{"id":5353,"date":"2016-02-25T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/?p=5353"},"modified":"2018-01-30T13:22:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T21:22:02","slug":"best-of-both-worlds-one-researchers-dual-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/best-of-both-worlds-one-researchers-dual-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of both worlds: one researcher\u2019s dual approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Microsoft_Research_Blog_Sumit_900X300\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who walks away from success? In his decade with Microsoft Research, Sumit Gulwani (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>enjoyed a self-described \u201cblissful\u201d tenure, co-authoring more than 100 papers and giving dozens of keynotes and lectures\u2014so why, then, would he leave?<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch alone is not a sustainable growth model,\u201d said Gulwani in a recent interview. \u201cIf we want to do more, and receive more funding, then we need a system in which we\u00a0give back to society in a shorter time-frame by\u00a0solving real problems, and putting innovation into tangible products.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gulwani felt good about his contributions to the field of computer science research, but at the same time, he saw the need for more practical solutions to a host of real world problems (one could say he acquired a taste for the latter with the successful deployment of his brainchild, Flash Fill for Microsoft Excel (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>). So, while rhetoric among researchers often places a higher value on foundational work, he prepared to take on the challenges of practical work and joined the Cloud and Enterprise group at Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Gulwani knew\u00a0this wasn\u2019t an either\/or proposition. Instead, he wanted to\u00a0pursue both disciplines at the same time combining foundational work and generalized theories typically found in research with engineering-focused solutions for immediate customer needs. This would create a self-funding, accelerated innovation engine. But, the challenge would lie in how to go about it.<\/p>\n

Adapting a structure from Peter Lee, corporate vice president for Microsoft Research, Gulwani drew up four quadrants, halved on the vertical axis by value and process, and again on the x-axis by engineering and research. Typically, the research and engineering sides functioned as parallel but with completely opaque paths. As a researcher, Gulwani would first build a research prototype (right quadrant side) and then search for an engineering group that needed to address a related problem and that was willing to invest in productizing his research (left quadrant side). This workflow carries with it the risk of working on the wrong problems and duplicating the development effort between the research prototyping and then an end quality product. In Gulwani\u2019s research world, after developing prototypes for specific problems (top-right quadrant), he would work towards a generalized framework of related innovations (bottom-right quadrant). However, unfortunately, the utility of such a framework can prove to be mostly theoretical because engineering groups might not find it worthwhile to productize that general framework because of the high startup cost.<\/p>\n

\"Gulwani's (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>An approach to accelerated innovation that funds itself: The flow is inverted (from dotted red lines to solid green lines) and the same team balances time between all four quadrants.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gulwani looked at the quadrants and thought: \u201cWhat if we just introduce some transparency and shared intention to the product group, and invert the typical flow? Or even create a team with functionality across all<\/em> the quadrants?<\/p>\n

Thus, Gulwani began construction of a new kind of team. His vision had program managers focusing on customer needs (top left quadrant) and channeling the team’s innovation capacity towards those needs. Researchers would invest in creating a generalized framework (bottom-right quadrant) that would facilitate construction of specific technologies (top-right quadrant). Engineers would set up the correct engineering processes (bottom-left quadrant) so that researchers could develop product quality code. User Experience researchers would create user interface designs for specific technologies. Those designs would then be implemented by the engineers.<\/p>\n

Today, Gulwani says the structure is working fairly well. \u201cThe team knows we\u2019re all working towards the same vision. We want to advance the state-of-the-art in the nascent field of programming-by-examples – and apply it to concrete tactical problems, bringing the technology out in the real world through different products.\u201d<\/p>\n

It takes a deliberately cultivated growth mindset to make this kind of collaboration work, and accepting that one is operating outside one\u2019s comfort zone. \u201cThe fact that these researchers are working together and are willing to learn engineering, and the fact that the senior engineers on the team are willing to guide the researchers, and appreciate each other\u2019s point of view? That is a big thing,\u201d according to Gulwani. \u201cQuite different from the individual-contributor and prototype-focused value system that typically exits in academia or field research labs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sumit_team\" (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>Sumit Gulwani’s research and engineering group at Microsoft Redmond<\/em><\/p>\n

From daily scrum meetings to six-week dedicated customer engagement exercises, the team is always engaged in making their own process better. Not all of it is intuitive, though. For researchers, spending a large percent of their time up front on engineering processes was hard to justify at first. But the realization soon followed that, as Gulwani says, \u201cThis is actually going to speed up our pace of innovation,\u00a0because we can experiment with new ideas much faster, and it is going to make us more agile in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what happens when you put researchers and engineers in a room? If you\u2019re watching Gulwani\u2019s team, the answer is: They start innovating on innovation itself.<\/p>\n

Learn more <\/strong><\/p>\n