I enjoyed participating in the IEEE TEMSCON Global 2026 conference and meeting so many professionals who share my passion for technology, engineering, and R&D management. TEMSCON Global is the flagship conference of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) and a premier venue for research on management, innovation, and leadership across the spectrum of technology, science, and engineering.
It was fun visiting Montreal again (always best in the summer!) and the conference venue, the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), was ideal because this Quebec university is so focused on technological innovation. There were several great plenary sessions and paper presentations from researchers all over the world.
In the runup to the conference, I was happy to help the excellent general co-chairs, Andy Chen and Tariq Samad, by reviewing some submitted papers as a member of the International Program Committee.
On Thursday, I chaired the R&D Management session and also presented a paper, “Aligning the R&D Portfolio with Strategy Using a Method Based on Expected Business Impact”, by me and George Hemingway.
ABSTRACT
R&D project portfolios are commonly constructed by applying multiple criteria and weighted scoring methods not widely understood beyond R&D practitioners. This complicates justifying investments in R&D to the CEO and Board. The limitations of valuing R&D projects in purely financial terms point to a need for expressing R&D project value in alternative terms relatable to business strategy. The proposed method aligns R&D investments directly with various intended contributions to business success called Business Impacts. This judgment-based method crucially includes a technique for directly comparing different types of Business Impacts, thereby creating a non-financial, but common, scale for project valuation that all projects can be ranked on. Agreeing with the CEO and other key stakeholders on the composition of a desired Target Portfolio in terms of Business Impact and Time Horizon prior to R&D proposal solicitation and selection will cascade strategy and improve the quality of R&D proposals. The process is flexible and can be augmented by Technology Strategy elements such as Technology Roadmaps and other criteria. The resulting R&D Portfolio is readily communicable at the Board level and facilitates strategic rebalancing as the need arises.
The paper will eventually be published in the IEEE Transactions but here is the preprint for now.