Build, Bin, Boost
The R&D Portfolio Simulation
You've just been promoted to Head of R&D at a fast-growing Indian tech company. Your mission: build an innovation portfolio that will shape the company's future. But with limited budget and competing priorities, every decision matters.
Step Into the Role
Take charge of an R&D portfolio with ongoing projects and fresh opportunities. Shape the future with the hand you're dealt.
Assess & Select
Design your evaluation process. Choose your criteria. Assemble a committee. Review proposals and decide which projects deserve funding—and which don't.
Live with the Consequences
Projects succeed, fail, or surprise you. Navigate corporate events, manage your team, and adapt your strategy.
Created by Ammon Salter, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Developed with assistance from Claude (Anthropic), GPT-5 (OpenAI) & Gemini (Google)
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
You've Been Promoted
Head of R&D, effective immediately
From Bangalore startup to India's #3 security company
Detailed background: market analysis, strategic priorities, leadership team, financial data
You've heard the rumours—they're true. Vikram is out, and I want you to take over R&D.
The last three years haven't worked. We funded 15 projects and only 4 made it. Pet projects got protected, bad news got buried, and we kept failing projects alive for years instead of cutting losses.
I'm giving you $40M and full authority to redesign how we select projects.
🎯 What the Board Expects
Your R&D portfolio needs to address these priorities:
We're #3 in India but competitors are catching up. Protect our position in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and other major cities.
The next wave of growth is in smaller cities—Jaipur, Lucknow, Coimbatore. We need affordable products that work there.
Hardware sales are lumpy. The board wants subscription services—monitoring, cloud storage, premium features.
We acquired CloudWatch for their AI talent. Now we need products that use it—before Google and Amazon eat our lunch.
💡 What You Have to Work With
Devi — AI Advisor OPTIONAL
Named after Shakuntala Devi (1929–2013)
Shakuntala Devi (1929–2013) was an Indian mathematician, writer, and campaigner for social and educational reform. Self-taught from a young age, she became renowned for her extraordinary mathematical abilities and toured the world inspiring audiences. She wrote several books including Figuring: The Joy of Numbers, making mathematics accessible to millions, and was a vocal advocate for education access, women's rights, and LGBTQ+ equality in India.
No AI Assistance
Make all decisions yourself. The traditional simulation experience.
Selection Only
Devi scores and comments on project proposals during selection.
- AI scores for each project
- Confidence ratings
- Pattern-based rationale
- End-game accuracy analysis
Full Advisory
Devi advises throughout: committee, criteria, portfolio, and ongoing management.
- Everything in Selection mode
- Committee recommendations
- Criteria suggestions
- Portfolio balance advice
- Kill/continue recommendations
Learning objective: Devi has systematic biases—she overweights quantifiable metrics, shows false precision, and may miss breakthrough innovations. At game end, you'll see how accurate her advice really was. Use this to explore when AI augments vs. misleads human judgment.
📖 The ShieldTech Story
2012 — The Beginning
Meera Venkataraman and Arjun Khanna started ShieldTech in a cramped Bangalore apartment with $36,000 and a simple idea: every Indian family deserves to feel safe at home, not just the wealthy ones. Their first product was a motion sensor that cost a tenth of the competition.
2017 — Series B & Growth
Sequoia India invested $45M. The "SmartGuard" product line launched. ShieldTech expanded to 8 states and hired its 100th employee.
2019 — The Crucible
A key supplier went bankrupt, nearly taking ShieldTech with it. Three months of 18-hour days saved the company. Meera still calls it "the crucible."
2021 — IPO & Acquisition
Listed on BSE. Used the capital to acquire CloudWatch, an AI analytics startup with 40 ML engineers. Entered the commercial security market.
2024 — The Challenge
Revenue hit $145 million but growth is slowing. Chinese competitors are undercutting on price. The CloudWatch integration brought culture clashes. The previous Head of R&D was let go after too many failed projects.
Today
2,400 employees. #3 in India's home security market. A $40M R&D budget. And a new Head of R&D—you—tasked with picking the projects that will secure ShieldTech's future.
Who Should Make Selection Decisions?
Your first major choice: how will project funding decisions be made?
You Decide Alone
Fast decisions with clear accountability. You review all proposals and make the calls.
