a management or leadership role just because someone thought we were ready.

So with that in mind, we tried to pull together 200 pages of the best value we could imprint into this book so that a junior or experienced R&D manager could learn something new, something practical, introduce positive change into their organization’s R&D function, and possibly make better use of those $1.5 trillion. And the reason why I feel confident that the book has value, is the diversity in experiences that me and my co-author’s bring and the amount and variety of background research we did in order to compile this book.

Stephen Russo, he lives at the intersection of innovation and practicality. He’s got over 30 years of global tech experience, majority of which he spent in IBM and is now as Chief Product Officer at Honeywell.

Mykola Maksymenko was head of R&D at SoftServe, leading about 100 engineers and delivering R&D as service to global companies. Mykola is co-founder of Haiqu, a quantum computing software start-up.

Myself, I’ve written books, scientific papers, and patents and have worked in corporate R&D all my professional life, in both small startups, scaleups, and micro-electronics giants like Toshiba. I’ve also been very active in managing R&D funding and government grants, the most recent one being the Touchless project (see my other blog on this).

If you are interested to know more about what this book is about, I have prepared this sneak preview of the book’s 15 chapters:

Chapter 1: A Buzzing Prologue

We begin with an intriguing and unlikely analogy connecting together bees and R&D organizations which must navigate their respective complex terrain. Learn, adapt, and occasionally take a leap into the unknown to discover the nectar of innovation.

Chapters 2 and 3: Introduction to R&D Management

These two are designed to ease the reader into what is R&D and its management. For example, we cover a lot of ground while not going very deep. Things like standard terminology, TRL, tax credits, why is R&D uncertain, the concept of a funnel, open innovation and how academic’s do research and how R&D labs do research and how that might be different from, say, Agile, Lean, and other engineering frameworks, and also the role of government and policy in promoting, supporting and then protecting R&D in the form of intellectual property. So it’s really about giving the reader a 40,000 feet overview of everything that’s at play.

Chapter 4: A Brief History of R&D Management

Going back to the industrial revolution, and “big science”, the role of wars and conflict in driving innovation is highlighted. For example, how the second world war crowned science as de facto way of winning a war, making the management of R&D of national importance, as very well portreyed in the Oppenheimer movie.

Chapter 5: Deep insights

We next take a rather academic deep dive in to the world of R&D Management. Basically the R&D Management journal recently published a list of its most influential articles to celebrate its 50 year anniversary. So in this chapter, we review these papers and methodically try to extract truths and insights from all these years of R&D management research.

Part 2: Having laid all this groundwork in Chapters 1-5, the book then shifts into a more practical narrative.

Chapter 6: Organizing and structuring R&D

How to box things into programs, projects, and explorations, and how these can be centralized or distributed geographically. How the 5 generations of R&D align their strategy, technology, people and processes differently, and how organizations can balance incremental R&D, which is what you generally get with the iPhone 15, 16, 17 etc. while also having management structures that allow for radical, disruptive wacky R&D projects that can bring about major game-changing innovations.

Chapter 7: The role of leadership in R&D

How is this different than in other leadreship postions. What are them main traits to look for according to HR research. We talk about the dual ladder, and why technical leadership is essential in deciding the direction of R&D investments. Take for example the iPhone’s camera which since 2007 is a major focus of innovation. If the decision to invest in multi-camera sensors, stabilization, image processing algorithms, etc. etc., had been left to division managers they would have probably said that such an expensive feature is not supported by market trends, and smartphone photography would not have been a thing.

Chapter 8: Deciding on What to Research?

We provide a tried and tested framework that will guide you, the R&D manager/leader and your team through a 7-step process which starts with ideation and ends with added value to the firm. We discuss how to creatively identify, gain stakeholder buy-in, and test your next R&D project direction, and how to avoid common risks and traps, prepping your team for the next big chapter, which is on choosing the right technology commercialization model.

