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Monthly Archives: October 2012

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22 10, 2012

Eight Rules of Effective R&D Portfolio Management

By |2017-05-23T15:42:03-08:00October 22nd, 2012|Blog|0 Comments

white_paperDan Smith and I have written a white paper on strategic R&D portfolio management that summarizes many of the lessons and insights we’ve gleaned during twelve years of client engagements. The white paper is organized into eight ‘rules’:

  1. Avoid incomplete strategies
  2. Build an actionable strategy
  3. Don’t buy in to bubble plots
  4. Move beyond prioritization
  5. Present decision-makers with 3-6 compelling portfolios
  6. Use a variety of project selection methods
  7. Ask the right question
  8. Build risk into your forecast

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll no doubt hear echoes of previous posts in some of these rules.  So, what do all these rules have in common? When heeded, they guide project teams and decision makers to the hard-but-essential conversations about key project risks and portfolio trade-offs. Those conversations are sine qua non of successful R&D decision making.

Here is the link to the white paper. Enjoy!

PS: We welcome your comments and suggestions for the next eight rules…

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5 10, 2012

A Case of Mistaken Priorities: Project Prioritization Gone Bad

By |2017-05-23T15:42:03-08:00October 5th, 2012|Blog|0 Comments

Tumblr-Two-HeadedMonsterIt’s no secret that projects in the earlier stages of the development lifecycle are evaluated and managed very differently than projects in the later stages. One major pharmaceutical company believed these differences to be so great, however, that they split their development organization in two. Over time, the structural gulf became a cultural gulf, leading to downright animosity between the early- and late-stage divisions. Making matters worse, both developed their own portfolio management processes that were not only distinct from each other, but also completely disconnected.

As projects were handed off from the early-stage side, the late-stage side perceived that they were receiving too many “low-value” projects. The late-stage side subsequently starved these projects of resources, which delayed them and reduced their chances for success. Diversion of resources, however paltry, to these “low-value” projects also impacted late-stage projects that the organization perceived to be valuable.
(more…)

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