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CASE STUDY

Improving pharma project resource management: Seamless forecasting and allocation with PPM integration

industry-iconCLIENT :Confidential
industry-iconINDUSTRY :Pharmaceutical
industry-iconDURATION :4 months
CLIENT :
Confidential
INDUSTRY :
Pharmaceutical
DURATION :
4 months

Business case

A global pharma organization was past the initial stage of its data-driven resource management journey. But it needed visibility and clarity of the work done and know-how of projects. Budgeting for resources was not aligned with resource estimation data, and PMOs had month-by-month data that was not in tune with long-term estimates.  

Data consolidation across time frames was a serious challenge. Resource estimation was done regularly, but focus was only for 2 years at the most. A long-term strategic roadmap on resource management was missing, and business decisions hinged on short-term comparisons.  

Scenario modeling took weeks and could not be effectively done to carefully plan a decision for the future.  

Our Solution

After careful analysis and thorough needs assessment, our PPM experts suggested individual activity planning in projects with an integrated PPM paradigm. This led to better reporting and forecasting.  

Different departments within the organization, like finance and R&D, in collaboration with the PMOs could now have visibility of the resource pool and its activities. They could now focus on non-fungible roles to execute work for individual functions.  

Special activities named Hammocks or automated durations of resource activity were added to project templates and included into existing project plans. This helped managers focus on maintaining project milestones without maintaining extra-resource only activities.  

Preloaded project templates with resource forecasts also enabled PMs to change allocations based on skills and complexity of work involved.  

Challenges overcome

  •  Detailed project plans that took longer and were complicated were replaced by hammocks (aggregated tasks) when allocating resources.
  • Outdated resource cost rates that led to inaccurate budget forecasts were replaced with reports to compare forecast vs. actual costs.
  • Provided hands-on training to address  concerns and increase stakeholder’s adoption.

Benefits

  • Instead of allocating resources everywhere in projects, managers now allocated resources to specific activities that needed full-time engagement.  
  • Organization-wide implementation of resource allocation activities across the portfolio was done with ease
  • Resource forecasts were automated till the program level. All data generated in the form of reports specified roles needed to fill, resources for each role, and the demand generated across the portfolio.
  • There was enhanced flexibility in scenario modelling for insightful decisions.  

Results

Results