The Hidden benefits of timely Stakeholder Management from a pharmaceutical perspective

I firmly believe that it is never too late if one has not thought much about managing stakeholders
pertaining to a project. To support my belief, I have a story to tell.

Ever since I started my Project Management journey, the area that interested me the most was that of
stakeholder management(SM). While there are many aspects, a simple reason could be the way one
negotiates thereby influences the outcome that one expects from a meeting. The mere awareness of SM
has made me what I am today. Whilst the thirst for honing this skill continues to grow within me, I am
convinced beyond reason that this is the need of the hour for most projects.

Pharmaceutical industry is a fast paced domain where companies discover new molecules to address the
unmet need, develop the right candidate out of thousands identified to produce in large scale. Once the
molecule is found to be successful post the clinical trials (e.g: COVI SHIELD, COVAX etc.,) it needs to go to
market in the form of medicine. This industry works in a very regulated environment where change
management is not something often welcomed as it can cost companies top dollar in the event of a
change in premise. Simply put, one cannot spend years working in a laboratory to get to a prototype and
then seek the stakeholder consent instead one has to engage stakeholders as early as inception until the
go to market and can last post release for reviewing outcomes. For the pharma market, patient is the
most important stakeholder and plays a massive role. To add to this, the pharma market is competitive
just like any other industry on account of which a slightest delay of a day into market can prove costly.
Given the high stakes, there is a dire need for the molecule sponsor to spend considerable time on SM
during the manufacturing cycle of the drug. Pharma industry does not necessarily follow the PMBOK to
the book but does adapt to a reasonable extent. Hence we need certified PMs working on such crucial
projects to ensure the best standards and principles are put in place so that we cover all facets to make
a difference.
Life work Balance

Stakeholder Management Communication

Resource Management Time and Cost Management

Change Management Risk Management

I am a project manager of a small Bio-Tech company managing multiple projects with one common goal
of getting the product out in a particular country. Though it is exciting to be across multiple projects, it is
also a good place to seek learnings from all projects and identify those stakeholders who are either not
engaged or not engaged enough to achieve the project objective.

Pragnya Sarathy-SH management experience-31 July 2021

The Hidden benefits of timely Stakeholder Management from a pharmaceutical perspective

The PROBLEM!

Lack of engagement!

On one of the complex projects, I noticed that there were big wigs from the senior leadership who were
involved in the day to day activities such as communications, operational meetings and cost accruals,
which is more frequent than non-pharma domains. It was in early 2020 when COVID -19 became a
reality that we observed were lot of conflicts within the team due to disengagement and lack of
motivation leading to decisions being made without quorum’s consent. Further, there were way too
many requests for seeking study metrics resulting in many a tailormade reports produced just to satisfy
the interim need. It was then that I as the project manager thought of addressing this issue by using a
medicine called “Conscious Stakeholder Management”. Like I said earlier, Pharma companies do not
typically adapt these principles. However, they do welcome these when such solutions make a
difference.

The HOW and WHAT !

I call it as “Conscious Stakeholder management” purely because not many in this industry pay heed to it
due to an unorthodox population moreover there are times when it becomes hard to identify the key
stakeholders. Going by my PMI basics and definition as below(PMBOK ed 7) I did my analysis by
identifying all the stakeholders, categorized them and maintained a repository of the same.

I took the below 5 steps to address the problem.

Stakeholder Repository on my projects with their location and time zone

Benefit : One gets to know aspects such as the “who”, “where”, “where”, “what” and “when”

PMI quote of Stakeholder analysis.

Benefit: Its like a pandora box which will open up so much that one will be surprised. For instance, I was
not sure about one of the stakeholders who was a part of the molecule R & D. Knowing him helped me
to channelize right questions to him and making him a part of the team (which was missing earlier)

Gathering Stakeholder expectations:

Asking on a 121 /a team meeting occasion on what they like to know, how frequently and any format in
particular?

Benefit: This exercise helped me to connect at a personal level with the stakeholder and understand
new ways of working with them. For example, one of the stakeholder was least impressed with the
innovative ideas proposed by team mates, knowing him through this exercise I realised he is data driven
and would like to have supportive data rather than a mere idea which did seem sensible.

Pragnya Sarathy-SH management experience-31 July 2021

The Hidden benefits of timely Stakeholder Management from a pharmaceutical perspective

Prioritize & Map Stakeholder to be able to influence and engage more

Benefit: For any project to achieve its objectives in a methodical way, stakeholders need to be aware
whom to go to for queries .

Even if the Project misses any milestones, stakeholders are aware that this study is well managed since
as they are well-informed ahead of time via a formalized approach.

Team spirit among all the stakeholders since most of their expectations were covered to some extent.

The Tool I used is a status report and called it as an “Executive Summary Report”. This is a simple one
slider deck but is very informative as it covers key areas of project health, achievements, risk, spend to
date and work expected for the upcoming month/quarter.

This report as a PPT (showen below was the first of its kind in my organization because it is a start-up
and evolving organization and hence is not fully aware of the PMI standards and principles. Therefore,
PM’s like me with PMI basics play a vital role in developing tools to better manage people and projects
while getting job done.

Seeking timely feedback and having a Stakeholder watch list to update any changes in the expectations..

During the course of sharing these reports with stakeholders, I did receive a mix of criticism and positive
feedback and had to tweak the format to make it like a summarized report addressing each stakeholder
need.

I take pride in the fact that some of the stakeholders use my Executive summary as their “go to”
information sheet when they are in a meeting. Some stakeholders have conveyed to me they are able to
have a 360° view of the project by way of this summarized report, which I consider is a BIG win for me
personally.

On a lighter vein, our personal life’s success is also heavily reliant on Stakeholder Management. Whether
one is a son or daughter or a husband or wife, unless you are aware of your stakeholder expectations,
one will not be able to lead a happy life. Hence learnings from PMI is also a life lesson and a path way
towards conscious Stakeholder Management.

Pragnya Sarathy-SH management experience-31 July 2021