Situation
Our client is a big multinational biopharmaceutical company that develops vaccines for a wide number of indications and is market leader in many vaccines. In order to accelerate and optimize the development of new assets a new organizational model for R&D was introduced and the organization shifted from a functionally-driven organization to a project-driven organization.
Challenges
In this context the company needed to enhance the organizational capability to plan and manage vaccine development projects and to set up portfolio management methodology and tools for its more than 100 R&D projects. This change impacted the entire R&D organization and successful implementation was a major driver of the future success of the organization.
Action
Set up and lead a professional program management organization (project managers, project management office etc.) and a portfolio management system.
Initiate and run a program to embed a single, consistent program and project management process across the total company:
- Define project management capabilities needed
- Design process, systems and competencies required
- Prepare and train people involved in project management
- Roll-out adequate processes and systems to the organization
- Drive the change required to successfully adopt the new processes and tools in the entire organization
- Coach senior stakeholders in the organization to successfully drive this change.
Results
The strategic importance of this projects made that the interim manager reported to high management and interacted a lot with top management. As a result, the organization managed the shift and very significant improvements were made, enabling the organization to manage projects on time and on budget, and to manage a complex, ever evolving pipeline of R&D Projects with much greater reactivity and efficiency.