Lean By Design
Lean by Design delves into the dynamic world of biotech, pharma, and life sciences, focusing on operational excellence through effective workflow and process optimization. Join hosts Oscar Gonzalez and Lawrence Wong as they engage with industry leaders who share their insights, innovative strategies, and real-world experiences in transforming complex challenges into streamlined, efficient solutions. Through thought-provoking conversations, you’ll gain practical tips and inspiration to drive continuous improvement and success in your organization. Produced by Sigma Lab Consulting, Lean by Design empowers you to enhance productivity and innovation, one process at a time. Listen on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Lean By Design
0122. Revolutionizing Project Management in Biopharma: Smartsheet Change Management Strategies
Unlock the potential of Smartsheet for the biopharma industry with strategies that can transform project management. Can a minimalist approach to Smartsheet integration enhance team efficiency and adaptability? In this final part of our series on change management, we explore practical insights drawn from thousands of workflows designed to empower R&D and clinical operations with tailored, compliant solutions.
This episode dives deep into overcoming the unique challenges of adopting Smartsheet in complex, regulated environments while ensuring team buy-in. Discover how starting with simplicity and scaling intelligently can future-proof your Smartsheet setup, helping your organization adapt as projects evolve and priorities shift. We'll explore how to create flexible structures that support growth without burdening teams, focusing on capturing essential data from day one.
From foundational steps like project naming and task descriptions to advanced Smartsheet automation, this episode equips you with knowledge to build systems that are both sustainable and adaptable, ready to meet the long-term demands of the biopharma landscape.
For more insights and to assess your organization's excellence, check out our tailored scorecards:
1. Integrated Research & Business Operations Scorecard
- Evaluate your R&D and business operations and uncover opportunities for improvement. Integrated Research & Business Operations Scorecard
2. Data-Driven Portfolio Strategy & Execution Scorecard
- Evaluate your portfolio, strategy, and execution to uncover opportunities for improvement. Data-Driven Portfolio Strategy & Execution Scorecard
3. Asset Onboarding Scorecard
- Evaluate your asset onboarding and management readiness to uncover opportunities for improvement. Asset Onboarding Scorecard
4. Maintenance Efficiency Scorecard
- Evaluate your maintenance strategy to unlock operational excellence. Maintenance Efficiency Scorecard
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Thank you for joining us for another episode of Lean by Design podcast. I'm your host, oscar, and a little known fact since about 2017, I have been working with Smartsheet as my source platform in the biopharma space, this project management platform. I have spent developing over 10,000 workflows, dashboards and solutions tailored to the unique demands of R&D and clinical operations. Folks, I can tell you, having done this in multiple organizations, I understand firsthand that adopting new tools, new software, like Smartsheet, monday, Trello, notion, jira, can be a daunting task, especially in a complex, regulated environment like BioPharm. Beyond the technical hurdles, there are these challenges in securing team buy-in, balancing compliance needs and integrating Smartsheet with established workflows. So in this third episode of our three-part series, we've been focusing on the change management side of implementing Smartsheet in BioPharm so far. In our first session, we discussed getting your team on board and what those strategies are for Smartsheet adoption in BioPharm, and then we looked into building a culture of accountability. How do you execute in Smartsheet efficiently without micromanaging? So today we're going to round that up and discuss how to execute working in Smartsheet efficiently and getting the most out of your Smartsheet setup from day one. So let's think about that. How do you set up a smart sheet for long-term success and scalability.
Speaker 1:Well, in biopharma, especially in R&D, projects evolve rapidly, compliance requirements will shift, priorities are constantly changing and this can either be self-inflicted or sometimes it is just because of the way that the industry is moving, especially in early R&D stages, where every decision is crucial. How do you build sustainability and scalability with so much unknown? So, if we look at Smartsheet, it's a powerful tool, but to stay relevant, it needs to be structured in a way that can grow with your organization. So we're going to talk about how to build these Smartsheet systems that are adaptable, sustainable and will set you up for long-term success. This is an approach that we are doing as well with our clients to ensure that it remains an asset, providing structure without slowing you down. The goal of structure is not to create rigidity. You can create structure with some flexibility that allows you to create these future backdoors into the data you've been collecting for years.
