August 20, 2024 • 13 mins
Ever wondered how continuous improvement can propel your organization's growth to new heights? In this episode of Lean by Design, host Oscar Gonzalez delves into innovative strategies drawn from recent projects. Discover how you can transform data into meaningful metrics that drive success and ensure everyone is aligned with clear, visible guidelines.
Explore actionable tips for leveraging comprehensive checklists and team guidance to enhance workflow efficiency. Learn how making data-driven decisions can propel your organization forward and optimize team structures. By clearly defining roles and responsibilities, we show you how to streamline processes and enhance efficiency.
Additionally, we discuss a significant miss in roles and responsibilities—aligning responsibilities with documents, reports, and other critical project tasks rather than defining roles with broadly sweeping, generic definitions. Gain clear guidance on the responsibilities for deliverables across a project to ensure accountability and clarity.
Whether you're involved in project management, finance, or governance, this episode provides actionable insights to support your teams and ensure your organization runs smoothly and effectively.
Tune in to Lean by Design for these valuable insights in the second part of our essential two-episode series!
Learn more about us by visiting: https://sigmalabconsulting.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of Lean by
Design podcast.
I'm your host, oscar Gonzalez,again writing solo.
On this one, we're trying to dosomething a little different,
bringing you some short formcontent that really just
highlights insights andlearnings from some of the
projects and some of the clientsthat we've had the opportunity
to work with.
So today, this is part two ofoperational insights from a
(00:25):
recent project that we had, solet's just jump right in.
Number six is a commitment tocontinuous improvement.
So it's important to emphasizethat there needs to be this
level of commitment tocontinuous improvement, where
every stride forward is measuredand assessed and then refined
for perpetual advancement.
(00:45):
This is going to be crucial formaintaining that relationship,
and so that relationship withpartners, that relationship with
peers, that relationship acrossdepartments and different
functions.
So, as you're growing yourorganization and you bring on
consultants such as Sigma LabConsulting or someone else who's
(01:06):
really going to be driving alot of those efforts, it's
really key to rally the troopsaround that central idea that we
want to make the workplacebetter.
We want to make our inputs meansomething and anything that you
start to develop, whether it'sa new way to capture meeting
minutes or a new way to captureyour team goals or decisions.
(01:28):
You should always be lookingforward to understanding how can
you turn that content, thatdata, into metrics.
You know, how many decisionsdid we go through over the last
quarter?
Are we making enough decisions?
Does that make sense for thephase that we're in?
Are we making the rightdecisions?
We tend to just look at theactivities that are happening
(01:51):
right in front of our face andthen the ones that are just
within spitting distance.
We don't really take a look atall these learnings that we've
had from all the data that wecollect.
Especially when you're in arole such as project management,
you have a large role in theadministrative component of the
success and the status of theseprojects.
Insight number seven adevelopment checklist guidance.
(02:16):
As you're going through yourearly R&D to look toward your
top product profile, going intoyour clinical operations and
running clinical trials.
It's really important to makesure that everyone's on the same
page.
Very rare do you find sort of aguidebook of steps and
milestones that are requiredwithin the organization.
(02:38):
It's key to to make sure thatthese guidances, that these
definitions of acronyms, ofphases when funding might hit,
when you might try to partner,if you want the best success out
of your organization.
These things need to be visible.
(03:00):
There needs to be anunderstanding.
Your employees, your workersare, in essence, business owners
.
They are business unit owners.
They are required to manageresources.
They're required to managefinance.
They're required to report tosome level of governance.
They're required to manage theprograms themselves, the
(03:21):
progress that's a business.
That is a business and you needto make sure that you are
supporting your teams, and it'snot by having an open door
policy, it's by providing asmuch content and useful
information for them as possible, for them as possible.
(03:48):
Insight number eight optimizeyour team structures.
I cannot tell you how often wecome up against whether it's
something that was planned, suchas a governance meeting or a
budget or a research action plan, however you want to call it
where the roles are not reallyoutlined to who is going to be
responsible for leading thatcharge, who is accountable, who
(04:11):
should be consulted, who shouldbe informed Not to say that
everyone needs to have a RACIacross every facet of their
organization, but it's reallykey to outline the program,
deliverables, documents andtasks.
What we often focus on whenwe're creating roles and
responsibility are roles and nottheir responsibilities Roles in
(04:35):
the sense of this particulardirector of chemical
manufacturing control.
Their role is to providestrategy X, y, z.
Now the problem with that isthat the work in the day-to-day
goes beyond your responsibilityfor the strategy.
