ABSTRACT
Investment in research and development must be looked at in the same way as any other investment in the business – the benefits it produces must exceed the costs. Problems are also frequently encountered in the implementation phase and this causes further delays. Financial planning must recognize these uncertainties, particularly with respect to longer-term work, and appropriate monitoring or control procedures must be instituted, which are capable of recognizing significant changes and indicating corrective action as early as possible. Top-down planning is therefore a way of focusing management attention on the needs of the organization. The success of the approaches outlined in the previous two sections will depend on the degree to which the performance on individual projects matches up to the expectations. Alternative forms of network diagrams are available, notably the activity on node or activity in box method sometimes referred to as the metra potential method.
