Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
For Chinese R&D leaders, it’s all about agile
Agile | R&D | China
September 14, 2021 – Executives in our latest China Product Development survey identified their top three priorities to improve R&D processes over the next five years. Topping their “must improve” list is increasing their agility in software and hardware design, and digitizing processes.
To read the article, see “China’s digital R&D imperative,” August 16, 2021.
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Visual form
Scatter-plot prioritization matrix.
Layout / body structure
The chart is a single square matrix with maturity on the horizontal axis and priority on the vertical axis, plus a right-hand process key. Read the plot first, quadrant by quadrant, and then use the lettered legend at right to decode each dot.
What is being compared
The chart compares 15 R&D process areas against one another on two dimensions at the same time: how mature each process is today and how high a priority respondents assign to improving it.
Measurement system
The horizontal scale tracks maturity as an average point score from 0 to 100, while the vertical scale tracks priority as an average point score from 0 to 10. Bright blue marks the top-priority processes, black marks the rest, and the quadrant labels signal whether an item is something to learn, improve, delay, or treat as a must-have.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each process appears as a labeled dot from A through O inside the matrix. The plot is split by a vertical and horizontal reference line into four labeled zones, and the right side lists the full process names, from agile R&D in software and hardware through documentation, project management, stage gates, and systems engineering.
Main takeaway from the visual
The most urgent processes cluster in the upper half of the matrix, and several of them still sit only in the middle of the maturity range rather than at the far right. That makes the biggest visible gap a need to raise the maturity of agile, integrated, and digital product-development processes rather than merely maintain already-established routines.
Key standout values or extremes
A sits at the very top of the chart at roughly 10 on priority, while D combines very high priority with one of the stronger maturity readings in the high 60s. On the lower side, K and N sit near the bottom of the priority scale around 4 to 5, and H reaches one of the highest maturity readings in the mid-70s without landing among the blue top-priority dots.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.