Research-Technology Management

ISSN: 0895-6308 (Print) 1930-0166 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urtm20

The IRI 2038 Scenarios: Four Views of the Future

Ted Farrington & Christian Crews
To cite this article: Ted Farrington & Christian Crews (2013) The IRI 2038 Scenarios: Four Views
of the Future, Research-Technology Management, 56:6, 23-32
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.5437/08956308X5606192

Published online: 28 Dec 2015.

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Date: 03 October 2016, At: 07:37

RESEARCH-ON-RESEARCH

The IRI 2038 Scenarios

Four Views of the Future
The IRI 2038 initiative offers four views of the future and analyzes how they might shape R&D management.
Ted Farrington and Christian Crews

OVERVIEW: As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, IRI commissioned the IRI2038 initiative, a strategic foresights project asking how events, developments, and emerging trends might shape the art and science of research and technology
management over the next 25 years. A key deliverable of this 18-month project is the four provocative yet plausible scenarios presented here. The scenarios are presented and analyzed individually and collectively in terms of their values, conflicts, and impacts on R&D project, portfolio, people, and organizational management processes.
KEYWORDS: Scenarios, Foresight, Product development, Research-on-research

In 2013, as part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) commissioned a project to consider the shape of R&D in IRIs 100th year. IRI2038 explored
how trends emerging today might affect the art and science of
research and technology management into the future.
Strategic foresight projects such as IRI2038 are not about
predicting the future. Rather, they are about creating provocative, yet plausible views of the future. Examining several
possible futures can help organizations prepare to face the
actual future as it unfolds. The four scenarios that emerged
from the IRI2038 project are widely divergent. Yet, even as
the specific implications of the scenarios vary, some common
themes emerge:
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems will play increasing
roles in both project and portfolio management.
Talent management will be replaced by temporary resource
acquisition as most of the workforce will be freelance.
Ted Farrington is senior director, PepsiCo Advanced Research, working in
the food processing arena. He has worked for several consumer products
companies and been active in IRI for many years, having cosponsored several IRI Research-on-Research initiatives in the area of breakthrough innovation. Ted holds BS and MS degrees in math and physics from Clarkson
University, an MS in chemical engineering from Caltech, and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Maine. ted.farrington@pepsico.com
Christian Crews is the principal of AndSpace Consulting; he has many years
of experience in foresight both as a consultant and as the leader of corporate
foresight at Pitney Bowes and other large organizations. He has an MS in
studies of the future from the University of HoustonClear Lake and a BA in
English from the College of William and Mary. He is a founding member of
the Association of Professional Futurists. christian@andspaceconsulting.com
DOI: 10.5437/08956308X5606192

Managers will focus on overseeing AI process models

and cultivating their external talent pools.
A majority of projects will become far more open, with
companies relying on speed to market rather than IP
protection for value creation.
Partly as a result of the increased openness, the role of
traditional intellectual property (IP) will be greatly
diminished.
With AI systems leveling the field in terms of execution,
R&Ds value proposition will increasingly derive from
early opportunity identification.
These themes emerged from a highly collaborative process
involving hundreds of IRI members along with external experts (see The IRI2038 Project, p. 25). The workshops and
other exercises these people participated in produced scenarios and likely implications for R&D; the scenarios we describe
were not independently verified from other sources. Indeed,
as extrapolations from trends identified in the weak signals
and futures audits, they cannot be. The variance among the
scenarios is driven by variations in the primacy of particular
trends and in how trends influence one another. Thus, these
scenarios are neither mutually exclusive nor necessarily coexistent. Rather, each scenario calls out unique attributes of
possible futures based on the emphasis of some trends over
others.
Scenario One: Three Roads To Innovation
This future provides three new paths toward innovation in
an era of virtual work and prize-driven motivation (Figure 1):
Research-Technology Management NovemberDecember 2013

