How can you allocate R&D budgets effectively with remote teams?

📊 Mastering R&D budget allocation with remote teams is like being a skilled navigator in uncharted waters. I'd start by charting a clear course with well-defined R&D goals that align with our business vision. Assessing the potential treasures and risks of each R&D venture helps judiciously allocate our gold coins. Openly sharing the treasure map, a.k.a. the R&D budget, with my remote crew ensures everyone's rowing in the same direction. Vigilant monitoring and ready-to-adjust sails help us stay on course, adapting to the winds of change. This way, we navigate to success together! 🚢🌐

To set your research and development (R&D) goals, start by understanding the challenges that your R&D teams face. With rapid changes and increased use of software, it’s cheaper and faster to experiment with new ideas. R&D goals should align with your business plan, focusing on creating new products for your main customers and finding ways to improve your business. Understanding your revenue streams and ideal customer profile is crucial. This ensures your R&D efforts are aligned with your business goals and market trends, making them more effective and beneficial for your business.

The R&D budget allocation should be reviewed and allign with business goals and frequently addressed to overcome any unknown commercial risks that could be seen due to technology change, market standard, capability change, regulations change. The ROI should also be considered to proportionate business value

Not all the countries have same salary, of course, but one metric we should be focusing more on is the Purchasing power. In the R&D part, the "localization" of each cost is needed as it can't be same across different countries. If you have a remote team, here are some tools that can help you get an idea about the differentiation of prices and power parity and compare different cities: • livingcost.org • expatistan.com • mylifeelsewhere.com • numbeo.com Allocating the right amount for each team/localization can be the key to succeed and develop a rich R&D process, maximizing the results with certain budget.

To estimate R&D costs and benefits, use engineering productivity tools like Jellyfish. It helps you track costs and improve your team’s velocity and spend. Conduct a revenue and cost-saving analysis using historical data to identify trends and opportunities for savings. Get sign-off from engineering and revenue teams to ensure everyone is on board. Finally, incorporate feedback from all departments into your R&D process.

In an increasingly remote and distributed world, it's important to consider few additional points when formulating an R&D Strategy: -Skill availability: Do you need specialized skills that are more/less available in certain geographies? -Cost vs quality: Are there regions that provide lower rates for a given skillset while preserving quality? -Mobility: Do R&D teams need to come together regularly or gain access to specialized equipment? Is that easily achievable if needed? -Timezone: Do the R&D teams need to interact regularly with stakeholders and/or customers in specific geographies? If so, is there enough overlap of timezones to allow meetings and collaboration to take place?