Highly Autonomous Small-team-type R&D Management Model and Its Trial Management Experiment

This paper presents a model aimed at actual application to R&D sites where technological uncertainty is high. The key points are to make the team small on the premise that the leader and the members share the goal, to transfer the power and authority for research activities to the team almost completely, and to minimize interference with the researchers as much as possible to enhance the autonomy of their activities. Results of management experiment conducted at an R&D center of a Japanese company engaged in the electronic industry are reported. We compared teams to which this model was applied, and therefore had higher autonomy, with other teams under conventional management. Several months afterwards, we conducted a questionnaire survey, according to the structured interview method, of researchers engaged in trial-and-error approaches in their research activities asking how their actions and feeling changed. We found that the activities of researchers on teams to which this model was applied tended to be more autonomous. In addition, it became clear through the application of this model that they had a higher tendency to achieve deep insight and a higher tendency to work without worrying about failure or deadlines.