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BLUF: In the tech transition stage, PMs ensure their project transitions from their office to the best transition partner possible. This should be a group with the budget to cover the project and whose incentives are aligned with the long-term success of the project. Transition is hard and where many projects fail. The only way to reasonably hope for success in a project’s transition stage is to speak with potential transition partners from the project’s inception and continue to work with them throughout the project.

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⚡Practical Outcome: By the end of this module, PMs should have identified one or more specific transition partners for their project. They should have a clear understanding of each partner’s incentives, constraints, and operational realities. PMs should use this knowledge to shape their program design for successful transition.

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🏭Ensuring Transition Stays a Priority, Not an Afterthought

Program managers must think about tech transition when they approach every strategy decision from program conception onward. Phrases like “transition” or “translation” are often appended to the back half of images describing the R&D pipeline as something of an afterthought to the basic research stages. That is even how many in academia and industry conceptualize the R&D pipeline, but that is not how PMs should approach transition. Successful programs need people to fund their work beyond the initial, temporary payer – such as DARPA or ARIA. Projects must accomplish early-stage R&D goals in ways that ensure follow-on funders are eager to continue funding the work.

The integration of your transition partners’ constraints into your program design is critical. Early design decisions have profound effects on your technology’s ability to draw follow-on funding and survive beyond the R&D cocoon. Small differences, like the ability for a new material to be created using existing equipment or interface with standard connection points, can have a huge impact on its ability to transition. Great PMs do whatever they can to plan and get ahead of these issues. Academics often don’t begin investigations with things like manufacturing techniques or material cost constraints at scale in mind. While academic journals do not care about that, it is your job to obsess over it.

From the outset, during program exploration, identify potential transition partners and work to understand their incentives and decision-making processes:

• Where do they get their funding?
• What drives their investment decisions?
• What kinds of technologies align with their priorities, and why?

As you explore different categories of transition partners, you'll gain insight into who is best suited to continue funding your project. Often, the ideal transition partner depends on how your project’s R&D unfolds. This might require you to maintain relationships with a broad spectrum of potential partners throughout the project, allowing you to pivot or adjust your approach based on findings that emerge.

🪣 Buckets of transition partners

Transition partners capable of scaling your technology to reach its full potential come in many forms, including:

• Nonprofit organizations that fund R&D.
• VCs looking to back a startup that leverages your technology.
• Military or government agencies that could become end-users.
• Companies integrating your innovation into their product lines.
• Practitioners or researchers applying your program’s insights to their work.
• Follow-on funding sources, such as NSF or DOE applied research grants.