0121. Empowering Accountability through Smartsheet: Rethinking Team Dynamics and Automation in Biopharma

Is it possible to build a culture of accountability without slipping into micromanagement? In this episode of Lean by Design, we dig into strategies for fostering responsibility and efficiency in high-stakes environments like biopharma. Explore how tools like Smartsheet can shift team dynamics from routine updates to meaningful, strategic conversations that drive real progress.

We'll unpack practical steps for assigning tasks, setting clear expectations, and helping team members understand the broader impact of their contributions on complex projects. Automation is more than just a way to save time—it’s about empowering teams. Learn how Smartsheet’s automations can streamline workflows, cut down on manual tasks, and improve visibility across projects, making precision and timely execution the new norm in R&D.

Whether you're in middle management or at the VP level, this episode offers actionable insights to transform team communication and productivity. Tune in to see how intentionality and efficiency can reshape work culture and lead to remarkable outcomes.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:01

Thanks for listening in to Lean by Design podcast. I'm your host, oscar, again taking this short form content to really deliver tips and tricks to establishing that lean workflow, being lean by design, creating efficiencies on purpose and really being intentful with the way that we work. Intentful with the way that we work. In our last episode, we discussed how, since 2017, I have been working with Smartsheet in the biopharma space, developing over 10,000 workflows, dashboards and solutions tailored to the unique demands of R&D and clinical operations. I could tell you firsthand implementing and getting folks on board to adopt a new software such as Smartsheet in a complex, regulated environment like biopharma is not easy. It is hard, it is difficult. However, the benefits of coming out on the other side are incredible the change that you see in the people you work with in the organization, the difference in meeting discussions. You start to lean away from update after update for things that are already available, reformatting them into multiple PowerPoint slides for presentation, and the conversations change into more of a strategic mindset. So today we're going to talk about building a culture of accountability. How do you execute in Smartsheet without micromanaging? In high-stakes environments like biopharma, accountability is essential, but micromanaging can quickly drain productivity and morale. Using a software like Smartsheet is going to offer a powerful tool for fostering accountability without the constant need of oversight, which is crucial in complex, regulated environments oversight, which is crucial in complex, regulated environments.

Speaker 1: 3:09

I am sure many of you who are in the middle management or even in the VP SVP space probably have someone else that is in the hierarchy above them consistently asking for project-specific questions. Now, is it the job of a VP to know every specific of a project? It shouldn't be, but it is in many organizations, especially if they're early and especially if they're small. So in this episode, we're going to discuss strategies for building clear ownership of tasks, empowering team members through automation and creating visibility into progress without adding administrative strength. I also understand and recognize that in some avenues, there is a reluctance to share all components of a process. You know why. Show how everything is made, how we bake the bread, when your expectation of me is that I deliver a loaf of bread at the end. So I understand the challenges. When it comes to how much can we say? But recognize that your team members are also being confronted with the same questions that are related to your work. Then, in order for us to have one sound, one voice we all need to understand, not for judgment, but for the sheer ability to communicate the progress of the project, not just the project manager.

Speaker 1: 4:56

So let's start with setting clear expectations. It is imperative to start your accountability with clarity, what you'll find in Smartsheet and in many other software assigning tasks with due dates and specific owners is a possibility which allows everyone to know what's expected from them. For biopharma projects, there's precision. Timelines in some cases are non-negotiable, and this clarity is going to ensure that the team members understand their role and the broader goals that they contribute to. It is important to have some transparency into when things are going to start, the progress of those things and when you estimate those things to be completed. R&d is a tricky beast because in many cases we don't know how many times we're going to have to retest something. The only thing that we can do is create hypotheses that we can accomplish a new experimental procedure two, three, four times and be ready to have it be part of primetime data. Not always the situation. So point number two we want to empower folks through automations instead of oversight.

Speaker 1: 6:17

One of my favorite features about Smartsheet is the capability for automation in a variety of spaces. You can have things move from one sheet into another. For example, you can get the row of data sent over to a new sheet because that task has been completed. There are automations with populating dates. There's automations with populating specific names based on an activity that was done, or a project manager's name based on the indication of the project that they're running. Just automation, through automation, and when you understand the power that exists in a software like Smartsheet, it gives you opportunities to remove a lot of this manual burden, creating this empowerment via automations to notify people. Hey, you have a task that's due in three days. You have a team governance meeting that is occurring next week that you want everybody to know, that is occurring next week, that you want everybody to know. These things allow you to focus on the task at hand and the project at hand, rather than submitting email after email after email.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Now the other side of this is providing visibility. Provide that visibility with dashboards, reporting, for example. The transparency is going to be essential for accountability. Setting up dashboards or portals where your team can huddle is going to let them see how their individual tasks contribute to the project milestones, to the timelines, to program goals, to the overall goals of the portfolio. Every time we create an experiment, every time we get a piece of data. Every time and this is not just in the research space. This could be in the operations space as well. We are now learning something that we did not know before. Sharing that with your team is the power.

Speaker 1: 8:32

In biopharma, cross-functional visibility is crucial. Dashboards can provide real-time snapshot of project health, helping everyone stay aligned and accountable. A real-time snapshot point. I often relate to PowerPoint as being sort of this illness in the biopharma space, because we're choosing to prepare outdated information time and time and time and time again to convey status. Folks, I'm here to tell you there are much easier ways to do that that will not take 40 FTE hours across your program. So I'll close with this.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Creating accountability with a software like Smartsheet is about fostering independence and providing clarity.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Independence and providing clarity when your team members understand their role not their job title, their role and progress is visible.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Projects can stay on track without the need for micromanagement and instead of going around the circle to ask everybody where you are in your process, with your work, you get to use this transparency to focus into a certain area and say, hey, I saw that this looks like it's lagging. Where can I support you? Is there anyone that I can talk to? Where can I support you? Is there anyone that I can talk to? Is there perhaps? Is there a contract that hasn't gone through yet on our side that we need to get a vendor to start working? Those are the conversations we want to have, and in our final episode of this series, we're going to cover how to set up your smart sheet for long-term success, focusing again on that scalability and continuous improvement. Thanks for listening and if you found today's insights valuable, please subscribe to our podcast and share it with your network. We'd love to help more teams unlock the full potential of their software and learn to become lean by design. Take care.