Imagine a baseball game, where the pitcher throws the ball, then runs to home plate in time to catch it, and then, if the ball is hit, has to run out into the field and catch the ball or field it, and then throw it to himself at one of the bases in time to cut off a runner… you know, it’s a ridiculous notion. But organizations will sometimes think they can drop an individual into their organizational structure and tell them “go out and find us some SR&ED”, and believe that a process now exists. The bases are covered.
Having a process, or putting one in place, is all about “push”, not “pull”. It is about multiple people from within an organization taking ownership of their part of a bigger thing, and “pushing”, that is, driving their piece of it, making things happen, caring about timing and quality and outcomes. Process is an end-to-end thing that is larger than the individuals engaged in it.
In a SR&ED context, “push” means that there is both strategic and operational determination to pursue SR&ED and commitment to building it into strategic, tactical and operational models. Push is about Senior Leadership saying, “we’re going to do this, everybody!” Push is about technical people actively scouting for opportunities to claim, and also, being engaged and disciplined with the process of documenting their technical work appropriately as the work is being done. Push is about the legal and financial people, equally, seeking out ways to smooth out wrinkles in the identification and qualification of eligible costs.
How does all this happen? First of all, it has to be driven from the top of an organization down to the street level. When senior leadership cares enough about an issue to add it to scorecards, or build it in to the day to day operational models, when the message is clearly sent and understood that “this is how we do business” – that’s when a real SR&ED process becomes possible. When that message has been embraced by the technical primes, and when people start finding their own SR&ED and bringing it to the table and saying “look at this! What about this?” - that’s when you’re shifting into drive.