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Hollywood R&D, communities of brains, and innovation

tribes. In this scenario, many corporations adopt a model
similar to that employed by Hollywood movie studios, in
which a small production company assembles freelance talent on a project-by-project basis. Another path emerges as
individuals directly connect their brains to cloud-based communities. A group intelligence emerges to attack hard social
problems and develop transformational science, providing
R&D via the network. Others, uninterested in the intense
community of the connected brains, will form insular communities that work in secrecy to prevent outsiders from obtaining their intellectual property.
Hollywood R&D
With globalization and shifting consumer demand increasing
the risk of bringing new products to market, companies must
find ways to expand creativity while reducing risk. Looking
at business models of other high-risk, high-creativity industries with well-compensated stars, they adopt the structure of
Hollywood movie studios. Corporate R&D managers become
producers who are given funds to hire celebrity scientist directors and cast the innovation project.
In this world, scientists known for winning multiple open
innovation challenges become celebrities in high demand.
Freelance researchers are hired based on past success (their
box office scores), fit with the project (like comedy, drama, or

action-thriller actors), experience with the producer or lead

scientist from previous projects, or industry awards. Thirdparty talent exchanges, similar to Hollywood casting agencies, spring up to help staff projects. The once vertically
integrated R&D group explodes, with many service functions
operating as separate companieslab design and construction, simulation and modeling, and talent acquisition and
management are all farmed out.
The Hollywood model returns disproportionate success to
some celebrity scientists, while many researchers work for
scale. In short, for every George Clooney celebrity scientist,
there are thousands of aspiring researchers waiting tables in
Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle, and Beijing. The model
also maximizes the speed and creativity of R&D projects
while spreading the risk across many players. Much like the
megastars of today, these celebrity scientists use their wealth
to pursue noble causes of personal interest. These are the
people who ultimately solve societys grand challenges.
A Community of Brains
In parallel with the Hollywood model, a hyperconnected
R&D model emerges, led by advances in medical technology.
Since most cannot afford the medical improvements enabled
by bio and nano technologies, a divide emerges between
wealthy people who can afford longevity solutions and everyone else. To prevent the dementias associated with aging,

FIGURE 1. Three Roads to Innovation

24 | Research-Technology Management

The IRI 2038 Scenarios

The IRI 2038 Project

This project began with a futures audit in which 38 R&D
leaders were interviewed to establish a consensus view of
the future. A weak signals scan was then commissioned
to identify less obvious emerging trends. These were extrapolated into the future using implications wheels and
combined to create the four inductive scenarios described in this article. In a series of highly participatory
workshops, IRI members visualized living and working in
these futures and explored each scenarios implications
for the future of project management, portfolio management, R&Ds value proposition, and talent management;
the groups discussed what their firms would need to do
to succeed in each future.
The process was described in detail in a series of columns appearing in RTM over the last volume year:
IRI 2038: Envisioning the Future of R&D, RTM 56(1),
pp. 5859, described the projects early phases, including the results of the futures audit and weak signals scan.
The View from 2038: 25 Years of Change in Product
Development, RTM 56(2), pp. 5455, modeled the
exploration of one future, in the form of a 2038 interview with a retiring R&D executive.
Implications Wheels: Structured Brainstorming about
the Future, RTM 56(3), pp. 5658, explained the role
of implications wheels and the process of creating
them.
Exploring the Future through Scenarios, RTM 56(5),
pp. 5759, detailed the process of creating inductive
scenarios from the implications wheels.
Complete information about the project is available at
www.iriweb.org/IRI2038.

the healthy wealthy increasingly choose to connect their

brains to the cloud, preserving every second of their lives
in the network and making those experiences accessible
to others. Working together, these connected brains use
new sensory equipment to perform experiments, creating
new products and making transformational scientific
breakthroughs.
As the community expands and learns, it becomes a metaintelligence in which each single brain acts as a neuron in a
much larger collaborative intelligence. These powerful networks of brains participate in open innovation challenges
that award significant prizes for transformative solutions. In
R&D, project managers disappear as the network develops
intentionality and manages projects as a reflex.
Innovation Tribes
Some will not wish to participate in the networked environment of the connected brains. These people will work closely
only with those they trust; they share information and
knowledge behind complex firewalls, often in single physical
The IRI 2038 Scenarios

