Better Ways of Doing R&D

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with one of Perth's most experienced Scrum Masters.

No, This is not a post about Rugby. In this context, a Scrum Master is someone who is trained in the art of R&D using a methodology known as Agile Development. In particular, this is a version of Agile known as Scrum or Sprint methodology.

Why do you need a methodology to do R&D? Because trying things at random without a plan, a map, a purpose and a goal is doing nothing but wasting investor's money. And now you're on notice, because investors read this blog!

The business-school R&D methodology that most large, established companies still use is called "Waterfall" and is primarily characterized by use of the Gantt chart and MS Project or other task management programs. I knew there were serious problems with this methodology when I first started out 25 years ago. The project I was working on then accomplished nothing except create and continually refine a very elaborate Gantt chart. A complete waste of resources. How did it happen?

Hired Management Consultant with MBA: "OK, guys, how long will it take you to design the ABC thingy?"

Engineers: "We don't know. We'll do some research on that and get back to you at next week's meeting."

MBA: "Right. That's officially a Deliverable. Now, You were supposed to complete the 640 gismo last week. Did you do it?"

Engineers: "No, we can't finish that until we do the TTA analysis, so we started on that instead."

MBA: "No problem, I'll just move that task up and change the dependency. Now, how long will that take you to complete? And what does TTA stand for?"

Engineers: "TTA stands for The TTA Analysis. We don't know how long it will take yet. We'll do some research on that and get back to you week after next."

MBA: "Why so long?"

Engineers: "This week we're busy finding out how long the ABC thingy will take."

Folks, this literally never ended. The company went broke before ANYTHING whatsoever was accomplished.

After that experience I began refining my own R&D methodology, shunning Gantt charts and focusing on doing things that create reliable, valuable, and relevant knowledge. When I came across Agile Development recently, I immediately recognized it as an enormously valuable tool and totally compatible with my own methodology.

I'll write more about these methodologies in future posts.