Your organization's R&D strategy is crucial. How can you ensure short-term goals are in sync with it?

It is important that R&D projects are aligned with the company's strategic planning, creating an important value lever. R&D projects are generally longer term and can help to understand issues that are strategic but are not mature enough to calibrate the research, energy and strategy involved over time.

To align short-term goals with your organization's R&D strategy: 1. Communicate the R&D strategy clearly. 2. Set SMART goals that reflect and support the strategy. 3. Regularly review and adjust goals for alignment. 4. Foster cross-functional collaboration. 5. Incentivize alignment with strategic objectives. 6. Allocate resources to support both short-term and long-term initiatives. 7. Use tools for tracking progress towards strategic goals. 8. Engage leadership in the goal-setting and review process. These steps ensure that short-term efforts drive progress towards your long-term R&D objectives.

Example: In a pharmaceutical company focusing on developing a new drug for diabetes, the long-term objective is to bring a novel insulin formulation to market within five years. To align short-term goals with this objective, the company defines specific milestones, such as completing preclinical trials within the first year, starting Phase I clinical trials by the second year, and filing for regulatory approval by the fourth year. Regular reviews are conducted to confirm that these milestones are met and adjusted as needed based on research findings and regulatory feedback, keeping the project aligned with the strategic objective of bringing the drug to market on time.

To achieve goals in R&D successfully, one needs to deeply understand the strategy and core vision of the organization or company. 1. set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that motivate the work and write them down to make them feel tangible. 2. Design the strategy involving your team’s needs, objectives, and perspectives. 3. Breaking goals into objectives and action plans. 4. Create an environment that encourages learning, creativity, and experimentation from failures. 5. Cultivate the habits, mindset, and actions required to accomplish goals

One of the most important ways to be successful in short-term strategy is to form a cross-functional team comprising members from various parts of the organization, especially from marketing and finance. Collaborating with them from the onset of a project helps in its smooth and improved development.

Example: When working on a new cancer treatment, the pharmaceutical company forms a cross-functional team with the members from R&D, marketing, regulatory affairs, finance, and manufacturing. This team collaborates to set short-term goals, such as developing a market analysis, securing funding for each phase of the clinical trials, and ensuring that manufacturing processes meet regulatory standards. By involving diverse departments, the team ensures that all aspects of the drug development process are considered and aligned with the overall R&D strategy, facilitating a smoother path from research to market launch.

Example: The pharmaceutical company adopts an approach for the development of a new antiviral medication. They break the project into smaller parts, each focused on different aspects, such as compound synthesis, in vitro testing, and animal studies. Weekly stand-up meetings are held to review progress, address challenges, and make necessary adjustments. For instance, if initial compound synthesis results are unsatisfactory, the team can quickly focus on alternative compounds without significant delays. Regular checking after each sprint help the team learn from their experiences and continuously refine their approach, ensuring alignment with the strategic goal of developing a market-ready antiviral drug.

Example: To ensure that short-term goals are responsive to the latest advancements, the pharmaceutical company tries to have a culture of continuous learning. Employees are encouraged to attend industry conferences, participate in webinars, and subscribe to scientific journals. For example, during the development of a new pain management drug, the team stays updated on emerging pain pathways and novel drug delivery systems. This continuous learning enables them to set short-term goals that incorporate cutting-edge research, such as experimenting with new drug delivery methods, ensuring that their efforts are aligned with the strategic goal of developing a superior pain management solution.

In line with the organization's Long term vision, mission and strategic plan, R&D projects are selected. Detailed project plan is to be executed from the scratch -feasibility analysis till final stage of commercialization of product. This long term timing plan to be broken as chunks of Short term goals with the provision of looping reviews. These feedback loop is closed in every stage for passing to next level of design review stage. In every stage of reaching short term goal milestone, feedback from CFT, internal customers, end customer, field team observation to be considered without any compromise on output .