Digitalize Processes and Accelerate Development Projects
In light of the market entry of technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Apple, which want to change the business model of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry in the long term, the traditional pharmaceutical industry is under pressure for change. Innovation processes must be optimized and flexible structures must be established. The digitalization of production processes, and also that of information and decision making processes in particular, are important milestones on the way to a strong market position.
Numerous companies in the pharmaceutical sector are still at an early stage of their digitalization process. Others rely on agile tools on the path they pursue, as the following example will show. The corona pandemic has shown that coordination and decision processes which are not digitally assisted confront companies with huge problems. Instead of making coordinations in person, teams now increasingly have to coordinate their work in virtual meetings. Instead of being set out in phone calls, on paper, or in a local file, information must be manageable in a flexible way and it must be made available so that all persons involved have access to it. But even after having overcome this pandemic situation, the digitalization of information and decision making processes will continue to gain in importance since team members or decision makers who are to be included in the flow of information are often geographically dispersed or work from home.
In such times, the management of virtual teams and the briefing of stakeholders pose a huge challenge. How does communication work between project team members who are in different geographic locations with different time zones? How can managers make sure that employees who work from home are up-to-date in terms of their projects, tasks, and communication with colleagues and customers? How can digital change succeed, how can internal resistance to change on the part of employees
be overcome?
Collaboration Tool Facilitates Communication
In an expert talk, Dr Torsten Eckardt, Senior Manager PMO and Innovation at Hermes Arzneimittel GmbH, tells the DIGITAL PROCESS INDUSTRY editorial team how the use of agile planning and collaboration software can help to plan development projects and optimize decision-making processes in the current pandemic-related situation when project team members are working at different locations.

The new planning method comes with greater speed and increased up-to-dateness of information for all project team members.
Interview with Dr. Torsten Eckardt
Senior Manager PMO and Innovation at Hermes Arzneimittel
You are already planning your development and organizational projects with traditional project management software. Now you have introduced an agile planning tool to optimize processes in the company during this pandemic situation. What benefits do you think the tools will have even after the pandemic?
We have implemented PLANTA project 2014, long before the pandemic in order to improve the management and prioritization of our development, basic load and organizational projects in a software-aided manner. This helped us to optimze the in-depth planning of the projects and the overview of existing resources. We can now develop new products more quickly and with greater cost efficiency. 75 percent of our projects are now planned with PLANTA project. We have now introduced the agile planning tool PLANTA pulse from the same manufacturer and have increasingly used it in project management and PMO in recent months to improve collaboration in strategy and development projects. In the current pandemic situation, this tool is particularly useful for tracking strategic projects on a web-based (mobile) basis, in which the key project team members are working at different locations. We plan 25 percent of our projects with PLANTA pulse.
The benefits of both tools — also beyond the pandemic situation – are very high: more transparency and accellerated project planning as well as better information quality: the timeliness of the information is the same for all project team members.
What problems does the integration of an agile planning tool cause when previously only traditional planning was used and how did you solve them?
The new planning method results in greater speed and increased timeliness of information for all project team members. You can’t simply hope that everyone receives the latest information. You have to take into account the human factor: writing on a Kanban board is no substitute for talking to each other. Some people still have to get accustomed to using the board to keep themselves up to date. Regular update meetings with the help of PLANTA pulse benefit everyone involved in the project. If you have not worked agilely before, the new planning method will not be easy, but you will quickly get used to it in practice.
What knowledge/skills should you have in order to implement the agile planning method? What requirements must be met by employees and colleagues who are to work with this method?
As head of our project management office I am system owner and administrator in PLANTA pulse. The advantage here is that everything is set out by one person and new boards are created following a clear structure. In underwent a basic training in the field of project management. The new tool demands more flexibility and individual responsibility from those who work with it. There is a good deal of commitment since everybody wants to work agilely. However, it is sometimes still difficult to change the established communication channels/culture.
What role does the company management play in the success story of the new planning tool?
It plays a particularly central role and provides support. By supporting the new planning concept, the implementation can become a success. The company management is highly motivated as it now has a much quicker overview of the status of projects. Information is provided smoothly to everyone involved and, as a result, decision-making processes are accelerated.

PLANTA im Einsatz seit 2014