locations. Many companies migrate to this form of innovation, sequestering R&D workers together with servers walled
off from the outside world. With read-only access to the Internet, these new Skunk Works organizations create products that are transformative and lucrative.
As this form of innovation becomes successful, these
closed communities become an option for young scientists
just embarking on their careers. Almost like joining a sorority, the process of choosing an innovation community
involves finding or creating a physical location where likeminded people live and work together. In addition to working
together to develop new products or win open innovation
challenges, these high-trust, intentional communities share
childcare and other services. Intentional innovation communities become a top choice for women who wish to balance the demands of a professional life in the sciences or
politics with the realities of raising a family.
Scenario Analysis
The Three Roads scenario suggests three new ways innovation will be pursued in the future. All of them are driven by
different approaches to trust and identity. In the Hollywood
model, trust is gained through contracts and personal connections; identity is tied to industry success. In the community of brains, trust is developed by virtue of the network and
identity is subsumed in the network. Innovation tribes build
trust through interactions with a small group of people who
rely on each other for support in work and in life. Individual
identity is constructed from, and subsumed by, the tribe
identity.
These issues of trust and identity shape leadership and decision making. In the Hollywood model, power is decentralized to independent project manager producers, allowing
companies to defray risk by running multiple, rapid projects
unencumbered by organizational inertia. In a community of
brains, network intentionality trumps individual will, as people become nodes in a larger consciousness. For innovation
tribes, decisions are highly democratic and power is derived
from elder status and persuasiveness. Successful innovation
can be found in all three paths, but the scenario poses questions for R&D professionals about how they will react to the
challenges of trust and identity in the future.
Implications for Research and Technology Management
R&D Value Proposition. R&D will deliver value to companies by identifying future customer needs and picking the

The Three Roads scenario poses

questions for R&D professionals about
how they will react to the challenges of
trust and identity in the future.

NovemberDecember 2013

| 25

best research model to solve for those needs. Companies will

value speed to market and strong evidence of demand; the
use of fast prototypes and user feedback will mean projects
get taken all the way to market before being handed over to
marketing and sales.
Talent Management. An increasing reliance on freelance talent will mean that managers need to spend a lot of
time cultivating a community of talent so that teams can be
assembled quickly. Researchers will need to be lifelong learners, continually engaging in competency-based credentialing
to make themselves desirable for new projects. Simulation
will help increase speed and accuracy in assembling the right
team. As software moves into talent and project management, researchers will need to develop an ability to manage
or be managed by artificial intelligences or expert systems.
This will include the need to maximize human creativity in a
world of automation.
Portfolio Management. The ability to articulate exactly
what the company is looking for is critical in managing the
portfolio. Requirements management is needed to create architectures that are more responsive across the portfolio.
Managers will handle many very different types of projects,
from highly open crowdsourced models to tightly controlled
internal programs. Managing the flow of information for
each project to maximize creativity and protect trade secrets
will be a key source of advantage.
Project Management. Stage-Gate systems do not disappear, but they are automated and the number of gates
reduced by using simulations to map a projects progress.
Managers concentrate on being more collaborative and integrated with the rest of the organization or community
rather than on day-to-day project management, which is
handled by intelligent software. Assembling and managing
team capabilities is a critical management skill.
Overall. Managers will need to have a facility for managing both software and people. Simulation, artificial intelligences, and expert systems will free managers from
day-to-day project oversight. The time saved will be taken up
by the cultivation of a network of external talent that can be
assembled for projects as they arise.
Scenario Two: Everythings In Beta
The collapse of the complex global manufacturing ecosystem
leads to a bifurcated economy underpinned by local manufacturing (Figure 2). At the low end, there is massive churn
of new products that are introduced in beta form with little
market research. On the other end are socially reputable,
premium products that deploy R&D resources to tackle the
big challenges of the 21st century.
By the 2020s, e-commerce, just-in-time production, and
predictive algorithms tie together the worlds markets.
Reverse logistics return products at end of life for recycling; supply chains become highly tuned, complex, symbiotic ecosystems of supply, production, consumption, and
recycling. But natural disasters, political revolutions, and
economic disruptions reveal that this global system is
very sensitive to disruption and not very resilient. Whole
26 | Research-Technology Management

