Research and Development Managers
Plan, organise, direct, control and coordinate research and development activities within organisations.
A budget week in the lab
You are the research and development manager at a packaging company, with four active projects and funding for only three of them next year. It is Monday of budget week. You have a team of scientists and technicians, a leadership meeting on Friday and one project that will have to stop. Nobody knows yet which one.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
My project is the one with the best long-term potential, but it will not show anything sellable for two years. I know the executives want quick wins. Please do not let them close it just because it is slow.
Promise her you will protect her project at all costs when the executives meet
Anika is relieved, but you cannot keep the promise if the evidence is weak. When the decision goes the other way she feels let down, and your word carries less weight with the team.
Ask her for a short plan with checkpoints so you can argue her case honestly
Anika grumbles about extra paperwork, then produces a clearer plan than she has ever had. You can now argue for her project with real milestones, which is what leadership needs to hear.
Tell her every project has to compete equally, so she should not expect favours
It is a fair rule, but she feels dismissed. A long-term project needs a different case from a short-term one, and she walks away without help to make it.
Our biggest customer wants a recyclable lid by March. If we promise it and the lab delivers, we win the contract. How sure are you that your team can do it?
Say it is definitely achievable, because you do not want to lose the contract
The contract is signed. In January the team hits a snag nobody could have predicted, and the company faces a penalty. Research is uncertain, and pretending otherwise is unfair on everyone.
Say you cannot promise anything because research is unpredictable
It is true, but Callista cannot make a decision on a shrug. She needs a way to plan around the uncertainty, which you did not give her.
Give an honest range, name the main risk, and suggest committing to staged milestones instead of one date
Callista can take staged milestones to the customer and keep the relationship. Telling the commercial side what is likely, what is not, and what you will know by when is much of the job.
I think I made a mistake in last week's trial. I may have mixed up two sample labels. The result looked great, and I am worried that if I say anything, I will get in trouble and the project will look bad.
Tell Pita to keep it quiet unless it turns out to matter, and carry on with the next trial
The result is quoted in a report. Weeks later someone tries to repeat it, and it falls apart. The cost of the buried mistake is far bigger than the cost of an early correction.
Thank Pita for speaking up, then repeat the trial and record what happened
The repeat shows a more modest result, and Pita learns that raising an error is respected here. A lab where people hide mistakes cannot be trusted with its own results.
Reassure Pita that it is probably fine and move on without checking the labels again
Pita feels better, but nothing has been resolved. The doubt sits in the data until someone else finds it, and Pita learns less than they could have.
How it went
By Friday you have an honest case for three projects and a plan to wind down the fourth carefully. Research managers protect the curiosity of their team while keeping the work tied to what the organisation needs. Would you enjoy making those calls when the answers are not yet known?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The coating that worked once
A fictional case set in the research and development centre of a fictional company that makes food packaging.
The situation
At Kingfisher Packaging, research and development manager Yusuf Okonkwo-Reid was excited. A scientist on his team, Linh, had created a plant-based coating that kept food fresh without plastic. It had worked beautifully in one test. The sales director wanted to announce it at an industry conference in six weeks. But Linh quietly told Yusuf she had only managed it once, and the second and third attempts had behaved differently. If she was right, an announcement could mean promising something the company could not deliver.
What they did
Yusuf thanked Linh for telling him, which took some courage, and then protected her from the pressure. He told the sales director the result was promising but unproven, and offered something truthful for the conference: a talk about the research direction, without product claims. He gave the team two weeks to repeat the test in a controlled way and asked a second scientist to run it independently, so the answer would not rest on one person.
How it turned out
The coating worked in some conditions and failed in others, and the team found the reason was humidity in the lab. The conference talk went ahead as a direction, not a launch. The sales director was disappointed but later grateful. Real progress took another year.
What would you do?
- Why was it important that Linh felt safe telling her manager about the problem?
- How would you handle a boss who wanted good news faster than the science could deliver it?
- What do you think makes a research manager different from a researcher?