Leadership for Collaboration: the Dynamic Interplay of Innovation, Efficiency, and Decision-Making
The art of guiding diverse talents and perspectives toward a common goal paves the way for harnessing collective intelligence to drive innovation. Leadership is not a solitary endeavor but a collaborative force that fosters a culture of inclusion and nurtures an environment where ideas flourish, efficiency is optimized, and decisions are made collectively. This interaction of leadership qualities serves as the foundation for sustainable success in an ever-evolving technology landscape.
This issue of the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFs illuminates the dynamic interplay of innovation, efficiency, and decision-making in the continuously developing world of business and technology. In his Leadership BRIEF Marcel Knepper explores the ever-evolving landscape of process optimization. In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficiency is essential, and process optimization stands as a crucial pillar of sustainable success. Using a real industry project, he demonstrates how strategic analysis and redesign can dramatically reduce setup times, illustrating the tangible benefits that can be reaped through the optimization of business processes. However, this journey is not without its challenges, from navigating stakeholder relationships to maintaining focus and transparency. In their BRIEF, Svetlana Klessova and Sebastian Engell continue their exploration of the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) scale. Building upon Part 1, they introduce a scoring system that not only quantifies the effort required to progress between TRL levels but also offers a valuable tool to estimate resources and compare project performance. These insights are invaluable for organizations striving to bring cutting-edge technologies to market. Frank Habermann addresses a timeless challenge faced by tech entrepreneurs and leaders: making critical decisions in a complex and dynamic landscape. Habermann introduces Decision Hats, an innovative tool designed to organize and optimize participation in decision-making processes. Finally, Alexander Brem showcases his Editor’s Picks, a curated selection of articles from our IEEE TEMS journal of practice, Engineering Management Review (EMR). These articles offer practice-oriented, evidence-based insights for leaders in technology-driven organizations.
The TEMS Leadership BRIEFS are a free membership benefit for all TEMS members. If you would like to contribute to the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFS please contact me at sabine.baumann@ieee.org. I do hope this issue of the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFS provides you with new ideas and actionable insights. Transform knowledge into action. And don’t do it alone: Involve your team when making decisions in this complex world.
Sabine Baumann, Editor-in-Chief
In this Issue
Marcel Knepper – Process Optimization: Increasing Efficiency for Sustainable Business Success
Process optimization is crucial for business success. It involves analyzing and streamlining processes, leveraging technology, and engaging employees. However, projects may be challenged by dysfunctional stakeholder relationships, lack of focus or intransparencies. In his Leadership BRIEF Marcel Knepper illustrates process optimization in an industry project, where setup time was dramatically reduced through analysis and redesign.
Svetlana Klessova and Sebastian Engell – Climbing up the Ladder: How does Effort Increase with Technical Maturity in R&D Projects?
Part 2: Predicting the Efforts to Progress on the TRL Scale
Research and development (R&D) projects develop technologies into marketable products or operational systems, but many projects fail due to technical challenges, inadequate ROI projections, or lack of user acceptance. In Part 1 Sebastian Engell and Svetlana Klessova refined the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) scale and introduced a scoring system to quantify the effort needed to progress between TRL levels. In this part the authors introduce a scoring system to estimate required resources and to compare performance of similar projects based on relative average efforts.
Frank Habermann – A Simple Path to Better Decision-Making
Navigating the intricate landscape of making numerous critical choices regarding business partners, technology platforms, and product features is an enduring challenge for tech entrepreneurs and leaders. And the question inevitably arises: where should one assert autonomy, and when is it wiser to engage the collaborative wisdom of others? In this Leadership BRIEF, Frank Habermann introduces “Decision Hats,” a novel tool that helps to easily organize participation in decision-making processes, so that leaders can free themselves from unnecessary burdens and concentrate on the things that really matter.
Alexander Brem – Editor’s Picks Engineering Management Review (EMR)
IEEE TEMS offers a diverse range of publications, and we’re excited to introduce “EMR Editor’s Picks” by Alexander Brem to provide you with practice-oriented, evidence-based insights from our journal of practice, EMR. These selected articles offer valuable international perspectives, and as a TEMS member, you have full access to them through IEEE Xplore.