economies die off as they are overwhelmed by complexity

and change.
By 2038, smaller and simpler economies have replaced
the global system. In this new world, predictive data and
long, thoughtful product development is replaced by speed to
market. Companies flood the market with beta products and
wait to see which ones succeed. Because consumers are basically buying prototypes, companies are protected from product liability claims, and even the best brands resort to rushing
products out as fast as possible. Consumers expect lower
prices since they are buying products essentially as beta
testers.
In the relentless churn of new products, providing a platform for consumers to aggregate products or services together is the best way to lock in customers and build a
sustainable competitive advantage. Physical products are embedded with the ability to connect to networks, play with
other products, and continually upgrade their abilities. Because these products are produced so quickly, a secondary
documentation market springs up to crowdsource knowledge from designers, consumers, and companies.
Collapse of the manufacturing ecosystem leads to a new
product creation and distribution model that depends on
local suppliers and smaller, more local plants to customize
products. While these plants spur high churn of the products consumed, they also enable society to start creating
long-term innovation projects to solve the worlds biggest
problems, one community at a time.
The shift begins as intentional communities form within
existing cities or in formerly rural areas. These communities emerge as the 21st centurys reliance on relationships,
nuanced communication, and collaboration elevates a
much higher percentage of women into leadership roles in
business and politics. To manage work/life balance, these
successful women choose to live in small, high-trust communities that share childcare and other family services.
These communities, which are lucrative markets, tend to
value the social good companies do, not just their products
or profit margins. As a result, more companies invest in
R&D projects to appeal to these communities. They begin
by applying innovation knowledge and R&D resources to
improve their own internal processes. This helps them
meet the communities stringent criteria for environmental footprint and ethical and equitable salary and benefits.
Companies deploy more money and resources toward
solving major societal challenges, including energy needs,
rising sea levels due to atmospheric carbon dioxide, and
access to affordable health care. Investment in fundamental science research increases dramatically.
But many companies social benefit efforts initially lead
to unintended consequences and negative outcomes. Geoengineering projects backfire and increase warming or reduce the capacities of biomes to support endangered species.
R&D groups leverage the huge computing and simulation
power at their disposal to develop a better understanding of
the underlying natural and human systems they are trying
to influence. The language and toolset of systems thinking

The IRI 2038 Scenarios

FIGURE 2. Everythings In Beta

becomes a significant part of R&D processes. The best R&D

professionals and companies become known for their positive impact on society and are rewarded with tangible and
intangible rewards through social media. These reputation
economies also help mitigate the worst transgressions of the
buyer beware churn.
Much of the innovation happening in this scenario is
completely transparent, thanks to the lack of IP protection
and the high level of R&D for the public good. Services spring
up to sift through all of the innovations and link companies
that have complementary capabilities from very different
parts of the value chain or geographies.
Scenario Analysis
The bifurcated economic world of Everythings In Beta has
varying results. On the high end, R&D professionals have the
funding, time, and commitment from their companies to do
fundamental research and participate in solving the big challenges of the century. On the low end, R&D is focused on
incremental innovation and the integration of myriad products and services on common platforms. The glue that holds
these worlds together is the adoption of local manufacturing,
enabled by 3D printing.
In this scenario, the driving values are participatory consumption and the conflict between quality and quantity.
Consumers and innovators work together to make sense of
the chaotic world of new products, and companies and communities come together to make the world a better place. A
The IRI 2038 Scenarios

market of beta products that link together and upgrade

themselves exists for inexpensive items, technologies that
change very quickly, and the insatiable first adopters. At the
same time, curated transformational inventions serve premium markets.
Implications for Research and Technology Management
R&D Value Proposition. R&Ds value proposition is different for the different parts of the economy. For the intentional
communities, value is built by solving social problems. For
the rapid product development economy, value is created by
managing data, working faster, and reducing costs. For organizations, value will be built on effective knowledge management and an ecosystem of partner relationships.
Talent Management. The two different types of projects driving the two-part economybig, compelling work
to address major societal problems and quick-turnaround,

In Everythings In Beta, the driving

values are participatory consumption
and the conflict between quality and
quantity.

