Global Pharmaceutical Leader Improves Clinical Development Processes with Shamaym
How a global leader in pharmaceuticals optimized processes, improved collaboration between teams, and built a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Challenge
The R&D organization at a leading global pharmaceutical company sought to improve the timeliness and effectiveness of its clinical development processes. Following an analysis of clinical development operations, the leadership team identified three primary challenges:
- Sub-optimal and inconsistent knowledge sharing among team members
- Lack of a continuous learning process
- A need to collaborate more effectively as a matrixed team across organizational functions and time zones
Seeking a relevant methodology that would propel organizational learning forward, and a culture of continuous improvement to support it, the leadership team partnered with Shamaym to implement its debriefing-based methods and evaluate whether it could increase process quality and efficiency.
Customer Profile
- Industry: Pharmaceutical
- Employees: 40,000
Solution
The company created specific team sprints with key success metrics for evaluation of Shamaym’s impact. They defined key processes in their workflow that offered significant opportunities for learning and improvement, such as the close tracking and monitoring of clinical trials data.
Each week, the team would debrief on these processes, then share lessons and action items deriving from them, measuring various parameters that indicated cost-effective study management. The debriefs focused on continuously monitoring and evaluating success metrics, and determining specific actions that can be implemented immediately to drive measurable improvement.
Results
By implementing recurring debriefing routines, the pilot project team saw an 80% reduction in the time tracking and interpretation of specific clinical trial information.
The team also saw improvements in time management and knowledge sharing, and self-reported improved communication with their partner Clinical Research Organization.
A member of the Steering Committee said that this process “positively impacted the transparency and openness in our team. It taught us how to hold ourselves accountable and turn lessons from our work into actionable, implementable next steps, resulting in a more efficient process. We saw a clear improvement trend in our timelines that coincided with our work with Shamaym.”