Managing high performance R&D teams

This article is about producing extraordinary team results, that is, results that go well beyond what would have normally been expected. R & D-based organizations are always trying to make those critical advances or technological leaps that will give their products significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. The dilemma is not in identifying what these possibilities might be but in getting the business organization to commit to one of them while there is still considerable uncertainty regarding their merits or feasibilities. Ralf Katz shows how a maverick team of technologist within Digital was able to build the political base that allowed them to overcome senior management's skepticism and move Digital from its familiar core technology to a promising new, but unproven RISC-based technology, called ALPHA.