NovemberDecember 2013

| 27

short-term projects to churn out new productswill strain

managers ability to manage talent. In this bifurcated world,
different types of talent and different recruitment strategies
will be required. Managing and developing careers will be
much more difficult, and career mobility between the rapid
product development and intentional communities spaces
may be very limited.
Portfolio Management. This scenario suggests the end
of the closed R&D model, with greater collaboration for human good catalyzed by the demise of intellectual property.
But closed R&D could be reinvigorated if identification of unarticulated consumer needs becomes the dominant basis of
competitive advantage. Portfolio management will be less
structured, more agile, smaller in scale, and less asset based
a result of portfolio management by beta testing. Managing
the portfolio will become complex as project portfolios become part of a larger portfolio of networks, communities,
and relationships.
Project Management. The details of project management become fully automated, with humans focused on vision and big decisions. Project managers are replaced by
rock stars who grasp consumer needs ahead of everyone
else and lead the innovation effort. For rapid product development, the key will be sourcing from the cloud. Solving big
social problems for intentional communities will require embedding resources within those communities.
Overall. This scenario implies two very different management styles and skills. It is unlikely that skills and experiences
built in one model will be transferrable to the other model.
Managers will need to decide early in their careers whether
they want to work in an open, fast-paced but incremental
model based on endless consumer demand or in a more
closed system of longer-term projects that tackle large
questions.
Scenario Three: The Death of Distance vs. the Megacity
Smart cities and resource constraints force a political and
economic restructuring. Cities become the major political
force due to their embrace of smart technologies to manage
transportation, energy, and waste (Figure 3). They grab natural resources through giant public/private partnerships and
grow into city-states. Technology and connectivity make distance irrelevant at last, restoring some power to individuals
and enabling scientists to do and teach at the level of entire
corporations or universities of the past.
Cities become the loci of political energy to solve many of
the challenges facing society. With smart technologies such as
sensors, cameras, and data analytics, cities knit people, infrastructure, and regulation into tightly controlled networks.
Smart cities grab economic power as their individual markets
become very large and important to both multinational companies and the countries in which the cities are located. City
planners and corporate marketers collect and analyze massive amounts of data about residents behavior. Individuals
whose actions are marked as statistical bellwethers by marketers become sought-after commodities for their personal
information, buying habits, and opinions.
28 | Research-Technology Management

As smart cities eclipse the countries in which they reside,

they annex land, create land along their coastlines, and grow
their populations. They go to great lengths to secure resources, influencing energy and commodities markets with
large buys that lock out others. To further their control, they
form public/private partnerships with international companies and other municipalities to terraform living areas and
manage local climate. Society separates into two groups,
those who are politically and economically empowered by
the data-driven city-state, and those who serve the empowered class. The traditional middle class shrinks significantly.
Slowing the complete domination of the city-states are
advances in robotics and automation that allow knowledge
workers to work anywhere in the world. Lab workers can
control experiments from a distance, and precise robots can
execute lab procedures with little or no oversight. Data analysts use low-cost but incredibly powerful personal computing devices to access enormous databases stored in the cloud.
Expert systems handle most companies daily flow of decisions, leaving remote executives only the highest priority,
most intractable problems.
The death of distance extends to education, providing
anyone in the world with access to the top professors to learn
through remote, competency-based massively open online
course (MOOC) systems. Supported by sophisticated software expert systems, the most successful scientists teach
hundreds of thousands of students a year and become cultural celebrities. That same technology offers these researchers enough time and independence to freelance on projects
with multiple companies. The best scientists are in high demand and command the salaries of sports stars.
Furthering the death of distance, a Nobel Prize is awarded
to scientists who invent a way to deliver all sensory experience remotely through a virtual presence. These virtual sensory experiences can be recorded, paving the way for people
to store every memory in the cloud. These memories are
backed up and accessible to their owners anywhere, and they
can even be shared with selected people. Aging societies
compulsively store their memories online so that they can
continue to be productive at work and keep up at home.
Concerned about the power of the megacities, they adopt
countersurveillance techniques to ensure that powerful governments have only a limited view of their behavior. These
measures include necklaces that blur their features on CCTV
cameras, encoded smartphone transmissions, and highly
complex authentications for accessing personal memories
and other information stored in the cloud. This reduces the
power the megacities have over citizens and begins to restore
some personal liberties.
Scenario Analysis
This scenario represents a significant reordering of the worlds
political and economic systems. Technology-enabled megacities use data to choreograph the lives of their citizens, new
public/private partnerships blur the lines between governance and commerce, and the resulting organizations engage
in large-scale projects that alter the physical geography of

