A Revolution in R&D

CASE STUDY: REDESIGNING R&D GOVERNANCE
A large drug company recently completed an intensive
three-month project to redesign discovery governance
and is already reaping the benefits. The
company had always placed a high value on the
quality of its scientists and their entrepreneurial
drive. Now, however, it was growing increasingly dissatisfied
with its existing system of allocating
resources: the decision-making procedures were
proving very troublesome to navigate, decision makers
were difficult to identify, communication was
poor, and the decisions themselves often seemed
politically motivated rather than guided by scientific
and commercial promise.
In redesigning the decision-making procedures, the
company began with a thorough review of its current
governance process, both as espoused and as practiced
(the two were remarkably distinct in certain
instances). Various root causes of undesirable outcomes
were identified: these included perverse
incentives (that is, incentives encouraging behavior
Managing Organizational Change
With the advent of genomics, R&D personnel suddenly
find themselves in alien territory. As the scientific
methods change, the old instinctive
approaches and behaviors need to change as well.
Among the greatest challenges facing R&D executives
is managing the human side of change.
How the Scientist’s Job is Changing
R&D science is shifting from an arena of experimentation
to one increasingly concerned with theoretical
biology. The challenge is now less how to
get the data than what to do with the data collected.
Scientists who formerly could do their jobs virtually
on their own—conduct their own experiments, and
generate and analyze the data themselves—now
find they need to collaborate with others who have
more specialized technological skills, in areas such
as informatics, robotics, or microfabrication.
Indeed, the scientists of the pre-genomics era are
destined to evolve into two kinds of successors:
at odds with company strategy); unclear criteria,
which project champions were disinclined to clarify,
let alone follow; and inadequate allocation of decision
rights (that is, too vague a definition of who was
entitled to make which decisions), which often
meant that no decision was made at all.
From the lessons learned, a new governance process
was devised. Not just devised, but activated: by
modifying incentives, the company ensured that
practice was now properly aligned with espousal.
The new process is working well: R&D managers
navigate it easily, and decisions are being made and
communicated clearly and consistently. It allows scientists
more time to focus on their projects, and it
gives those projects appropriate funding and management
involvement. It has accordingly won the
confidence of those affected by it, and can claim a
considerable contribution to the marked improvement
in productivity that has followed its adoption.
those who interpret the data and devise plans for
exploiting it, and those who continue to develop
and optimize the technologies required for generating
the data. (Companies should be sure to recognize
and reward the latter group for its contributions,
and not relegate it to second-class status.)
All scientists will need to become comfortable with
new ways of working together—more sharing or collectivist
now, less conducive to solitary initiative.
The scientists of the future will still take responsibility
for their own work, but perhaps will no longer
take the credit for it: that will be ascribed to team
effort.
Managing the Transition
Changing from bench-based to information-based
work in this way, and from favoring fairly independent
endeavors to promoting a more collaborative
ethos, is bound to be awkward or even painful for
most of those involved, scientists and managers alike.
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