On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with SoftLogic Solution's R&D Director, George Mirabelli.

George got his start designing air-traffic controller systems for the military and various governments around the world. He then started working with R&D in insurance and finance systems. He had a long career in design and software development. Recently, he’s been showing businesses how to really make the most of the R&D tax incentives from a design perspective.

Criteria for the R&D tax incentive:

●Australian company

●High innovation

●New knowledge requires experimentation and risk of failure

George really plainly puts it that with R&D, you’re investing previous profits into developing new products—so it needs to be worth it. The R&D structure of your product design needs to be fully incorporated to reap your maximum ROI. George also explains the difference between the apportionment method vs. the timesheet method.

Topics Covered:

●Understanding the R&D tax incentive.

●The knowledge that can be easily accessed is not new knowledge.

●Core and supporting R&D activities.

●Getting your documentation straight early on is key.

●R&D is an integral part of the product strategy.

●Tracking costs in core and supporting R&D.

●Creating an R&D manual.

Key Quotes:

❏“With a rebate up to 43%, [The R&D tax incentive] is designed for high innovation, like new knowledge.” (4:30)

❏“It doesn’t matter if the experimentation is successful.” (5:45)

❏“It’s really important that people take the documentation process and embed it into the way they think about R&D, which is basically what I do.” (12:25)

❏“It’s important in software development to separate the idea of Agile development from the iterations.” (15:45)

❏“It’s just writing it down.” (17:15)

❏“You want to be able to find [your R&D processes] consistently.” (24:45)

❏“R&D starts when the product is being conceptualized.” (28:30)