Roads for developing and delivering technologies to a defined set of requirements and fixed budgets can be executed by many. Managing an Applied Research & Development technology division, however, is much different. An open canvas with no defined technologies, no existing customer base, or set preconditions can be extremely daunting to many and extremely invigorating to some. Unlike large enterprises, measurements here are based on business outcomes, innovation, integration, and clarity within aggressive timelines.
At NTTi3, a US-based Applied R&D division for NTT, I was required to do just that. My curious and creative side came out in an overly technical field. A great example of this was building out the cross-disciplinary development team that could execute these particular measurements. My team of 5 needed to act as 50. We created a model to do just that. We supported the product platforms and their product managers with an in-house CORE team and a remote FLEX team. Our core team members drove the user stories, stitched together prototypes, validated their design assumptions, and set design patterns to be exercised. Our flex team remotely supported the testing of these assumptions and built out the elements for validation. While our product managers sought and validated true value within the product, we would prepare our designs for scale & growth.