The IRI 2038 Scenarios

FIGURE 3. The Death of Distance vs. Megacities

human environments. Some of these projects are about halting the effects of global warming, and others are intended to
build new habitats for people, such as artificial islands.
But technology has also empowered individuals. Against
the power of the city-states are the celebrity scientists, who
can leverage MOOC platforms to reach hundreds of thousands of students and command large fees for their temporary services. Ordinary citizens actively work to limit the
power of the city-states by protecting personal data and behavior as best they can.
This scenario values the exploitation of people, machines,
and the planet for the most efficient outcomes. There is a rising ascendancy of the virtual over the real, but most people
continue to choose to live in cities despite the freedom provided by the death of distance. This urban culture drives a
robust economy unique to each city.
Implications for Research and Technology Management
R&D Value Proposition. R&D becomes the tool for the
megacitys open innovation machine. It provides highly
quantitative, instant research to the city utilizing masses of
people, open innovation frameworks, and public/private
partnerships.
The IRI 2038 Scenarios

Talent Management. The reputation market defines the

new meritocracy. The system encourages the evolution of superstars, but the technical base for the whole workforce is
raised. Compensation goes beyond money to include city
amenities, such as choice places to live, commodities, and additional resource allocations.
Portfolio Management. Research portfolios are driven
by megacities organizing and funding R&D to meet their
needs. The portfolio is populated by crowdsourced projects
that mobilize guilds and stratified workforces with a few key
idea people at the top. The value of intellectual property is in

The Death of Distance vs. the Rise

of the Megacity scenario values the
exploitation of people, machines,
and the planet for the most efficient
outcomes.

NovemberDecember 2013

| 29

FIGURE 4. Africa Leapfrogs Developed World

the synthesis of projects better aligned with the citys societal

needs.
Project Management. As the number of micro R&D
projects within companies or across companies working
for the city increases, managers ability to quickly commission smaller projects is critical. Team assembly, especially
for projects that require a number of experts from different disciplines, becomes the core competency for R&D
managers.
Overall. The megacities replace corporations as the main
clients for research and technology management. Managers
mobilize workers from many different companies and universities to solve city issues in open innovation platforms.
Often, these projects are small and build on each other toward a larger goal, so managers need to guide projects and
stakeholders to build on previous work and teams.
Scenario Four: Africa Leapfrogs Developed Markets
Consumer expectations create a flexible, localized manufacturing process in the developed world based on 3-D printing
and other enablers of mass customization. This process
churns out highly customized products at an accelerating
pace. Simultaneously, increasing environmental regulations
choke the addition of new manufacturing capacity in developed countries. With a smaller installed asset base and an
enhanced ability to leverage its natural resources, Africa
30 | Research-Technology Management

jumps ahead of the developed world in growth and economic

dynamism (Figure 4).
In the developed world, postmodern values reshape
peoples view of their relationship with the natural world.
The rights of the natural environment are recognized under national law, and by 2038 it has become almost impossible for countries in the developed world to exploit
new land for mining, farming, or manufacturing. Efforts
turn to improving the efficiency of existing assets, and
competition becomes fierce in a zero-sum world. This
gives rise to the extensive use of 3D printing and deprintingthe ability to disassemble finished goods and
reuse their materials to create new products. Corporations have been made legally responsible for their products from cradle to grave, but in a resource-constrained
world, a products materials become an asset at the end of
its life. Black market 3D printing facilities leverage these
materials in new products, forming a flexible, decentralized manufacturing network.
Given these resource constraints, knowledge of customer
wants and needs becomes critical. Companies mine massive
data sets and perform ethnographic research to identify
consumer needs. Because the process of urbanization has
continued, major cities have the populations that countries
used to have, allowing companies to create and market to
specific regional differences.
The IRI 2038 Scenarios

