Welcome to the start of a new year—and thank you for being part of the Plumtree community!
In the months ahead, we’ll share new ideas, practical tools and simple frameworks focused on how R&D teams can collaborate more effectively and deliver faster when the work is complex and the path is not always clear.
We’d love to hear what you’re noticing on your teams, or what you’d like us to cover. You can reach me anytime!
Most teams start the year by planning the work. Roadmaps. Timelines. Milestones. Project Plans.
What often gets skipped is the harder question. Why does this team doing this work exist? And when things get complex and challenging, what does "great" work actually look like?
What we're noticing
Teams frequently jump straight into execution. The plan becomes the anchor instead of the program’s north star or the team’s ambition.
At the same time, many teams never take the time to define operating principles to provide a guide of what is expected to work at their best together. The shared standards that guide decisions, tradeoffs, and behaviors when the path forward is unclear.
Without those anchors, teams are busy in the work, but they are not always aligned.
The insight
When purpose and principles are missing, people stay in their lanes. Each team member holds their own version of the aspirational outcome. Each person carries a private definition of what “great” looks like.
That fragmentation shows up quietly. Missed opportunities. Safe solutions. Decisions pushed up. Bold questions that don’t get asked.
Teams then default to what is safe and known. Autonomy drops. Judgment narrows. The collective genius of the team is never fully realized.
R&D work is full of unknowns. Complexity is an everyday occurrence. Purpose and principles bring clarity, focus, and alignment when the path forward isn’t clear.
The Plumtree Perspective
We see teams thrive when they work from a unified purpose supported by explicit principles.
It removes the internal interpretation and assumptions.
It creates space for healthy debate because “great” is defined together.
One team told us, “I thought this would be easy. It’s harder than you think to capture what’s essential and what makes us unique. But once we did, everything shifted. Even our language changed.”
They started asking different questions. Does this meet our standard? Does this align with our purpose?
That is when teams start working at the speed of science.
What you can try:
Make "defining your purpose" a working session
The start of the year is a perfect moment to reset or refine purpose. Try this with your team.
Use a simple “purpose” mad libs to spark conversation — we've made a short guide with a template.
Ask what makes us unique? What are we delivering that no one else can? What does success really mean? How do we show up when things get hard and uncomfortable?
Do it as a 30–45 minute agenda item. No prep deck required.
The goal is not perfection. It is a shared direction that helps make your goals and plan more cohesive and owned collectively.
The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Innovation by Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner.
The authors open with a sharp metaphor: most organizations are still operating in a Tin Man world. Rigid, slow, permission-based, disconnected from empathy.
That’s where the Octopus Organization comes in. They argue for a model that’s highly adaptable and curious, with eight arms working independently but deeply connected and coordinated through a shared brain.
It is a powerful way to think about purpose, autonomy, and coordination.
If this resonates, let's read together!
Until next time!
If your R&D team is navigating complexity and you want support getting aligned and moving faster, we’re happy to start with a conversation. Plumtree is here to help teams and organizations work at the speed of science.
P.S. If you know someone who’d find this useful, please forward it and invite them to subscribe HERE.
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