Speaker 1:So, point number one start simple and scale smartly. The best way to future-proof your smart sheet setup is to start with the essentials and build complexity only when necessary. It is no surprise that whenever you show a software, whenever you show a new product, a new item that can help out your organization and you show these are the features that it has. One of the first things that ends up happening is you get another question that extends beyond the features that are presented, because, as humans, we are going to take in the information that we know, which is whatever you know about that software, and then we're going to modify and say, well, what if I wanted to do X, or what if I wanted to do Y? I am here to tell you, folks, there is no single software that will provide a solution for every organization, for every question you may have. There may be a time where you have to modify your approach and your digital strategy because your organization is changing, and that's okay. Some of these are temporary, but some of these can scale for a long time. In biopharma, workflows can vary widely and this approach helps prevent overwhelming team members with unnecessary complexity. We're gonna look into a minimalist approach to setting up sheets and dashboards that can grow over time.
Speaker 1:When you are working within Smartsheet, your goal is not to capture every piece of data. You start with collecting the data that is most critical a project name, a program manager's name. You collect a task name, a description, depending on the data you are collecting in your operations across your programs. Your best bet is to set up the basic information. Once you set up that information once you set up, I need a column for names, I need a column for a date, I need a column for a task, I need a column for a checkbox you then start to ask yourselves what else would I want to see happen here, and how can I get Smartsheet to do that instead of me or my team members? When you create simple spaces, it allows you to scale so much more effectively as new projects come in, because now your projects are talking the same language. Now you can create reports across your entire portfolio because you're using the same nomenclature for your projects. You're using the same designation for a role that someone may be filled. Who is accountable? Who is responsible? Which leads us into the next point Standardize with templates and customizable structures.
Speaker 1:No matter what software you choose, you will have to customize it to work for your organization, whether you're in R&D, clinical operations, manufacturing facilities and you're looking for a way to log and maintain and create automations. Perhaps a space for you to integrate forms that spin up into data, that provides charts and tables, into a dashboard for executive review. Your key is going to be to standardize and to template. These templates are invaluable for consistency. Your first step is to create templates for frequently used workflows like document tracking, project timelines, sop management. Give your team a reliable starting. Standardization will also make your Smartsheet setup predictable, while allowing for that flexibility for team-specific needs In the case that someone goes on vacation. Now there's no question as to where is everything for their project, how do they keep their minutes, where can I find an executive summary? Because you have developed these templates, you have now the flexibility to move your resources around as needed and not lose the context of the project or program they're working in. And with anything, setting things up, doing trainings, creating templates those are all great, but things must evolve as your organization evolves.
Speaker 1:Our biopharma industry focuses more on innovating within science than within operations, so it's up to you to generate, to create this level of continuous improvement. Gather feedback, iterate, change what doesn't work into what will work for you and your team. To keep your software relevant, like Smartsheet, to keep your projects and your priorities evolving. Incorporate a feedback loop feedback loop for regular reviews. Pull people aside and say, hey, what's working for you, what's not working for you. The moment that you ignore the need to continuously discuss and improve, you're going to find yourself back in the same space that many of these organizations, many of our organizations, are.
Speaker 1:There are software that people are kind of using. No one really knows how to use it. We think the SME is somebody from IT, but we don't want to bug them or it takes too long and I don't really understand how to use this. So I'm just going to use this the way that I think it's supposed to be used and just go from there. We'll deal with it later. That's not the way to go, folks. That's not the way to go.
Speaker 1:If you truly believe in the software that you are utilizing, at the very least as a solution for your temporary projects, lead that charge. Make sure your people are on board. Make sure they understand what is at stake. Scalable solutions in your software or in Smartsheet don't need to be complicated. They just need to be strategic. By starting simple, using templates, regularly iterating, you can create an environment that grows with your organization. Thanks again for joining us on this change management series on Lean by Design, as we looked at Smartsheet as an example of how to get your team on board, how to build a culture of accountability and how to execute efficiently to ensure long-term success and scalability. If you found these episodes helpful, please help us by subscribing to the podcast. Share it with others who might benefit. Let's keep working towards smarter, more adaptable systems together, instead of working harder. Until next time, take care.
