New tool to optimise project results

TiFN is adding a new element to its project cycle: the Results to Success Workshop. This 1-day workshop will take place a year before the project ends and aims to ensure that optimal project success is obtained for all partners.

The completion of individual work packages is coupled to the overall objectives of the project. In this meeting the team selects and chooses the right directions for the final work during the last project year to achieve excellent scientific results with optimal relevance for future application by the partners involved. This occurs in close interaction with the experts of both the science and the industrial partners. The meeting is well prepared and facilitated by professional experts.

This approach was piloted in the first quarter of this year in the SHARP-Basic and the Smooth bite for all projects. To prepare for the workshops the facilitators interviewed all partners involved in the project. Based on these interviews they designed a dashboard that showed the assessment of all partners of the successes and improvement points to date: is the project delivering on the original objectives? Does every partner feel he gets his fair share of results? How well does the team (science and industry) interact? What opportunities do partners see to get optimal results?

The workshops started with a discussion on this dashboard. Based on that discussion very inspiring and intense working sessions were held in which the expert teams scoped and planned the work for the final year for optimal results. Feedback from all participants to the meetings was very positive: this really helped to get the best possible results from the projects for all partners, facilitated to better translate the results towards company needs and boosted the interaction between science and industry partners.

The SHARP team for example agreed on and planned a case study, relevant to all project partners, to demonstrate the value of the SHARP-Basic model. In addition, the first outline of a SHARP-Next project was developed.

At Smooth bite for all translation of the project results into industry-relevant outcomes converged in more concrete terms, and was defined for the last year of the project. This has been a clear stimulus for all participants to further work on simultaneously expanding the two cornerstones of TiFN: industrial relevance and scientific excellence.