Organization

Measuring Intellectual Property: Top 5 IP Metrics In Product Development

/ Blogroll, Finance, Metrics, Organization, Process, Tactics

Due the technology boom in the late 1990s, which was coincidental with the rapid expansion of globalism and open innovation, and was then amplified by the less-than-stellar behaviors of certain countries, IP began to increase as a corporate priority.

As is the case when companies need to get their arms around new issues or opportunities, IP was first formed as “its own thing.”  There was an “IP Department.” Executives know that they must subsequently facilitate the integration a new requirement or capability into the right places in their organizations.  Leading companies began to do it around 2005.  For example, IP professionals were collocated in R&D and had dual reporting relationships – among many other techniques.

There was another issue though.  That issue remains today.  Valuing IP is a real bear.  Little by little industry is building experience as each transaction occurs.  However, it is still the wild west.  The value is what you are willing to pay for it.  Finance folks rule the roost.  Accounting folks are a long way from being able to assign standard values.  But, as experience builds, standard-like values will emerge as industry gains more and more examples for reference.  For certain types of commodity IP, standard ranges have already formed.

Well, as IP integration and uptake occurs, metrics follow.  Patents and Trademarks have long been metrics used by R&D and Product Development.  They are three of the top five still, and will likely remain.  But, two of the top five penetrating IP metrics have now been superseded by “licensing.”  “Number of Out-Licenses” and “Number of In-Licenses” have cracked the top five IP metrics now used across industries by the innovation functions.

Licensing is another form of codified IP, like patents.  Note that industry is still counting “its,” as it still does with patents (vs. “monetized revenues and/or profits”), but this is a clear sign of the progress of integration and awareness building.

 

Top 5 IP Metrics Used By Product Development CXOs

Measuring-Intellectual-Property-Top-5-IP-Metrics

 

Measuring Intellectual Property: Top 5 IP Metrics [Machine Design – October 2017] looks at the gradual inroads that IP metrics are making in the overall measurement of product development performance; and identifies the Top 5 IP Metrics used by R&D and Product Development.

 

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The Importance of Engineering Work Ethic

/ Blogroll, Finance, Metrics, Organization, Process

How much “overhead” does your company require of its professionals chartered with inventing the future?  Does your company manage to keep overhead below 50%?  Historical figures indicate “other responsibilities” took almost 65% of the work day.

 

Add Personal Freedoms To Structural Overhead

What about personal activities that get juggled during the work day at a much greater rate than in the 20th Century, now that everyone has cell phones and personal devices in the 21st Century?  Are professionals working longer hours to compensate for the personal time they take during the work day (Figure 1)?

Figure 1

Focused Work vs. Unfocused Work

Does multitasking further infringe on productivity, just as repeated set ups and tear downs used to infringe on manufacturing productivity?  The act of switching tasks requires mental time to regain one’s previous train of thought.  How many times does switching occur each day?  Certainly there is more switching during a work day today than in any time in human history.  How many times can one switch tasks each day without incurring overall mental fatigue that affects all work, and one’s personal life?

Is anyone paying attention?  Or, is this topic now considered an infringement on people’s freedoms – even though their employer is paying them for a full work day?  Is it heresy to even bring up the subject in this day and age?  Many would say yes!  It is heresy!

 

Little Picture vs. Big Picture

The preceding paragraphs address the trials and tribulations of individuals in the workplace during a typical work day.  But, there is more to it.  Company cultures have impacts.  Country cultures have impacts?  And, these impacts accumulate over time.

In the next ten years there will be a rearrangement of the top industrialized countries as measured by Gross Domestic Product.  Do the countries that are forecast to become the dominant economic players of the future permit such daily workplace freedoms?  Likely not.  Are any of the industrialized nations that lead the world today currently forecast to rise in global rankings?  None that I am aware of.

What then is the impact of employer overhead?  What is the impact of personal daily freedoms in mature industrialized economies, that are now considered to be almost a human’s right, on the ranking of countries and their prosperity a decade from now?  Will dropping productivity trends reverse their course?  No they won’t, not unless something changes.

 

Living In Reality

Once rights or benefits have been granted or assumed, it is hard to reverse course.  Certainly no one wants to go backwards.  But, it seems that as we have moved forward on an individual level in the little picture that it is having a non-positive impact on the big picture –  which will play out in the not too distant future.

The Importance of an Engineering Work Ethic [Machine Design – August 2017] makes the case that both employers and employees may benefit if a bit more attention is paid to structural overhead and personal multitasking during the work day.

 

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MOON-ON-A-STICK

INNOVATION MASTERCLASS

Measuring Product Development Productivity & Performance

October 3-4, 2017

The Moller Centre

University of Cambridge

UK

BROCHURE

 

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