GuidesHow to2 min
How to stand up an R&D pod
Do not hire a chief of innovation first. One unknown, two or three people, a kill rule on day one, and a door into the real work.
A campus org chart will spend money. It will not, by itself, change a job. The people come last because the wrong question wastes a good hire in a month. Do not hire a chief of innovation first. Name one unknown, write the kill rule, put two or three people next to the work.
SINLE is not your R&D department. We will help you stand the pod up, de-risk the first bet, and ship what survived into a system you own. We will not staff a twelve-person “innovation team” with no job. Once Friday is unsurprising, stop calling it research. Hand it to production.
The sequence below is the order. Skip the page and you have a calendar, not a pod.
The smallest pod that can be wrong
Day one is a page, not a hire. Unknown, kill rule, two or three people: the operator, a builder who can stop, someone who can say no. One bet. A block of time the floor cannot steal. When Friday is unsurprising, hand it to production. The pod does not become the owner or nobody is left who is allowed to be wrong.
A chief of innovation with a blank page will spend. They will not de-risk. Write the unknown first.
The sequence
Do these in order. Skip a line and you are back to a workshop.
- 01
Write the unknown before you hire
Job, what you do not know, what evidence stops you. A blank page wastes a good hire in a month.
- 02
Staff a pod, not a department
The operator, a builder who can stop, someone who can say no. Specialists wait until the unknown needs them.
- 03
Protect time next to the work
A block firefighting cannot steal, and a pass onto the floor or the inbox.
- 04
One bet
In use or dead before you open a second. Portfolios are for companies that already kill work.
- 05
Review against the original page
If a new story replaced the stop rule, you are already in a zombie project.
- 06
Hand survivors to production
Write what done means. The pod does not become the permanent owner or you will have no one left who is allowed to be wrong.
Keep these
- R&D is funded to be wrong in public, on a question you wrote down.
- Once Friday is unsurprising, stop calling it research.
Do this before you spend
- 01Write the unknown and the kill rule before you post a job.
- 02Name the three people. Do not open a second bet.
- 03Put a review on the calendar against the original page, not a new story.
We will help you stand the first pod up and ship what survived. We will not staff a department with no job.
Questions
- How do you build an R&D team in a small company?
- Name one job and the unknown. Write the kill rule. Put two or three people next to the work. One bet in use or dead before you open a second.
Next how-to
- How to de-risk R&DHow SINLE de-risks research and development: name the stuck job, run a patent search and a thin Tuesday test, write a kill rule, then spend. A bigger lab is not the method.
- How to kill a project that is not workingUse the stop rule you wrote on day one. A clean kill is a result. A zombie project is how next month disappears.
- How to find the job worth fundingWalk the work. Score waits, rework, and hero jobs. Fund a constraint with a user — not a whiteboard of ideas.
Next
Name the unknown. Then we talk about people.
Spark writes the job, the kill rule, and whether a pod is even the right shape. $750. You keep the note.