Selection Committee
Assemble a team of colleagues to evaluate and vote on proposals together.
Staff Jury
Random selection of employees from across the company vote on each proposal.
Leave It to Chance
Projects meeting basic criteria are randomly selected. No human bias.
Select Your Committee Members
Choose colleagues to join your selection committee. Each brings different perspectives, expertise, and biases. Add as many as you think you need.
Your Committee (0 members)
👔 Senior Leadership Strategic vision & organisational authority
🏢 Business Unit Heads P&L owners with market & customer insight
🔬 Technical Leaders Deep expertise in engineering & innovation
💡 Other Voices Fresh perspectives & diverse viewpoints
Define Your Evaluation Criteria
What factors will you prioritise when evaluating projects? We recommend 4-6 criteria for balanced evaluation, but you can select as many as you need.
Primary Criteria
⚙️ Technical & Feasibility
🎯 Strategic Alignment
📈 Market & Commercial
💼 Financial & Execution
Assign Importance Weights
How important is each criterion relative to the others? Distribute 100 points across your selected criteria to reflect their relative importance in your evaluation.
Preview: Your Evaluation Formula
Current R&D Portfolio
Before selecting new projects, you must decide what to do with the initiatives you've inherited.
📊 Your Decisions Impact
🎯 Configure Your Selection Process
Make two decisions that will shape how you evaluate project proposals
How will you score projects?
Choose how much time and detail you'll invest in evaluating each proposal
Should team information be visible?
Decide whether to see who is leading and working on each project
📚 Research Insight
Studies show that evaluator attention and information presentation significantly affect project selection. Time pressure leads to reliance on heuristics, while knowing team identities can introduce both valuable context and unconscious biases (Criscuolo et al., 2021; Boudreau et al., 2016).
AI Advisor Status
Devi — Named after Shakuntala Devi (1929–2013)
You can change this setting on the start screen.
💬 Request Additional Funding from Meera
You've identified a promising project that doesn't quite fit in the current budget. You could make a personal case to Meera for additional funding — she's known to back R&D leaders who show conviction in their portfolio choices.
"I can find an extra $5M if you're confident in the portfolio. But I'll be watching the results closely — I'm backing you, not just the projects."
📋 What This Means
- +$5M added to your Year 1 budget
- Meera will expect stronger portfolio performance
- Your end-of-game evaluation will reflect this higher bar
- This is a one-time request — choose wisely
Are you confident enough in your project selection to ask for more?
🔧 Skunkworks Opportunity
A team member has been working on something in their spare time...
Score All Projects
Rate each project on your selected criteria. Cards will reorder by score as you evaluate.
Ready to Continue?
Score all projects to proceed to committee feedback.
Triage Your Projects
Review committee feedback and make initial funding decisions. Categorise each project, then fine-tune the marginal cases in the portfolio view.
🪑 Budget Approval Meeting
Before finalizing your portfolio, chair the R&D Budget Committee meeting. Your facilitation skills determine your final budget allocation.
Meeting Complete
Year 1 Portfolio Review
Q4 Complete — Time to refresh your portfolio for Year 2
After a year of development, new opportunities have emerged from market shifts and technological advances. Some projects have freed up resources, and your team has identified promising new initiatives. Consider how new projects might complement or rebalance your portfolio for Year 2.
Portfolio Balance (Current + Selected)
📊 Year 2 Portfolio Review
Review your updated portfolio balance before proceeding. Make sure your strategic buckets align with your Year 2 goals.
Strategic Balance After Adding New Projects
New Projects Being Added
Current Active Portfolio
📊 Portfolio Balance
Review your updated portfolio balance after adding new projects. Use the matrix views to assess strategic alignment before continuing to Year 2.
🎯 Year 2 Evaluation Approach
New project opportunities have emerged. How will you evaluate them?
Your Year 1 Approach
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Use the same approach for Year 2?
You can continue with your established process or try a different method
New scoring approach
How will you score Year 2 projects?
Team information visibility
📚 Learning Opportunity
Year 2 evaluation lets you compare new opportunities against your ongoing investments. Consider: Are the new projects stronger or weaker than what you're already funding? Should you reallocate resources?
🧭 Quick Triage
Year 2 does not repeat Year 1 criteria scoring. Mark each project as a priority, maybe, or pass.