The success rate for new-product launches skyrockets as

companies crowdsource development costs. New products
are displayed in retail locations, but only as samples. Purchased products are 3D printed locally and delivered to the
customer on the same day. Consumers become accustomed
to a relentless churn of new products, each one more targeted to their needs than the last. But no product is ever good
enough, and consumers eventually become conditioned to
constantly seek novelty. In such a competitive world, companies strive to keep their methods as secret as possible. Many
return to private status or never go public in the first place to
avoid sharing competitive information. This is possible because the new flexible manufacturing infrastructure enabled
by 3D printing is relatively cheap.
Africa is able to avoid the hyper-competition of the developed world by making more effective use of its vast natural assets and farmland. Countries in Africa begin by
nationalizing resources being developed by outside companies and countries. Chinese and Western interests are suddenly locked out of the race to exploit African resources.
African countries then form larger resource empires that
become the Greater Federal Africa, a sub-Saharan collection of African states that operate on a single currency and
set of commerce laws.
Unsaddled by legacy power grids and factories, Africa
leapfrogs the west in the development of the new economy.
MOOCs allow African students to excel in the sciences by
giving them access to the best educators in the world at virtually zero cost. A new generation of highly educated
Africans self-organizes in Accra, Ghana; by 2038, the network of skilled labor, money from natural resources, and
companies unencumbered by high-cost manufacturing assets has created the equivalent of Silicon Valley, but moving
at twice the speed. The center of gravity for innovation
moves to Africa, where funds and tolerance for big, transformative innovation grows. African companies compete
on lower costs, transformative innovation from younger
engineers and scientists, and the ability to sell innovations
to poorer developed economies.
In both the developed and the developing world, however, the middle class has all but evaporated. Wealthy individuals own small private companies that print out all kinds
of products for consumers. Simultaneously, the service
economy grows dramatically, providing low-paying jobs
serving the natural resource kings and Accra millionaires
and billionaires.
Scenario Analysis
The values of this culture in 2038 are not much different
than those of today. Aside from strict environmental regulation in the developed countries, the world is still driven by
consumer demand and consumption. This scenario is characterized by incredible market speed, fueled by hypercompetition in a shrinking market and cutthroat capitalism
from Africa.
The youthful energy of Africa, unleashed by nearly free
world-class education and a rapidly expanding economy,
The IRI 2038 Scenarios

Africa Leapfrogs the Developed World

is characterized by incredible market
speed, fueled by hypercompetition
in a shrinking market and cutthroat
capitalism from Africa.

develops transformational innovations. This is tempered by

the developed worlds older scientists and engineers, who excel at integrating this futures mix of big data, distributed
manufacturing, and limited resources.
Throughout this churn there is little room for the middle
class. With lower costs of entry, small private firms can compete with any company worldwide. Society bifurcates between the owners of companies and natural resources who
create value and the service workers who support them.
Implications for Research and Technology Management
R&D Value Proposition. Given the speed of changing consumer demand and the open nature of collaboration in this
scenario, R&D becomes a service offering to customers who
need the capacity to keep pace with their consumers. Competitive advantage comes from the speed of research to provide cradle-to-cradle product design, not from long-term
intellectual property protection.
Talent Management. The focus for talent management
shifts to renting, not owning, a workforce. Managers work
with guild-like talent pools to ensure they have the right expertise available on demand to staff fast-moving projects. Talent management as such fades away, replaced by a sourcing
department that maintains external relationships and excels
at finding critical skills.
Portfolio Management. Portfolio management as it exists today will largely disappear. As intellectual property protection dwindles to the process of making things, not the
things themselves, humans become operators of a large software management program. Simulation dominates decision
making. Initially, these simulations are operated on silicon
computing platforms, but over time, biological systems arise
to handle simulation complexity.
Project Management. In Africa Leapfrogs the Developed World, projects are distributed across many parts, both
within an organization and externally, to other companies,
contractors, and free agents. Projects must be extremely agile
and aligned with a fail fast, fail cheap mentality. Much conventional project management is replaced by software as the
work is broken into discrete tasks and outsourced. Central
software manages and integrates information automatically,
with speed paramount. Human project managers oversee a
model, not its many parts.
Overall. In this scenario, there will be far more artificial intelligence support for the research and technology
NovemberDecember 2013

