Paper
Managing for Revolutionary Gains— Going Beyond Traditional Innovation
- Authors:
- Marc G. Millis
- Abstract
- A typical challenge of managing research projects is to decide how best to disburse limited resources to competing options to achieve the greatest overall progress. When it comes to seeking ‘game-changing’ advances, the situation is even more challenging. First, research aimed at revolutionary advancements is different from just innovation. On both the individual and organization level, it is natural to doubt the viability of new, unfamiliar concepts. Foresight is required to extend beyond the known in combination with rigor to make genuine progress. Additionally, such research can span multiple disciplines and different levels of progress and applicability. And lastly, on topics that appear far from fruition, available resources are minimal. To address these challenges and provide insights for managing projects aimed at ‘game-changing’ advances, historic lessons are compiled and condensed to provide a set of recommendations that include: combining vision and rigor, separate revolutionary research from taking care of existing business, devise prioritization criteria, break long-range goals into shorter-term tasks, judge rigor instead of feasibility, define success as gaining reliable knowledge, and embrace failures.
- Keywords
- Engineering Managment Education; R&D Strategies; Project Orgnaizaton; Leadership & Control; Planning & Forcasting; Innovation; Out-of-Box; Revolutionary; Breakthrough
- StartPage
- 11
- EndPage
- 20
- Doi