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Progress Reporting: The mechanism as to how, when, and by whom progress will be reported needs to be defined. From an R&D perspective, it should be the appointed responsible Project Manager/Leader with access to all R&D information from all sources in both companies. |
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Publication Policy: The publication policy needs to be defined, specifying who writes, reviews, and approves manuscripts, and also when it will be submitted for publication and where. |
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Unexpected Findings: A process needs to be defined to explain how to deal with unexpected findings, especially those that may prompt a change in project direction. |
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Outside Communication Policy: In an environment of multiple internal and external stakeholders (or stockholders) the activities, progress, and outcomes of organizations become part of the public domain. Therefore, a prospective approach and policy should be developed to generate and disseminate external communications. All inquires from external sources should be funneled through a single source so that only one story is presented to the outside world. |
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C.
Ownership, Responsibility, and Authority. |
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These are always delicate issues within any cooperative alliance. However, as with procedures, they can lead to problems if they are not addressed prospectively. Many of these points will be determined by the project in question and where expertise lies. In all cases, however, because there needs to be a high level of trust and mutual respect between the parties, none of these elements can be completely one-sided. |
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One other aspect that must be considered is the need to ensure that the key stakeholders in the alliance are actively involved in the operation and definition of the terms and conditions specifying how the alliance will be structured, managed, and monitored. Following up on the point of ensuring that the key stakeholders are actively involved, there should be an alliance champion in each partner's organization who will be the internal advocate of the alliance and take every advantage to support and defend it over time. |
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Along with assuring that the right people are involved at the appropriate time, there are several other issues that should be addressed, such as |
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Defining who has the responsibility and will be held accountable for directing, managing, and leading the project. It must be clearly understood that you cannot hold a team or committee accountable. |
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