Agree that this sounds promising. I think this could be an org that collected well-scoped, well-defined research questions that would be useful for important decisions and then provided enough mentorship and supervision to get the work done in a competent way; I might be trying to do this this year, starting at a small scale. E.g., there are tons of tricky questions in AI governance that I suspect could be broken down into lots of difficult but slightly simpler research questions. DM me for a partial list.
You may be able to draw lessons from management consulting firms. One big idea behind these firms is that bright 20-somethings can make big contributions to projects in subject areas they don’t have much experience in as long as they are put on teams with the right structure.
Projects at these firms are typically led by a partner and engagement manager who are fairly familiar with the subject area at hand. Actual execution and research is mostly done by lower level consultants, who typically have little background in the relevant subject area.
Some high-level points on how these teams work:
The team leads formulate a structure for what specific tasks need to be done to make progress on the project
There is a lot of hand-holding and specific direction of lower-level consultants, at least until they prove they can do more substantial tasks on their own
There are regular check-ins and regular deliverables to ensure people are on the right track and to switch course if necessary
You may be able to draw lessons from management consulting firms. One big idea behind these firms is that bright 20-somethings can make big contributions to projects in subject areas they don’t have much experience in as long as they are put on teams with the right structure.
Projects at these firms are typically led by a partner and engagement manager who are fairly familiar with the subject area at hand. Actual execution and research is mostly done by lower level consultants, who typically have little background in the relevant subject area.
Some high-level points on how these teams work:
The team leads formulate a structure for what specific tasks need to be done to make progress on the project
There is a lot of hand-holding and specific direction of lower-level consultants, at least until they prove they can do more substantial tasks on their own
There are regular check-ins and regular deliverables to ensure people are on the right track and to switch course if necessary
Good points, thanks!