Gaurav Patel is a Project Manager in the area of Technical Operations (or “Tech Ops”), which is responsible for manufacturing and distributing - supply chain - of any of the drugs that Insmed decides to take to market. “The initiatives we manage become critical to the organization the moment they are handed to us. The sooner we can get these treatments to the patients, the sooner they can start receiving the benefits.”
In an industry that can often cost hundreds of millions of dollars in investment just to bring a single drug to market, it’s easy to understand why efficiency is of the essence…and why Insmed leadership is keen to receive regular reports that allow them to view the state of their portfolio in an accurate and clear manner, at any point in the process.
"The leadership is now accustomed to picking up on the visual cues that pertain to the important stuff...it forces the specific discussions, and it is adding positivity and efficiency to our business."
- Gaurav Patel, Project Manager, Technical Operations at Insmed
Inflection Point
When Mr. Patel first came to Insmed, “the structure of the organization and flow of data was largely undefined.” However, they knew they had to evolve and get organized…fast. So the company quickly made a point of establishing ownership and responsibility. Once specific sponsors were determined, they were in immediate need of information for the initiatives under their purview. The need for data across the portfolio was complicated due to the breadth of shared resources, differences in vendor reporting, and Insmed’s hastening growth. But the challenge was met and dealt with, head on.
“We worked very quickly to come to a conclusion about what our sponsors needed to see regularly. We also made a deliberate decision to have our visuals be uniform, so the audience could settle in and acclimate to the information we were providing.”
Once a week, Gaurav now generates a milestone dashboard for all of his sponsors in OnePager. Each contains 5-10 rows that are grouped into swimlanes, for ease of readability. They have made it a point to track their estimates using baselines, and he uses conditional formatting rules built into OnePager to illustrate on-track status. Any gaps that may exist, between the completion date and the baselines, are also highlighted, and different shapes may populate in the chart, depending on how far a baseline may have slipped.
Shapes and colors have been standardized and purposefully built to match the Microsoft Project database. If something needs to be specifically called out and discussed, Gaurav will insert an ad-hoc Flag column to pull out the items that need attention, in their own visual using OnePager.
“The leadership is now accustomed to picking up on the visual cues that pertain to the important stuff…it forces the specific discussions, and it is adding positivity and efficiency to our business.”
About OnePager
Developed and sold by Colorado-based Chronicle Graphics, OnePager is the timeline presentation software solution that empowers project managers to turn project files and spreadsheets into beautiful summary graphics in seconds. No matter the size of a project or the application used to create the original plan, OnePager turns real data into concise, instantly understandable visual project plans, suitable for PowerPoint presentations, emails, web pages, wall charts and more. Want to be a project management superhero? OnePager makes it possible. Click here to start your free 15-day trial today.
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