TIME-BASED COMPETITION IS NOT ENOUGH

OVERVIEW: Heads of R&D in large corporations are everyday faced with m anaging conflicting priorities - on the one hand, training their peopl e in disciplines and creating new technology and, on the other, develo ping rapidly a stream of new products for customers. These priorities not only compete for resources but also suggest different organization al structures, timelines, management metrics, and managers best suited to lead them. Some companies have been experimenting with new ways to manage these conflicting priorities and organizational requirements b y asking managers to play new roles, by creating new organizational sh apes and styles, by physically housing R&D people differently, and by selecting different, and by selecting different, non-obvious people fo r senior jobs in R&D. These experiments have helped these companies ac complish both sets of priorities with less compromise or interference.