A High-Performing Team Beats a Perfect Process – Lessons from Industrial R&D Projects 

In many industrial R&D initiatives, discussions about success quickly drift toward processes, methodologies, and tools. These are important—but they are rarely what truly makes the difference.

Time and again, my practical experience has shown that the most critical factor in determining a project’s outcome is the development team itself: the group of people brought together around a shared goal.

A well-built team does not guarantee success, but a poorly built team almost always guarantees problems—no matter how thoroughly the processes and methods have been designed. So, how do we build a successful R&D team for industrial development projects?

The Foundation of a Well-Functioning R&D Team

A Small but Strong Core Team

Industrial R&D projects tend to work best with a small but strong core team. In most cases, 5–10 people are sufficient, as long as all critical disciplines are represented. Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, manufacturing, and quality cannot operate in isolated silos; they must collaborate closely from the very beginning to ensure all essential aspects are properly addressed.

A small team with real responsibility and decision-making authority is often far more effective than a large group where decisions are diluted, and accountability becomes unclear.

Scaling the Team at the Right Time

In practice, schedule pressure almost always forces teams to scale up as a project progresses. At the same time, it’s important to remember that adding people inevitably increases the need for communication and coordination—and eats into some of the expected efficiency gains.

Often, the best time to expand the team is after key technical decisions have been made and the main architectural direction is clear. At that point, additional resources tend to support execution rather than slow down decision-making.

When scaling the team, it’s also worth considering which capabilities are strategically important to keep in-house and which can be sourced more flexibly through trusted partners.

What Kind of Talent Does the Team Need?

A Strong Technical Leader Lays the Foundation

In nearly all successful industrial product development projects, there is one common denominator: a strong technical leader. They are the person who owns the overall solution and ultimately carries responsibility for the technical implementation.

A good technical leader lays out the groundwork for project success. They actively listen to diverse perspectives but can make independent decisions—even in the face of uncertainty. An empathetic decision-maker with broad technical expertise, strong customer insight, and a solid understanding of the industry is ideally suited for this role.

Technical Excellence Alone Is Not Enough

Product development teams are sometimes assembled with an almost exclusive focus on top-tier technical expertise. At the same time, great care is taken to ensure that the team collectively covers all required technical capabilities and industry knowledge. In short-term projects, this approach can work well simply because there is no time to develop shared ways of working.

Industrial product development projects, however, are often long-running.

The longer the project, the more critical it becomes that the team can function effectively together over time. In these cases, attention naturally shifts toward team dynamics, learning ability, and motivation. Key factors include differences in background, personality-related strengths, and varying levels of experience. These aspects are often underestimated—partly because they can be difficult to evaluate.

The Building Blocks of an Effective Team

The person responsible for building the team may naturally gravitate toward people who are similar to themselves. While such teams are often pleasant to work in, this approach rarely leads to the strongest possible outcomes.

In my experience, the most effective teams are built from several complementary elements. From a team performance perspective, it is worth paying close attention to at least the following:

• Multidisciplinarity: Development teams often form around strong engineering expertise. However, multidisciplinary and cross-functional teams consistently deliver more holistic and resilient solutions.

• Ideators and Executors: Some experts are an endless source of new ideas and innovation. Others are systematic executors who make sure things get done. Every team benefits from a healthy balance between these two.

• Experience and Fresh Perspectives: It’s easy to assume that more experience always leads to better results. In reality, a purely senior-heavy team may fall into the trap of repeating familiar solutions, while a purely junior team may struggle with fundamentals. The strongest outcomes typically emerge from a mix of both.

• Personalities: Some experts prefer focused individual work, while others gain energy from collaboration and building team spirit. An effective team needs both. The goal is to create an environment that is enjoyable to work in while still leaving enough space for individual concentration.

In a well-functioning team, different types of expertise are needed in the right proportions. There is no single formula for getting this balance right—it depends entirely on the project and its goals.

Motivation Determines Long-Term Success

In long-term R&D initiatives, technical challenges are rarely the biggest obstacle to success. Far more often, it’s the team’s stamina and motivation that determine the outcome. For this reason, team composition should never be viewed only through the lens of immediate project needs.

When a project is approached purely from a technical or project-centric perspective, questions of individual motivation are easily overlooked. Yet in expert work, motivation plays a decisive role in performance, commitment, and ultimately the continuity of the project.

Few projects fail because the initial setup was fundamentally flawed. More often, problems emerge along the way as motivation fades and key people leave mid-project. From the outset, it’s essential to ensure that each team member is motivated and committed throughout the project.

During resourcing, it’s not enough to assess skills alone. It’s equally important to consider whether the project offers sufficient challenge and opportunities to learn, also after the initial excitement has passed.

The best solution is not always to assemble a team that already knows everything on day one. Leaving room for learning and taking on additional responsibility often helps sustain motivation throughout long projects.

Culture Completes the Picture

Creating a supportive culture where responsibility and freedom coexist will make your team feel valued and motivated to contribute their best.

When a carefully built team is supported by an environment that fosters an open culture for product development, the team is well positioned to achieve its goals—and to overcome the challenges that will inevitably arise along the way.

Summary

In industrial R&D projects, success does not come from a single star performer or from a perfect process. It comes from a well-built team that combines the right mix of expertise, diverse personalities, broad experience, multidisciplinary thinking, and the ability to make decisions.

When assembling the team, it’s important to deliberately evaluate which capabilities are strategically critical to keep in-house and which can be sourced from partners. When a development-friendly environment supports such a team, the project has genuinely strong conditions for success.

I discuss the importance of diversity in product development teams, also with Kalevi Tervo (ABB’s Marine & Ports division), in the third episode of the R&D Tech Talk Suomi podcast. In the episode, we dive deeper into how bold technology leadership can create strategic competitiveness. Listen on Spotify.