Optimizing R&D Staff Integration

Abstract

Science, art, or both? When it comes to successful integration of acquired employees into an established organization and culture, both references are relevant and critical to eventual success. While many companies strive to achieve immediate return from their acquisition investments, they frequently find that achieving the most basic goals of integrating two organizations can stop them in their tracks. These roadblocks can be avoided with some proactive, thoughtful, and creative consideration of the most relevant items that impede thousands of acquisition integration efforts. Impediments such as basic communication capabilities, employee service access such as payroll, benefits and learning, and more basic needs such as How do we order the development servers we need? are all real-world examples of small but real problems. Underestimating a collection of small problems and their effect on a development team can be catastrophic to the team's ability to stay focused and committed. One of the most basic and relevant considerations is planning for human resource integration before an acquisition. This may sound basic, but it can yield significant results when effectively evaluated and deployed. Those results are manifested in a happy, healthy team environment where engineers maintain laser focus on the products, markets or customers they serve. The operative word here is planning, and while that may seem to be a straightforward component of program management, a few key focus areas will make a huge difference. One such area is the rapid transition of due diligence on a product, service or market to a specific focus on the individual and team. Based on my extensive experience, almost all M&A activity starts with effective due diligence on a specific product, technology, service, or market. However, it tends to diminish rapidly and operational integration is assumed to occur next. As illustrated in Figure 1, focusing on the individual earlier in the due diligence process can yield significant long-term benefits. Focusing on how to keep engineers productive through a significant time of change is challenging for any leader. Disruptions to normal technical environments, personnel, locales, and leaders all contribute to productivity loss. Focusing on the elements that contribute to that loss is where the art comes in. It takes a skilled leader to understand the macro environment of change introduced by an acquisition, and to identify solutions that apply to that specific environment. There are five common, human-resource-related considerations that establish a good head start. These are covered below. 1. Selection Process Consideration Smaller companies are typically easier and faster to integrate successfully than are larger corporations. Corporations, of course, yield larger customer/installed bases, support requirements and technology paths. However, smaller first-generation product companies can be more quickly integrated, as their size is still at a manageable level. One major consideration for effectively integrating engineering talent is to find acquisition targets that augment your existing corporate strategy, yet have small but loyal customer bases. Newly acquired employees from these kinds of companies have a large enough pre-commitment to keep them focused on the product, service or market. Pre-customer shipping organizations can be quickly disrupted, as their product or service is matched to existing offerings. Conversely, organizations with larger customer bases take much longer to integrate, as they have a full slate of operations to consider, including customer support, trade-ins/upgrades, technology paths, sales staff, and so on. As Figure 2 illustrates, there is an optimal area for rapid and effective integration of engineers when targeting smaller companies with emerging technologies. 2. Focused Product Development After a deal is completed and during the integration phase, customer base size considerations can drive significant team behaviors related to remaining focused on a product development cycle. …