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Agree what success means
Define what would count as answering the question before the research begins.
Research & development
The answer isn’t obvious.
That’s where we start.
Dedicated R&D engagements for organisations with a research budget and startups with a closed round.
- Dedicated engagements
- Agreed review points
- Research you own
Explore the unknown, keep the evidence.
We scope around a question, agree what an answer would look like, and make room for the research to change direction.
What do you need
to find out?
A technical question is a better starting point than a specification when the answer is still uncertain.
ContinueChange directionStop
All three can be valid outcomes at a review point.
Test the reasoning
Use agreed review points to decide whether the evidence supports continuing.
Deliver the knowledge
Keep the work produced and its reasoning, including the approaches that did not work.
Two starting points, the same depth of thinking.
R&D is an independent engagement. You do not need a technology audit to begin.
Organisations with an R&D budget
You have the funding and mandate. You need a technical partner who can work at depth, with the focus that research requires.
Explore a research partnership
Startups with a closed round
You have raised funding and need technical build-out capacity faster than you can hire it. We work as an engineering partner.
Discuss your next stageThe work is yours. So is the reasoning.
Negative results are written up too. Knowing what does not work is part of the value of research.
How an R&D engagement runs
R&D work is defined by not knowing the answer at the start. We scope these engagements around a question rather than a specification, agree in advance what would count as having answered it, and set review points where continuing, changing direction or stopping are all acceptable outcomes.
Stopping early is a legitimate result of research and we will say so when we think we have reached it. The alternative, quietly continuing to bill against a line of enquiry that has died, is how R&D budgets get wasted.
What you keep
Ownership of what is produced, and the reasoning behind it. Research whose conclusions live only in the heads of the contractors who did it has not been delivered. Negative results are written up too: knowing which approach does not work is most of what you paid for.
Start an R&D conversation.
Tell us the question you are trying to answer rather than the specification you want built. We will come back on whether it is a question we can help with, and what answering it would take.