R2O | Research to Operations

The actors involved in R2O usually have other responsibilities or roles in the research labs or on the operations floors. It should come as no surprise that these other activities can occasionally detract from contributing to a transition project. In order to successfully manage these actors, it is important to set reasonable timelines for the project and its elements, and, in doing so, understand how the individuals along the critical path spend their time. The purpose of this exercise is not to micromanage individuals or place blame for the incompletion of a task. Nor is the focus on what is not getting done. Instead, the challenge is to determine how each employee participating in an R2O effort is incentivized. Incentives may be material (such as pay correlated with performance) or based on personal motives and values. An additional layer of complexity comes into play when R2O transitions intersect organizational boundaries, particularly when there is not an owner-contractor relatio