There are times when timeframes are so tight and workload so high that completing the work on-time seems impossible. We respond to these seemingly impossible tasks by rapidly deploying a competent team to work in compliance with your standards and processes, and in clear and close communication so there is no waste of time and resources. We pay attention to in-depth initial exploration, understanding your needs both from a technical and from a process and compliance perspective and we respond quickly and openly. How much time can your own team devote on the project? What are the interfaces with other systems? How do you evaluate concepts internally in your own organisation? After all, working with an external service provider due to workload should not require you to make much changes.

There are multiple risks involved in new product development, in portfolio planning and technical problem solving. Apart from on-time and on-budget execution, it boils down to confidence in taking the right decisions. We believe that the best way to mitigate risk is to be transparent and articulate about all decisions that need to be made, the knowledge gaps before making a decision, the assumptions made, and the degree of certainty about each piece of knowledge. This process is often referred to as Rapid Learning Cycles. Risk is mitigated by a thorough exploration of alternative options so that biases are minimized. Risk is also mitigated by understanding the analogy of the chain where what determines the strength of the chain is the weakest link. We need to successively identify where the weakest link is because strengthening a link that is not the weakest may bring zero net improvement.

Freedom-to-Operate is a necessity, it is not optional. Patent infringement risk cannot be tolerated, that is why a process of FTO monitoring is always running parallel to all design decisions.

It is common that experienced engineering teams tend to think along the direction that they are most knowledgeable about often ignoring other promising directions. We refer to this as psychological inertia. This is one of the reasons why many clients seek services from external providers. However, there is always the need to minimise our own biases. A diverse, multidisciplinary team is one direction. Another effective direction is a structured, systematic process of defining needs, product vision, and exploring conceptual direction that uses multiple tools from different perspectives to ensure that both the "what could be" and the "what should be" questions are addressed with minimum biases. 

Adoption of new technologies when there is insufficient in-house expertise is one reason why you may seek external support. Several product development agencies have a breadth of experience since most have the benefit of working on a diverse range of client projects. You often need to have clarity of a new technological area so that you can meaningfully assess alternative options presented to you. That is why whenever meaningful we carry out a State-of-the-Art patent search and present to you clear conceptual directions that have been considered until now as a map of the technological area. It gives you a clear overview, creates a common understanding, and acts as a source of inspiration.