Let me hime in here with my “Dos Centavos” ( ;D )…
If I, or Melih, or any manager had the True Answer to that question - we’d be gazillionares!
What you discuss is actually a very fine balance - maintaining focus, but not stifling creativity…
IMHO, this question actually has more than one answer - and the “correct” answer depends on things that noone but you control…
First: The engineering / development / R&D effort you envision - what is it’s primary goal?
(a) If it is focused on a specific project, (i.e. improving the B-2 Bomber to make it less of a white elephant), then you have a fairly narrowly scoped goal, and can confine within it. However, you need to give the engineering staff enough “lead” to examine multiple possibilities - including possibly just scrapping the whole darn thing and starting from scratch!
(b) If it is focused on a less specific project, (i.e. shortening your companies “time to market” on new projects, or developing a new functional paradigm (to shorten your time to market…), then you need to give your staff even more lead…
(c) If you’re looking for pure, unadulterated, creativity - then you may not want to give your engineers any boundaries at all… It’s entirely possible that your staff may come up with totally new and unique ways of working with an existing product - or a way to use existing technology to do something totally un-precedented - etc. etc. etc.
Example:
The Home Depot near where I live sells these “Florescent Replacement Bulbs” that we’ve all seen - has a ■■■■■-base and replaces a standard incandecent bulb.
This one company (TCP), markets bulbs under the n:vision brand - and they include a “daylight” bulb rated at 5500 degrees Kelvin, and they get about $6 apiece for them
I have discovered that - when taking interior photos - these bulbs work wonders, WITHOUT the greenish tinge that you usually get from florescent bulbs.
They could not only sell these bulbs at Home Depot, they could advertise them to photographers (photo-flood bulbs and fixtures are expensive as hell!), “natural light” health nuts, (other “natural light” fixtures cost in the several-hundreds-of-dollars range), and so-forth.
In other words - by “thinking outside the box” a bit, this company could rapidly expand the relevant market for their lighting products.
Another example:
Years ago, I ran a small home based business that specialized in custom engineering projects - the “one off’s” that people occasionally want. This was - of course - in addition to my “day job” ;D
When the military market tanked in the 90’s on Long Island - I was unemployed with a room full of computer equipment collecting dust…
So, I made up a whole S-load of bright orange signs that advertised me as a “resume” service… everyone wanted resumes, right?
The phone was ringing off the hook! OK, it wasn’t “custom engineering”, but it paid the mortgage!!
In summary, it will really depend on what it is YOU want to do with your Engineering department, and what their prospective goal is.
Sorry about the length…
Jim