12 days of Christmas - Day 3: Tempo

One of the biggest differences between Academia and Pharma (if I am so bold to call my phase I/II place "pharma") is the speed, the tempo that everything is expected to take. I'm getting that reminder now again, but the opposite way, when I'm back in the world of academia.

You see, the main importance in pharma is "Keep to what you've written and decided". All the details of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are to be followed to the letter. Not one little deviation, unless of course you want to write and file a "variance". These wonderful things are collected at specific times and usually tallied up and .....yeah... not a positive thing since it shows you didn't plan and adhere to the plan that was in place. Anyhow, I digress. So, things are planned and details are written down and followed. Then comes the actual work and getting the results. If Academia has the saying "if it isn't published it hasn't been done", my take on Pharma would be "if you didn't plan it and have an SOP and details recorded, the results are useless". No "let's try on the fly and see what we get".

I think you see where I'm getting here now? That I've gone back to the world where people decide in the morning to contact me and say "we need this thing, do they have it for us? We are scheduled to run the machine by noon". My initial feeling is, since I've been a post-doc myself, "of course, we'll fix it". However, there isn't really an incentive to stop doing that kind of non-planned experiments if there isn't a stick somewhere, is there? So, the first couple of months I've been working a lot on "expectations" and "time management" with the teams I coordinate. Using my pharma background, together with my post-doc experience (which gives credibility that I actually like 'real academic' research and am not only working to be a blocker and kill joy), I've gotten quite a few people to like the idea of SOPs (to a certain detail level) and planning. Especially when they notice that people involved in the teams are more happy,content and want to collaborate to get nice results.

But, I can hear you say, isn't a protocol the same as an SOP. Well, yes and no. It depends on the level of detail of the protocol which is why I like the SOP word since this implies that there is a lot of detail and the one who reads it should be able to perform the experiment.

My biggest sell point would be that the experiments that are performed with this new plan and detail give good data and that these data can be put together much faster into a paper than having to redo and re-analyze it all. And added bonus that people aren't getting upset with each other and have tension between the teams.

So, it's about "being slow in the beginning where some people would like to start running right off the bat, even if it would mean that they have to rerun and retrack the way". The key is to introduce this idea without stopping the creative momentum a lot of academic researchers and at the same time keep the recording so a pharma manager would be happy. Never say no during brainstorming. Keep detailed questions out of the way in the initial phase (they are construed as being "negative"). Always say "great idea/suggestion, would you like a or b" even if you suspect that they haven't thought about it. And ask to be cc:ed on a lot of emails so you can follow up with the Action Items in order to make the projects happen since if it's out of sight it's out of mind. Of course, it would be wonderful if I had twice the amount of time than the people and project I manage ;)

despair.com

Added bonus if you are interested in reading about my take on the Pharma Alphabet Soup at lablit.com.