Smadar Nehab

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RD Management in Startups

• Smadar Nehab

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In this presentation

• The role of RD in the company
• The stages toward the first product release
• Tips on related management issues
• Personnel management challenges

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RD position in the company

• Pivotal Central
• Under the CEO
• Starts before support, marketing and sales does
  it first
• Grows to a smaller position
• Middle-man between the technologists, management
  and customers.

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The RD challenges

• Time to market (TTM)
• Quality vs. time
• Features vs. time
• Group quality vs. size
• Early exposure above all
• Customers wherever possible

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Product development stages
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Moving forward from crisis to crisis
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Importance of product definition

• Critical to success
• The right way to a good definition
• Understand/live the market, talk to customers
• Understand competition
• Clarify the differentiators
• The threats to a good definition
• Technology orientation
• NIH Not Invented Here
• Well teach the market

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Minimizing schedule risks -the spiral development
approach
project 1
project2
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QA - minimizing test risks

• Defines the quality of the product
• No more witchcraft but a mature discipline
• Position? Under RD to ensure that quality is an
  RD responsibility
• Involvement at all development stages (TQM?)
• Balance between quality and time
• Staff a 31 ratio with development

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Working with the CEO and the US operation

• Key to successful product launch
• Bridge the geographical, cultural and
  professional differences
• Keep continuously open formal and informal
  communication channels
• Expose RD to customers at all stages
• Well defined responsibilities and processes

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Who are the people?

• Profile innovators, dedicated, excited,
  believers, give their soul to the issue
• Young vs. experienced
• Technical vs. managerial
• Women?

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The 2 RD ladders
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A day in the life of an engineer

• Flexible hours
• Code debug
• Meeting with peers to check interfaces
• Review peers work
• Reviews with the manager
• Good coffee (arc café minimum), food, and games

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The day of a team leader

• Specifications
• Interviews
• Individual meetings
• Weekly group meetings
• Design reviews with teams and other groups

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The roles of VP RD

• Responsibility before the CEO
• Managing the operation
• Hiring, hiring, hiring
• Interfaces with marketing, support, sales
• Quality management
• Review/veto role from specs to test

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Managing RD in startups is an art of juggling

• You manage and you do code
• You do engineering but must be able to fill-in
  for what ever is missing at the time
• You work with the CEO and you debug with the
  engineers
• Your deliverables are critical but are extremely
  dependent on the rest of the organization

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What did we cover?

• The critical/middle-man role of VP RD in a
  startup organization
• The roller coaster nature of product
  development in a startups
• The people challenges in RD management in
  startups