September 14, 2010
11:30 am to 1:00 pm EDT
Instructor:
James Samanen, Ph.D. President, James Samanen Consulting; formerly worked at GlaxoSmithKline for 31 years
Course Description:
The Discovery project leader can readily relate to the phrase “I have full responsibility but no authority”. The reasons for feeling this frustration are legitimate: The company has high expectations for the project team succeeding. Yet project team members don’t report to the project leader. They are only “representatives” from line departments. The team reps often can’t make decisions in team meetings, but must ask their bosses. Their bosses wonder why we have project leaders in the first place. This seminar will examine the origins of the problem and how to resolve it. By the end of this session you will feel ready to examine the authority you have as a project leader and be ready to commit to making it enough.
We will discuss the following topics:
How profitability keeps decreasing in the pharmaceutical industry, putting pressure on project leaders and portfolio managers to reduce costs by reducing attrition.
The concept of aggregate project risk as the reason why Discovery project team members don’t report to the Project Leader, but to Line Managers.
The triangular relationship between line managers, project leaders and portfolio management that centers around project teams.
The concept of authority and the authority you have as a project leader, and why you must “make it enough”.
A 360 degree view of the project leader considering what is expected of a good project leader, and considering how to optimize your relationships with team reps, your boss and the team reps’ bosses, and other stakeholders.
Who Should Attend:
Project Leaders who have recently taken on the task
Line managers who intend to move into project management or want to learn more about how their staff should operate as project managers
The focus is on Drug Discovery but Project Leaders in Development will benefit as well
Portfolio Managers who face many of the same issues
Instructor Biography:
James is a pharmaceutical consultant with a track record of 30+ years leadership and innovation in drug discovery project & portfolio management, and portfolio data analysis at GlaxoSmithKline. While at GSK James developed and implemented worldwide Portfolio Management for GlaxoSmithKline Discovery and Genetics Research businesses encompassing 2000 staff and $400M budget - involving negotiation and implementation of processes for selection and prioritization of research programs, developing IT systems, mirroring past to present performance with fit-for-purpose benchmarking analysis, modelling future performance, change management and team training. His work enabled an increase in productivity of drug-like leads in GSK by > 50% in 2 years by cross-functional team-working, prioritization and 40% portfolio downsizing. He also enabled strategy changes reducing cycle times by 50%. As a group leader in Medicinal Chemistry he discovered & championed lotrafiban (antithrombotic) to Phase III, and 2 other preclinical candidate antithrombotics. He has been a project leader in diverse areas of drug discovery. He established James Samanen Consulting in December, 2008.