It's who is going to bemanaging the vendor, who is
(04:57):
going to be turning in thebudget, who is going to be
creating a timeline for theirspace, who is going to be
creating all of these scenarioplanning for their particular
function.
It's critical to make sure thatyou have sort of a
responsibility assignment matrixwho creates the slides for
(05:17):
governance meetings?
Who creates the documentationfor the research plan?
Who rallies the troops forbudget spending and finance?
Who does the monthly reviewsand so on?
So making sure that yourorganization is completely in
line with the programdeliverables, the tasks, the
documents in that particularphase is so critical to success
(05:41):
for those programs.
Insight number nine yourgovernance meetings.
As organizations grow fromsmall 10, 15, 20-person
companies to even just slightlybigger than that 100, 150, the
visibility begins to get fuzzyfor leadership.
How do you combat that?
Well, usually there's some sortof governance meeting where the
(06:05):
leaders of the organization areholding meetings to meet with
the project leaders, one at atime or as a group, however, it
may seem to then get a widerunderstanding of the status.
But what's the problem?
Usually, leaders are up againstdeadlines, trying to understand
fully what's going on in aproject, yet might be reluctant
(06:30):
to looking through reports orlooking at dashboards or
one-pagers that are developed bya particular function, and
instead resort to going into ameeting and attempting to have a
full-blown portfolioconversation in two hours once a
(06:50):
quarter, once a month, whateverthe cadence is.
It's really important to makesure that you are allowing
yourselves to digest theinformation that's happening,
giving yourselves time tounderstand really what's going
on in a particular project, andit's not going to happen in a
single meeting.
We have to leverage thetechnology.
(07:13):
We have to give us content andinsights so that when we have
those governance meetings, we'reasking questions related to the
strategy.
What does this mean for ourstrategy?
Does this mean we have tochange our direction?
Does this mean we have tochange our administration
profile?
What is really biting at thisproject, rather than giving
(07:34):
updates?
Everything's good, but why dothe projects always feel so
crazy when all the numbers seemto be fine?
So it's super key to make surethat these governance meetings
are also aligned onrecord-keeping formats.
If you do not have somebodythat is skilled at maintaining
(07:57):
minutes, decisions, actions, youneed to make that adjustment
Because your organization isreliant, based on your
governance structure, that youhave decisional governing bodies
, and they are expecting toreceive feedback and decisions
in adding real value to theorganization.
(08:18):
So our last insight really putsa lens on financial and budget
management.
Finance and budget management,in the R&D space especially, is
a very complex beast.
Typically, you have some numberof scientists that are involved
in pushing the projects to newboundaries in the science, in
(08:46):
chemistry, in whatever facet oflife sciences you're working in.
But we also expect them to begood with budgets, good with
finance, good with contracts,good with managing vendors, but
we don't ever really provide anycomprehensive training.
I once had a conversation witha PI that I used to work
(09:08):
alongside when I was at my timeat Boston University and I asked
him about finance and aboutbudgeting.
He returned a comment thatsurprised me, where he said my
role as a PI for PhD students isnot to show financial literacy,
(09:29):
it's to help them think like ascientist.
But where do we end up?
Our scientists are the onesthat typically will come into
roles of management, ofleadership, of you name it, you
know they move up, but we neveractually give full-blown
trainings to how you manage yourconsultants, how you manage
(09:55):
your contracts as a scientist,how you manage your purchase
orders, your scope of works,sows, your financial budgets,
your financial budgets.
It is critical that we providethis level of training and
(10:15):
understanding, especially to thegroups that we expect to
perform the tasks that we'reasking of them to manage the
overall budget of theorganization.
The common phrase you hear isgarbage in and garbage out.
Well, if you never actuallyestablished financial literacy
as a scientist, does that makeyou a bad scientist?
(10:37):
No, it makes you a badfinancial planner.
The problem is when we get intosmall organizations and you
need to wear many hats.
You are also responsible forthe financial planning of a
project and of the experimentstherein.
So, as organizations, it'ssuper critical for us to
introduce comprehensive trainingprograms, create customized
(10:58):
reporting to ensure there'saccurate tracking, reporting and
financial planning.
Otherwise, you can just chalkup your budget planning to an
educated guess.
Thanks for listening into theinsights and we hope to bring
some more of this short formcontent to you guys in the
(11:19):
coming weeks.
Take a look out, we have a lotof things coming down the
pipeline.
We're going to put these in theshow notes.