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function. As the speed of business continues to increase and

the shifting needs of the consumer become paramount, managers will focus on tending the process software and making
decisions on focus while intelligent agents do much of the
heavy lifting.

These skills will need to be global, as new consumers and

researchers from emerging markets around the globe demand more attention. Managers will also need to use
simulation to inform project research and increase project speed.

Conclusion
As the future unfolds toward one or several of these scenarios, managers should look to develop the skills and organizational competencies to flourish in that world. Our work
identified some implications that are common across all scenarios; these should receive particular attention in the
near-term:

Micro and macro. Incremental projects serving evolving

customer needs will compete with the increasingly urgent needs of the planet itself. Constrained resources and
a drive toward sustainability will open opportunities for
R&D to return to solving some of societys big problems
in a way that is profitable to the organizations they serve.
Urbanization and the rise of the megacity will also greatly
influence R&Ds role in these larger, more transformational projects.

Artificial intelligence and talent management. As expert systems or artificial intelligences become capable of handling day-to-day project management, a managers time
will be spent cultivating talent and assembling teams
from large, external networks.
Open innovation and intellectual property. Projects will become far more open, with companies relying on speed
to market rather than intellectual property protection
to create value. Managers will need to balance the benefits of connectivity and information sharing against
the advantages of trade secrets. Striking that balance
will be especially challenging for business-to-business
innovation. Often, the intellectual property that remains protected will be in how things are made, not
what things are made.
Needs identification and speed to market. R&Ds value will lie
in the ability to quickly identify opportunities for research and technology to serve new customer needs.
This means developing skills in customer research, ethnography, technology scouting, and rapid prototyping.

Although the four scenarios constructed in this exercise are

very different, managers can begin to explore these common
combinations, building relevant organizational competencies
as the global market for R&D changes. At the same time,
managers should pay careful attention to how events unfold,
with an eye toward understanding which scenarios are
emerging. Careful attention to the evolving future will allow
managers and their organizations to develop the relevant capacities and create competitive advantage.
IRI2038 was conducted in a highly collaborative manner, with
many firms and individuals contributing. Foresight Alliance contributed many of the weak signals scans and implications wheels.
Implications wheels were also sourced from several IRI member
companies, including PepsiCo and Crown Holdings. Many thanks
to the 38 R&D leaders who contributed to the Futures Audit. Most
importantly, the authors thank the several hundred IRI member
representatives who participated in four workshops held over the
course of this project, as well as key IRI staff members Jennifer
Blenkle and Lee Green. This article is largely the result of their
efforts.

Reprints

WINNING CONCEPTS & PRACTICES FOR MANAGING INDUSTRIAL R&D

Twenty-seven award-winning articles from RESEARCH-TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT are now available in
paperback. To order, visit the IRI bookstore at http://www.iriweb.org/bookstore
Achieving and Sustaining Success in Management of
Industrial R&D: Insights and Ideas from Leading
Practitioners
The Changing Agenda for Research Management
Anticipating Disruptive Innovation
Seeing Differently: A Role for Pioneering Research
Make Platform Innovation Drive Enterprise Growth
R&D Choices and Technology Transfer
Improving the Return on R&D
Global Management of Technology Motivating
Your R&D Staff

32 | Research-Technology Management

The Role of Core Competencies in the

Corporation
Putting Core Competency Thinking Into Practice
Entrepreneurship in R&D - A State of Mind
Accessing External Sources of Technology
Selecting Projects for Commercial Success
New Products: What Distinguishes the Winners?
Debunking the Myths of New Product
Development
Front-End Innovation at AlliedSignal and Alcoa
Better New Business Development at Dupont

The IRI 2038 Scenarios