Decision-Making and Process

Many years ago, when we first started working with emerging life sciences companies to provide a roadmap for the commercialization of their technologies, we began with a list of essential activities and the corresponding budget that would be required.

At your next company lunch and learn, try this experiment: Ask ten people from different functions to take a blank piece of flip chart paper (assuming you still have flip charts!). Then ask them to draw a picture of how key decisions are made in your organization.

Ah, June, the season of life transitions — weddings, graduations, school progression and, with the year nearly half over, a reminder to reflect on where we have been and where we are going in 2019.

Living in a parallel universe, launching a company and drug simultaneously.

We have all heard about it; some of us have lived it firsthand. A vibrant, new start-up comes to life with energy and purpose. Everyone knows one another; everyone works together towards a common goal. Communication happens on the fly, informally, at all hours of the day and night. It’s fast and it’s fun — we are a tight group, proud of what we are building.

We have been publishing these "e-conversations" for just six months now. But I am happy — no, thrilled — to see that it has already become exactly what we had hoped for: a two-way conversation with all of you.

Back in the Mesozoic Era, when I was coming up the marketing line (also known as the 90s), we used something called "The Mapping Approach to Strategy." This involved propelling the team three to five years into the future and imagining how the product being developed would be positioned in the customer's mind. Then we would define the strategic path to get there.