We have some assessments thatwe have developed for R&D,
clinical operations, facilityreadiness and maintenance
efficiency.
So how efficient is your R&Dorganization?
(11:39):
How efficient is your clinicaloperations?
Are you ready to launch yourfacility, to now begin producing
products?
Is your maintenance plan asefficient as possible?
Try one of these fourassessments now and get a free
report customized to your needs.
Schedule a meeting with us andwe'll bring you an even more
(12:01):
detailed report so that you canfind out ways to start bringing
efficiency and operationalexcellence into your
organization.
Until next time, take care.
Welcome back to another episode of Lean by
Design podcast.
I'm your host, oscar Gonzalez,again writing solo.
On this one, we're trying to dosomething a little different,
bringing you some short formcontent that really just
highlights insights andlearnings from some of the
projects and some of the clientsthat we've had the opportunity
to work with.
So today, this is part two ofoperational insights from a
(00:25):
recent project that we had, solet's just jump right in.
Number six is a commitment tocontinuous improvement.
So it's important to emphasizethat there needs to be this
level of commitment tocontinuous improvement, where
every stride forward is measuredand assessed and then refined
for perpetual advancement.
(00:45):
This is going to be crucial formaintaining that relationship,
and so that relationship withpartners, that relationship with
peers, that relationship acrossdepartments and different
functions.
So, as you're growing yourorganization and you bring on
consultants such as Sigma LabConsulting or someone else who's
(01:06):
really going to be driving alot of those efforts, it's
really key to rally the troopsaround that central idea that we
want to make the workplacebetter.
We want to make our inputs meansomething and anything that you
start to develop, whether it'sa new way to capture meeting
minutes or a new way to captureyour team goals or decisions.
(01:28):
You should always be lookingforward to understanding how can
you turn that content, thatdata, into metrics.
You know, how many decisionsdid we go through over the last
quarter?
Are we making enough decisions?
Does that make sense for thephase that we're in?
Are we making the rightdecisions?
We tend to just look at theactivities that are happening
(01:51):
right in front of our face andthen the ones that are just
within spitting distance.
We don't really take a look atall these learnings that we've
had from all the data that wecollect.
Especially when you're in arole such as project management,
you have a large role in theadministrative component of the
success and the status of theseprojects.
Insight number seven adevelopment checklist guidance.
(02:16):
As you're going through yourearly R&D to look toward your
top product profile, going intoyour clinical operations and
running clinical trials.
It's really important to makesure that everyone's on the same
page.
Very rare do you find sort of aguidebook of steps and
milestones that are requiredwithin the organization.
(02:38):
It's key to to make sure thatthese guidances, that these
definitions of acronyms, ofphases when funding might hit,
when you might try to partner,if you want the best success out
of your organization.
These things need to be visible.
(03:00):
There needs to be anunderstanding.
Your employees, your workersare, in essence, business owners
.
They are business unit owners.
They are required to manageresources.
They're required to managefinance.
They're required to report tosome level of governance.
They're required to manage theprograms themselves, the
(03:21):
progress that's a business.
That is a business and you needto make sure that you are
supporting your teams, and it'snot by having an open door
policy, it's by providing asmuch content and useful
information for them as possible, for them as possible.
(03:48):
Insight number eight optimizeyour team structures.
I cannot tell you how often wecome up against whether it's
something that was planned, suchas a governance meeting or a
budget or a research action plan, however you want to call it
where the roles are not reallyoutlined to who is going to be
responsible for leading thatcharge, who is accountable, who
(04:11):
should be consulted, who shouldbe informed Not to say that
everyone needs to have a RACIacross every facet of their
organization, but it's reallykey to outline the program,
deliverables, documents andtasks.
What we often focus on whenwe're creating roles and
responsibility are roles and nottheir responsibilities Roles in
(04:35):
the sense of this particulardirector of chemical
manufacturing control.
Their role is to providestrategy X, y, z.
Now the problem with that isthat the work in the day-to-day
goes beyond your responsibilityfor the strategy.
It's who is going to bemanaging the vendor, who is
(04:57):
going to be turning in thebudget, who is going to be
creating a timeline for theirspace, who is going to be
creating all of these scenarioplanning for their particular
function.
It's critical to make sure thatyou have sort of a
responsibility assignment matrixwho creates the slides for
(05:17):
governance meetings?
Who creates the documentationfor the research plan?
Who rallies the troops forbudget spending and finance?
Who does the monthly reviewsand so on?
