1st Edition
Creating a Lean R&D System Lean Principles and Approaches for Pharmaceutical and Research-Based Organizations
The ability to find and remove barriers between people and their systems in R&D can almost guarantee a doubling in performance, and often delivers multiples of that. R&D teams that have smooth handoffs deliver 100 percent of the required knowledge at those handoffs. As a result, such teams do not lose critical information, have unexpected knowledge gaps appear in their projects, or have uncoordinated knowledge transfers that waste minutes, days, and even months every year.
Creating a Lean R&D System: Lean Principles and Approaches for Pharmaceutical and Research-Based Organizations lays out the logic of why Lean implementation isn’t strictly for manufacturing and describes why it can be just as effective in R&D organizations. Terence Barnhart, former senior director of continuous improvement at Pfizer R&D, describes the theoretical and physical underpinnings of creating a Lean transformation in any R&D organization, as exemplified by the Lean transformation initiated within the R&D division of a global pharmaceutical company.
Describing how to merge Lean principles with the cultural virtues inherent in R&D, the book presents Lean approaches that can be easily applied in pharmaceutical and research-based organizations. It takes a strategic approach to solving two problems unique to the Lean field. The first is in noting the key distinctions between R&D and manufacturing, and developing a Lean approach specific to the R&D environment. The second is that it proposes a systematic middle-out (merger/maneuver) strategy to help you initiate and sustain a Lean culture within your pharmaceutical R&D organization that will help you immediately engage all stakeholders involved.
Seeing and Removing Barriers in the R&D Environment
Mental Models
Removing Barriers to Innovation
Impact on R&D Innovation
Physical Barriers
Emotional Barriers
Observational and Thinking Barriers
Lean and the Removal of Barriers
Lean in Research and Development
Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing and R&D
The Purpose of Lean
What Lean Is
Lean R&D
Implications
Connection with People
Conclusions
The Individual in the Lean R&D Community
An Example of the Lean R&D Community
Qualities of the Individual in a Lean Environment
Commitment
Commitment to Craft
Commitment to the Team
Awareness of the Community
Skill at Learning
Pulling It Together
Lean Exercises for the R&D Professional
Skill-Building Exercise 1: Seeing without Prior Mental Context
Skill-Building Exercise 2: Seeing Beliefs
Reframing to Innovate
Deconstruction and Synthesis to Increase Value Content
Making Snowmobiles
The Role of Language in Reframing for Innovation
Skill-Building Exercise 3: Reframing by Converting Statements into Questions
Skill-Building Exercise 4: Seeing and Reframing through Value Stream Mapping
Skill-Building Exercise 5: Reframing by Making Snowmobiles
The Value of Experience in Innovation
Skill-Building Exercise 6: Improving Innovation Experience through Daily Experimental Practice
Growing Yourself and Your Environment
Practice to Grow
Pulling It Together—Seeing, Reframing, Experiencing, and Growing: A Learning Loop for Innovation
Integrated Exercises
Skill-Building Exercise 7: The A3 Format
Skill-Building Exercise 8: Good-Better-Best
Skill-Building Exercise 9: Mapping
Apply Liberally
Apply in Your Work, Start Small, Grow in Scale, and Spread Outward
The A3 in Developing R&D Thinking
Purpose of the A3
Section 1: Problem Statement, Business Value, Performance Goals—Defining the Problem and the Terms for Its Successful Resolution
The First Step in Creating Thought Clarity—Separating Problem and Solution with a Well-Constructed Problem Statement or Valuable Question
Business Value—Creating a Stage for Buy-In
Goals—Defining Criterion for Successful Completion, a.k.a. "When Do I Stop?"
Other Types of Stop-Gap Goals
Section 1 Summary
Section 2: Current State
Section 2 Summary
Section 3: Analysis/Synthesis—Finding the Root Cause of a Problem and Developing Countermeasures to Address Root Cause
Considerations in Analysis/Synthesis
Section 3 Summary
Section 4: The Learning Plan
Learning Plan Structure
Predicting Plan Timing
Building Fast Learning into Our Planning Process
Thinking and Cadence in the Learning Plan
Thoughts on the Learning Plan
Section 4 Summary
Section 5: Results and Future Considerations
Pulling It Together to Get the Most from the A3
The Lean R&D Manager
Seeing Exercises
Skill-Building Exercise 1: Seeing Group and System Dynamics in an External Setting
Skill-Building Exercise 2: Letting the Environment Tell You Its Problems
Skill-Building Exercise 3: Observing the Internal Environment (Walking the Gemba)
Skill-Building Exercise 4: Seeing and Reframing through Mapping
Reframing Exercises
Skill-Building Exercise 5: Disbelieving Your Own Beliefs
Skill-Building Exercise 6: Identifying Other Possible Beliefs
Experience
Skill-Building Exercise 7: Small-Scale/High-Velocity Experimentation
Growth
Skill-Building Exercise 8: Setting Targets
Skill-Building Exercise 9: Assessing Performance and Reflecting on Results
Pulling It Together
Removing Barriers within the R&D Community
Supporting Basic Work Requirements
Supporting Interfaces
Supporting Management Systems
Seeing the Noninnovation Work
Creating Purpose
Seeing without Prejudice
Group Exercise 1: Seeing without Prejudice, the Current-State Value Stream Map
Issues in Value Stream Mapping in R&D
Group Exercise 2: Seeing Team Assumptions
Group Exercise 3: Bypass Assumptions Entirely—Critical Question Mapping
Reframing Exercises
Building Group Experience
Pulling It Together to Remove Barriers
Critical Question Mapping
Developing Critical Question Maps
Step 1: Defining a Strategic Problem
Step 2: Brainstorming
Step 3: Arranging the Questions and Flow
Steps 4 and 5: Review and Iteration
Managing Creative and R&D Projects Using Critical Questions
CQM in the Real World
Value Stream Mapping in the R&D Space
The Design (Value Stream Mapping) Workshop
Current-State Mapping (Day 1)
Analysis (Day 1)
Analysis (Day 2)
Future-State Mapping (Day 2)
Creating the Learning Plan (Day 3)
Management Intervention during Design and Planning
Implementation and Fast Learning
Learning and Review
Fast Learning and Strategies for Fast Learning
The Next Level: Linking the Project to Lean Strategy and the Learning Process
Implementation Strategy
Flow and Learning Loops
Filling Gaps in the Questions
Methodology/Philosophy (Barrier Removal) Section of the Map
Converting the Critical Questions into a Strategy
Design of the First and Subsequent Projects
Selecting Lean Practitioners
Identifying That First Project
Spreading Lean through Fast Learning: The Wildfire Strategy
Learning as Its Own Strategy
The Implications of a Learning Strategy
Implementation Strategy Summary
The Formation of Lean R&D Communities: A Case Example
The SPOT Project
Project Management in a Lean R&D Community
The Value of Point-to-Point Communication
Results of the SPOT Experiment
Conclusions
Reflections
Index
Biography
Dr. Terence Barnhart has worked as an academic and industrial research scientist, a strategy consultant, a plant engineer, and a project manager for some of the largest and best-known companies in the world, including Pfizer, McKinsey and Company, and General Electric. His professional passion is researching, developing, and implementing strategies to help people create environments in which they and others can flourish.
Dr. Barnhart holds a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor of science degree and post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry from the University of Michigan.