Are we learning from experience?

Lessons learnt in life science projects

Over the decades since formal project management was adopted within life science, much ‘standard practice’ has been embedded into our operations – planning, risk management, communication plans – and so on. But there are a number of disciplines that, even after many years of talking about them, generally have not become day to day habits. One of these is routine learning from experience.

Why do I say this? Several things have convinced me:

Firstly, drawing conclusions from a range of discussions that I’ve had with project managers in training events over the last ten years or so. I generally poll every group for their topics of interest. Project learning is not usually asked about. Note that isn’t because they are fully comfortable with the techniques(!) Asking about current practice shows that it’s very patchy.

Secondly, it was interesting to draw some conclusions from a key PIPMG conference event a few years ago, that was focused on lessons learnt in projects. A cross section of BioPharma companies attended. What stood out for me, was one talk showcasing some excellent working practice in one organisation - see below*. However, other talks generally described plans for future best practice, rather than descriptions of mature systems (even though these initiatives did look impressive).

Thirdly, many of us have shared war stories in the bar at various conferences over the years. Many times have I heard tales of projects initiated with no time being expended on checking lessons learnt from previous exercises!

This lack of rigorous lesson learned practice has been with us for decades. So there is one question we should pose around this whole topic: does it really matter?

I would argue that in the past, it didn’t, so much. BioPharma Research, Development and Marketing has remained profitable for as long as I can remember. It’s been effective, if not efficient. Arguably it has learned from experience over time, without this discipline necessarily becoming a day-to-day imperative in projects.

But there’s a big reason why it does matter, and a not so big one.

The big reason: look across the Atlantic. The land of the free and the free (drug) market. Who knows what that market, and others will look like in a few years. It may be a lot more scary and we will need to be a lot more efficient.

And the ‘smaller’ reason? It’s nice to work in a happy team! Your project and your team members will benefit from them having the chance to say what worked well/what didn’t; what is helping right now and what is irritating.

It’s not so difficult to make a difference. PIPMG can advise and PIPMG can help. Why not look at our online questionnaire and guide?

(Note - this is coming soon)

Lessons learnt are useful data, like any other metrics. And I am reminded of something a project metrics expert said at another PIPMG conference: “It doesn’t matter if your classification and system for collecting metrics is not fully designed. It doesn’t matter if you change the metrics classifications in the middle of project execution. What really matters is that you start collecting metrics data now.”

(By the way *that organisation is Cancer Research Centre for Drug Development. There’s another article about their ways of working)

John Faulkes

March 2025