So making sure that yourorganization is completely in
line with the programdeliverables, the tasks, the
documents in that particularphase is so critical to success
(05:41):
for those programs.
Insight number nine yourgovernance meetings.
As organizations grow fromsmall 10, 15, 20-person
companies to even just slightlybigger than that 100, 150, the
visibility begins to get fuzzyfor leadership.
How do you combat that?
Well, usually there's some sortof governance meeting where the
(06:05):
leaders of the organization areholding meetings to meet with
the project leaders, one at atime or as a group, however, it
may seem to then get a widerunderstanding of the status.
But what's the problem?
Usually, leaders are up againstdeadlines, trying to understand
fully what's going on in aproject, yet might be reluctant
(06:30):
to looking through reports orlooking at dashboards or
one-pagers that are developed bya particular function, and
instead resort to going into ameeting and attempting to have a
full-blown portfolioconversation in two hours once a
(06:50):
quarter, once a month, whateverthe cadence is.
It's really important to makesure that you are allowing
yourselves to digest theinformation that's happening,
giving yourselves time tounderstand really what's going
on in a particular project, andit's not going to happen in a
single meeting.
We have to leverage thetechnology.
(07:13):
We have to give us content andinsights so that when we have
those governance meetings, we'reasking questions related to the
strategy.
What does this mean for ourstrategy?
Does this mean we have tochange our direction?
Does this mean we have tochange our administration
profile?
What is really biting at thisproject, rather than giving
(07:34):
updates?
Everything's good, but why dothe projects always feel so
crazy when all the numbers seemto be fine?
So it's super key to make surethat these governance meetings
are also aligned onrecord-keeping formats.
If you do not have somebodythat is skilled at maintaining
(07:57):
minutes, decisions, actions, youneed to make that adjustment
Because your organization isreliant, based on your
governance structure, that youhave decisional governing bodies
, and they are expecting toreceive feedback and decisions
in adding real value to theorganization.
(08:18):
So our last insight really putsa lens on financial and budget
management.
Finance and budget management,in the R&D space especially, is
a very complex beast.
Typically, you have some numberof scientists that are involved
in pushing the projects to newboundaries in the science, in
(08:46):
chemistry, in whatever facet oflife sciences you're working in.
But we also expect them to begood with budgets, good with
finance, good with contracts,good with managing vendors, but
we don't ever really provide anycomprehensive training.
I once had a conversation witha PI that I used to work
(09:08):
alongside when I was at my timeat Boston University and I asked
him about finance and aboutbudgeting.
He returned a comment thatsurprised me, where he said my
role as a PI for PhD students isnot to show financial literacy,
(09:29):
it's to help them think like ascientist.
But where do we end up?
Our scientists are the onesthat typically will come into
roles of management, ofleadership, of you name it, you
know they move up, but we neveractually give full-blown
trainings to how you manage yourconsultants, how you manage
(09:55):
your contracts as a scientist,how you manage your purchase
orders, your scope of works,sows, your financial budgets,
your financial budgets.
It is critical that we providethis level of training and
(10:15):
understanding, especially to thegroups that we expect to
perform the tasks that we'reasking of them to manage the
overall budget of theorganization.
The common phrase you hear isgarbage in and garbage out.
Well, if you never actuallyestablished financial literacy
as a scientist, does that makeyou a bad scientist?
(10:37):
No, it makes you a badfinancial planner.
The problem is when we get intosmall organizations and you
need to wear many hats.
You are also responsible forthe financial planning of a
project and of the experimentstherein.
So, as organizations, it'ssuper critical for us to
introduce comprehensive trainingprograms, create customized
(10:58):
reporting to ensure there'saccurate tracking, reporting and
financial planning.
Otherwise, you can just chalkup your budget planning to an
educated guess.
Thanks for listening into theinsights and we hope to bring
some more of this short formcontent to you guys in the
(11:19):
coming weeks.
Take a look out, we have a lotof things coming down the
pipeline.
We're going to put these in theshow notes.
We have some assessments thatwe have developed for R&D,
clinical operations, facilityreadiness and maintenance
efficiency.
So how efficient is your R&Dorganization?
(11:39):
How efficient is your clinicaloperations?
Are you ready to launch yourfacility, to now begin producing
products?
Is your maintenance plan asefficient as possible?
Try one of these fourassessments now and get a free
report customized to your needs.
Schedule a meeting with us andwe'll bring you an even more
(12:01):
detailed report so that you canfind out ways to start bringing
efficiency and operationalexcellence into your
organization.
Until next time, take care.
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