Assessing and improving the effectiveness of national research laboratories

Abstract

This paper presents initial work at two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories to develop a process for assessing and improving the effectiveness of research organizations. The approach to assessment reflects the complexity of the research environment and provides information that allows the research organization to define a few key actions for improvement. The work described here focuses on identifying attributes of DOE laboratory research environments that are most important for fostering excellent research. Thirty-six attributes in four areas were identified by scientists and engineers at these institutions and are presented using the Competing Values model for discussing organizational effectiveness. These attributes served as the basis for the development of a self-assessment survey and improvement process designed specifically for research environments. Assessments involving more than 1000 scientists and engineers in four organizations have shown that this approach provides a good basis for understanding and improvement.

A Fresh Look at the Contribution of Project Management to Organizational Performance

“…The competing values approach has been applied in a variety of areas. Originally, it emerged in the public sector (Rohrbaugh, 1981), but several sectors have been studied since: higher education (Pounder, 2002), manufacturing (McDermott & Stock, 1999), research and development (Jordan, Streit, & Binkley, 2003), and banking (Dwyer, Richard, & Chadwick, 2003), as well as a cross‐sector study (Stinglhamber, Bentein, & Vandenberghe, 2004). More‐over, Cameron and Quinn (1999) account for more than a thousand interventions in organizations from several industrial sectors as diversified as agriculture, insurance, and construction.…”

Design principles for research & development performance measurement systems: a systematic literature review

“…There are KPIs (or general attributes) related to these principles, such as: a set of 29 KPIs was proposed in order to assess each core (for example: concept generation, product development, process innovation, technology acquisition) and the enabling (leadership, resourcing, and system and tools) innovation structure (Chiesa et al, 1996); a set of 36 attributes was proposed in order to foster excellence in innovation effectiveness (Jordan et al, 2003); a set of 19 measurement areas was proposed in order to assess seven innovation management categories, such as: inputs, knowledge management, innovation strategy, organization and culture, portfolio management, project management and commercialization (Adams et al, 2006); a set of 66 KPIs was proposed in order to assess different phases of R&D (input, throughput and output) at different levels of organization (task, organization, finance and marketing) (Kallman, 2009); a set of 59 statements was proposed in order to assess capabilities for innovation. (Björkdahl and Börjesson, 2012).…”

A theories‐based systemic framework for evaluating diverse portfolios of scientific work, part 1: Micro and meso indicators

“…Rather than just report the number of research organizations, which is the typical approach, our framework focuses attention on the number of research projects and organizations with particular attributes and characteristics. These characteristics are listed in Table 1.1 (see Jordan, 2005;and Jordan, Streit, & Binkley, 2003). As one can observe, there are familiar themes of the organic organization, complexity or diversity in division of labor, leaders with vision, and, of course, resources.…”