A strategic methodology for IR&D project selection

A strategy is presented for systematically allocating resources to competing independent research and development (IR&D) projects in a company building systems for the US Department of Defense. The approach is less mathematically complex than many techniques. It is argued that the key to selecting a successful IR&D program lies in stimulating the organization to generate a set of proposals that concentrates on high-leverage technologies applicable to a broad range of business pursuits. This approach relies on the judgement of key business and technical personnel in the organization. After giving a taxonomy characterizing various approaches the authors briefly review R&D selection methods reported in recent literature. Then an interactive process is described for proposing and selecting IR&D projects. Procedures are included for idea submittal and evaluation. Experiences are discussed from the application of the process to a corporation with multiple business units