Chapter 9: Navigating the Tech Landscape

As an R&D manager, you must stay informed of the ever-changing technology landscape This chapter introduces a set of tools that can help you do so, including, Gartner’s Hype Cycle, Megatrends, Geoffrey Moore’s Innovation Adoption model, Christensen's disruptive innovation model, Gartner's Technology Impact Radar, and McKinsey's Three Horizons of Growth.

Chapter 10: Technology Commercialization

This is perhaps the most important chapter in the book, and is what all previous chapters have been building up towards. How does one turn research into marketable products? To that end, we'll examine several different strategies that can help you master this dark art of technology commercialization, reduce risks, and maximize on the return. We will also provide several case studies to help the reader see a variety of possible paths foreward.

Part 3: Finally, we chose to also include in the book five core topics, each of which can have an 80-20 kind of impact on the performance of a firm’s R&D output.

Chapter 11: Being Agile in Research

Agility is the key to staying relevant and flexible. However, agile and lean frameworks that thrive in software development are actually completely incompatible with R&D, unless adaptations are made. In this chapter you will lear why that is so (hint: the Dunning-Kruger effect), and how R&D teams can adopt and modify agile methodologies for more effective and responsive research outcomes that better align with business needs (hint: teams should target “desired research outcomes” rather than a user story). For example, we will cover modifications to the stage-gate process, agile, double diamond, six sigma, and lean.

Chapter 12: Public Funding

Firms invest in R&D inputs in order to produce innovative outputs. Meanwhile, approximately one-third of all R&D is funded through public money, e.g., non-dilutive funding sources such as tax credit programs, vouchers, grants, and competitions. Therefore, when embarking on the creation or implementation of an R&D strategy for your firm, it is important to understand why this is so, what opportunities are available, and how to tap into this funding multiplier.

Chapter 13: Academic Program

In this chapter we’ll be discussing the idea of setting up an Academic Program within your company. What is it? Do you need one? And how to set one up? An academic program is essentially a set of projects that are co-funded, co-created, and co-led by the firm. The program sets out to connect the firm with universities and occasionally other actors (e.g., the general public, government, and other companies) with the aim to cultivate and engage an open research and innovation ecosystem enabling the firm to boost its R&D activities using external resources. Therefore, an academic program is an embodiment of the idea that firms can leverage external ideas and resources to further advance their own technology, brand, and business activities. Plus, an academic program can act as a talent generation pool for the firm’s future recruitment needs..

Chapter 14: IP Considerations

Unlike most legal advice on IP and R&D, we do not simply put up a big red flag, but rather present considerations and examples to the competent R&D manager and ask them to plan and manage the associated risks and opportunities, while also being responsible for the generation of novel IP. Not having a plan for intellectual property and how it will be managed and protected can result in catastrophic losses from a business perspective. It should not be underestimated how easily others intentionally or incidentally steal your “secret sauce” and have the proper understanding and control of your intellectual assets.

Chapter 15: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

Through this book we have tried to cover almost every important aspect of R&D management and technology commercialization. We cannot therefore end this book without mentioning Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), an emerging paradigm that emphasizes the integration of ethical considerations, societal needs, and stakeholder engagement throughout the research and innovation process. Importantly, we demonstrate how RRI promises to be the differentiating factor that can safeguard your innovation from a large number of commercialization points of failure.

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Finally, it is important to acknowledge that R&D management and technology commercialization are topics that have been extensively studied, spoken, and written about. Hence, we recognize here a few alternative sources of knowledge, should the keen reader want to dig deeper and explore a wider set of perspectives:

• Jain, Ravi, Harry C. Triandis, and Cynthia W. Weick. Managing research, development and innovation: Managing the unmanageable. Vol. 33. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

• Akhilesh, K. B., R&D Management, Springer, 2014.

• Gibert, Patrick, Natalia Bobadilla, Lise Gastaldi, Martine Le Boulaire, and Olga Lelebina. Innovation, research and development management. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

• Touhill, C. Joseph, Gregory J. Touhill, and Thomas A. O'riordan. Commercialization of innovative technologies: bringing good ideas to the marketplace. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.