Empowering Biotech SMEs towards efficient project management

How wrong priorities can lead to bad decisions - i2e Consulting

Prioritization at a strategic and operational level is often the difference between success and failure, but many organizations do this poorly and this leads to utter chaos and ultimate failure of the project. Sometimes the senior executives are under the impression that they've made the priorities crystal clear, but in reality, they've made a real life dilemma for the employees. Employees of the organization should be well aware of the strategy and have no trouble in executing it properly. In order to lead a project successfully, you need to prioritize one single element, and not a combination of a few of them. Prioritizing is extremely important to the success of am project as it increases the alignment and focus of senior management teams around the original strategic goals and helps clears all doubts or confusions that an employee might face.Not having a single clear goal is not the only reason behind the chaos in an organization. Sometimes the leaders simply end up making the wrong decisions and prioritizing the wrong element. Another huge issue that researchers have found is that most leaders and organization heads run away from making decisions all together which is a bigger problem. Companies that have excellent sense of priorities and end up spending their budget efficiently on things that matter which results in lower running costs and lesser wastage of resources.The best kind of success is derived when company seniors tend to take risks and have a sharp, laser like focus on the priorities.There are various tools that can be utilized to prioritize company goals efficiently in order to yield the desired result. These tools mainly focus on:PurposePrioritiesProjectsPeoplePerformance Prioritizing helps the organization be properly functional right from the top to the lowest level. Priorities are also overtime embedded in the corporate culture. For example, applying ‘The Hierarchy of Purpose’ helps company heads realize that it’s totally natural to change priorities midway of a project, and this can cause not much harm if execution is on point. Every terminated priority is a learning experience and an opportunity to do better next time. Priorities change and, if managed successfully, have the capacity to fundamentally change organizations, but only if top management makes tough choices.Prioritization is extremely important for effective project management in organizations. Prioritization helps gains access to the resources that are required to get the project done. Without prioritization there can be a continuous fight for resources and projects drag on and on. Support your organizations priorities with a solid project management tool from i2e consulting. The project management tool will not only help you manage priorities effectively, but also will help you increase your team’s productivity and morale.

Analytics for Resourcing Decision Making.

R&D funds in pharmaceuticals are scares, it is important that they be allocated wisely. Companies often find it difficult to decide on which resources to pursue or, at times even more significant which resources to retire or discontinue. Are you making these common mistakes? Guesstimates: Your next project or project phase is about to start, you hold a team meeting, and based on the discussion and your gut, you present a case to the management. Most of the time, the resources are seen to be over or underworked and you feel the burn for guesswork. Spreadsheet Analysis: Spreadsheets are at the heart of your organizations and you use them for everything, even resource management. Miscommunication, ever-changing requirements, last-minute hires/fires are all very familiar to you. Your spreadsheets are not designed to forecast the workload for you. Legacy Resource Management Software: You are using an inhouse half-baked entry-level resourcing software that does not make the cut for modern business challenges. Achieving an enterprise-wide resource forecasting and planning report, thanks to siloed data sets is a struggle. The process often suffer because of software limitations and/or it is not integrated into other systems of your organization. Profitable resource utilization is a dream. These mistakes occur because of the lack of appropriate decision-support tools. Good resourcing decision is critical in pharmaceutical companies and should have a systematic approach with top-down budgetary requirements and bottom-up requests. Resources in a project context include human inventory, infrastructure, technologies, financial, tacit and explicit knowledge, procedures, and organizational process assets. Just like any other aspect of the business, today organizations have a large amount of data on resources at their disposal. If this data is used successfully, it can help drive more methodical decision-making throughout an organization. Benefits of Modern Analytics Solutions There are several sophisticated solutions out there in the market although not many are specific to the pharma and life science industry, but you can always go for a tailored solution. Here are two key benefits and features you might be interested to use. Data-driven Resource Planning: The biggest advantage of analytics, give guesswork and gut feeling a break and put your data to work. Access to quantifiable data helps you set realistic targets that align with the planned sequence of work tasks. Create plans and budgets quick and easy, align top-down targets with bottom-up plans. Advanced Reporting: You can experience a range of reports that help it easier to process and comprehend data. Some of the modern tools also provide you with the option of scenario modelling so you can test business assumptions and model scenarios, the impact of alternative courses of action before deciding to implement changes. Process information, infer trends, drill-down data and slice and dice it for deep granular understanding. In conclusion, pharmaceutical R&D is suffering from a stagnant pipeline and declining success rates. It is important that the industry uses the already scarce funds and resources wisely and optimally. In such case, big data and analytics could play a huge role in R&D resourcing. Its use is widespread in clinical trials, pharmacovigilance etc. They should tap into the opportunities it can provide in resourcing.

4 Project Management Tips to Keep Your Virtual Team on Track - i2e Consulting

Advantages of separated teams do exist but so do the disadvantages, such as language issues, time zones, different work environments, contradicting priorities etc. Here are 4 secrets to keeping the team running smoothly without any obstacles.1. Avoid communication through emailEmails these days are the primary ways in which an organization communicates, as it is extremely handy. However, what one often forgets about is the number of emails an average corporate employee receives in a day. Due to the overflowing amount of communication over emails, there is a high chance of the employee not paying enough attention to an important email that might include some groundbreaking ideas. It’s not just the receivers that are flooded with emails, there is a high chance that the senders also forget about following up and the original idea they'd thought of in the first place.Instead of emailing your team, one should use project management tools to store ideas. Regular meetings should be held not only to brainstorm but also discuss backlogs and divide workload.2. Set Recurring tasksOne might not realize this, but the same employees repeat most of the tasks that take place in a project often. Instead of the employees wasting their time each week doing the same thing again and again, use project management tools from i2e consulting to automate tasks that are performed on a daily basis. This will free some of your manpower to do more creative and productive tasks.3. Utilize Group ChatsIndividual communication usually gives the leader a severe headache and is also extremely time consuming. To save time and do this more efficiently, one should take advantage of the current era of technology and use group chats. This also makes long distance communication easier thanks to the chatting feature on video conferencing. Group chats also help communicate a common message almost instantly to all the teammates.4. Form Proper Work InstructionsA set of work instructions always helps to micromanage a big team and standardizes the work being done. One should follow the example of the industry giants and use the ISO 9001 standards that are very diligent at documentation. Using tools that help data to be properly organized and categorized according to the department, function and responsibilities can easily do this. Once all of this is done effectively, the link can be shared with the appropriate members. This gives the workers a targeted list of tasks that they need to complete along with the suitable instructions.Take advantage of i2e consulting’s accelerated implementation method and get your customized project management tool today.