R&D work   =  Project Work 

R&D work is up to 95% project work. Only by this it is simply impossible to work several years in R&D without getting expertise in project management. As a leader this is doubly true as you are deeply involved in all critical project situations. Not only as reporting instance but also very often in problem solving or consensus building and decisions making.

After 13 years in R&D and active participation in numerous projects      - big or small, local or global, in our business unit or across the matrix, for product development or process improvement, formal planned or intuitive driven, as project leader or as a subject matter expert and as functional leader or as responsible global leader     - I call myself now a real expert for project management of (electro-mechanical) devices and machines.

These are my Top 3 learnings:

1. talk to make it right
   Some people are lazy and don't listen to others. Whatever you try, it will not be possible to describe a task with all requirements unambiguously. Different people will interpret the same concept or even a term differently. Sometimes you think you've come to an agreement, but in actually you've got just a pseudo consensus, which is the same as no consensus. Sometime the project team uses fuzzy formulations in order to get fast progress and to avoid unpleasant discussions. This is dangerous as it will very (very) probably lead to extra effort and delays. Only extensive open discussions with a strong desire for clarification by repeating goals and purposes in other words and with additional content with various people will get clarification.
2. write to get it right!
   Some people are lazy and forgetful. Whatever you don't fix in writing will not happen. It will be forgotten, misinterpreted in the laziest way or just sacrificed to the fixed (in writing) goals. Hence it is necessary to give extreme attention to the very early phase of a project, the project definition and detailed planning, even despite knowing not everything will happen as planned.
   * If you fail to plan you plan to fail   (Benjamin Franklin)
   * A plan lasts only until the first contact with the enemy / Ein Plan hält nur bis zum ersten Feindkontakt    (von Moltke, German general in the 19th century)
   
   
3. control to make it happen
   Some people are lazy and like to hide it. Or in softer words: design engineers or humans in general don't like to present their work to critics and try to delay this moment as far as possible. But late feedback may cause late corrections and extra effort for fast contingency means and finally lead to a project delay. This behavior leads also to uncontrolled projects with plenty of open tasks or many allegedly completed tasks (I've done 95%, just the report and the review is missing). Only by doing serious and frequent project reviews and a critical control not only of final but also of intermediate results you can achieve ambitious project goals. Without frequent reviews delays are guaranteed.