I was very happy to host one of my mentors, UNSW Professor John Roberts this week. He gave a well-attended seminar where he discussed how we could use a strategic framework to address the feasibility of any strategic initiative, including what research area to pursue. He boiled this strategic framework down to the following eight questions.
Strengths and Weaknesses:
1. What are we good at? Includes technical skills, motivation, project management, and communication skills.
2. Can we do this? Includes self-assessment of time, knowledge, and skills.
Customers’ Needs:
3. What do customers want? Includes considering the desires of editors, colleagues, deans, managers, and students.
4. Will customers value this? Includes relevance, elegance, rigour, and contribution.
Corporate Objectives:
5. Where do we want to go? Includes an assessment of short-term desires such as an interest in working with interesting ideas and people, and long-term desires such as career progression and having real-world impact.
6. Will this get us there? Includes reflecting on whether there is a gap in the market, and whether there is a market in the gap.
Market Characteristics
7. What is the market like? Includes an assessment of the dynamics of a research area’s lifecycle and finding the sweet-spot, which is before interest in the area peaks.
8. Will the market support this? Includes an assessment of what competitors are doing and recognition of the long time to market.