Internal change in pharmaceutical organizations fails for cultural reasons, not technical ones. Scientist-sponsors, a correctly risk-averse culture, heavy matrixing, and scarce project management resource combine to make projects stop at Go Live. Unlike communication-led approaches, the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) carries a project past installation to adoption.
Why does internal change fail in pharmaceutical companies?
Pharmaceutical organizations continue to undergo enormous change as the competitive landscape evolves. Globalization, the cost of research and development, regulatory requirements, and compressed cycle times have all driven the need to transform. Those changes reach well past the lifecycle from discovery through clinical trials, into business development, clinical development, and operational management.
Yet despite tight management and structure on the drug discovery side, many strategic initiatives on the internal business side are run without any repeatable process for the human barriers of change. Four of those barriers are cultural, and characteristic of pharmaceutical organizations. They also show up in the data: see the pharmaceutical change management benchmark, drawn from 19,950 implementation assessments across 54 pharmaceutical organizations.
What is the difference between installation and implementation?
IMA Worldwide has observed this installation pattern across the pharmaceutical industry, along with real confusion about what project success means. It applies to every type of change: technology, process, Lean, and restructuring, on the business side and the clinical side alike.
Installation is Plan, Build, Test, Deploy, and Go Live. The change is in place. Implementation is Uptake, Utilization, Adoption, and Optimization. People actually work the new way. Most projects stop at the fifth stage of nine and call it delivery.
Why is Go Live a missed opportunity?
Two things go wrong in the standard lifecycle, and both are avoidable.
Readiness is built too late, or not at all
The planning phase should carry a blended plan with human-side and technical-side milestones together. That plan should include building readiness for the implementation, in order to limit the strength and durability of resistance later. Too frequently there is no attempt to build readiness proactively until much closer to Go Live. It is a missed opportunity, and it is the cheapest one to take.
The team is disbanded exactly when the work changes
Go Live, or very shortly after, is treated as the point at which the project is done. The team is disbanded and redeployed to other projects. Defining project success as installation causes untold financial and human resource to be spent afterwards trying to manage resistance and fix problems with no expert guidance. That work is often left to scientist-leaders who are completely under-equipped for the role.
In the post-Go-Live cycle, the resource needed shifts from technical subject matter experts to localized change agents who have trust and credibility with the people impacted by the change, meaning everyone affected in any way, and with the authorizing and reinforcing sponsors, meaning everyone with direct or indirect reports who are affected in any way. That is a far broader definition of sponsor than most projects use.
Implementation expertise is a separate requirement. It is not enough to have agents with the right relationships. They also need the skills and knowledge required to fully implement. The right people, in the right places, with the right knowledge, skills, and traits, is what carries a change to full adoption.
What questions should a pharmaceutical project answer early?
A great solution that is poorly implemented will not produce optimization or benefit realization. Every time a new technology, process, or structure is introduced, there are human and cultural barriers that have to be identified and addressed. Six questions surface them.
- Whose way of working will be disrupted, and to what degree? This matters because resistance is a direct function of the degree of disruption for that individual.
- How will we get leaders and the management team to fully commit through what they say, what they do, and what they reinforce with their direct reports and anyone whose performance they control?
- Which supporting functions need to be committed and to provide resources, for example HR and IT?
- How will we get affected individuals motivated and ready for this change, rather than merely informed of it?
- Who holds implementation responsibility in every function the change touches?
- How will we manage the inevitable resistance at all levels, including from leaders whose own political and power agendas are disrupted by this change?
If communication were enough, no one would smoke and everyone would be skinny.
The missing piece is a standard deployment approach that treats the human side of implementation as a repeatable process. What remains widely misunderstood is that communication plans alone will not achieve the desired business and clinical outcomes. A more robust and holistic framework is required.
How does AIM bring rigor to the human side?
Nothing has really changed unless behavior changes. Without behavior change, a pharmaceutical organization has achieved a superficial improvement and the operational efficiency it paid for will not be sustained. The Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM), developed by Don Harrison, provides a replicable process that holds every initiative to five metrics rather than three.
- On time. Delivered to schedule.
- On budget. Delivered to cost.
- Technical objectives met. The system or process works as designed.
- Business objectives met. The intended business outcome is realized.
- Human objectives met. The desired new behaviors associated with the process are actually happening. This is the one most projects never define, and a project can hit the other four and still change nothing.
Why it fits a scientific culture
Across decades of pharmaceutical work, IMA Worldwide has found that the AIM framework, its principles, tools, and tactics, and its scored measurement diagnostics have strong appeal inside scientific and analytical cultures. Given how systematic the approach is, there is an immediate cultural affinity with the way pharmaceutical professionals already think.
What the road map actually asks you to do
- Define the Change
- Start with a clear definition that identifies who will be disrupted and to what degree, and above all the desired human behaviors in the future state for every audience. Definitions are refined continually into vocabulary and examples that resonate with each audience.
- Assess the Climate
- Does implementation history suggest a track record of success, or of failed and stalled change? A poor implementation history cannot be ignored: it means trust is low, resistance will be higher, and speed will suffer.
- Generate Sponsorship
- Active, visible sponsorship in the right places is the single most important success factor for any implementation. Every sponsor must express, model, and reinforce personal commitment daily, both publicly and privately.
- Develop Target Readiness
- Readiness here means the readiness of the people impacted by the change. Invest in it early or pay for it later in resistance. There is no third option.
- Build Communication Plan
- Every message targeted to the right audience at the right time in the best available medium, and always with a feedback loop that gathers data on emerging resistance. If you want someone's attention, email is probably the last medium to reach for.
- Develop Reinforcement Strategy
- If there is no change unless behavior changes, you need a menu of reinforcements that motivate people. The motivation to change has to be greater than the motivation to keep the status quo.
- Create Cultural Fit
- How consistent a change is with the current culture predicts the probability of implementation success. Only changed reinforcements will overcome the gravitational pull of the existing culture.
These sit within AIM's 10 practice areas, which run from Define the Change through Prioritize Action and are supported by 10 core scored diagnostics. See what AIM is for the full method.
How do you build the capability to run AIM yourself?
With training and coaching, your project teams and leaders can adopt AIM and run it on your own. There is investment on the front end, and over time you operate self-sufficiently with no dependence on external consultants.
The most effective and efficient route is to build capability on one selected project rather than taking a train-everyone approach. Training and knowledge transfer combined with consultant coaching lets that project be implemented faster and more successfully, while capability accumulates for future initiatives.
Where pharmaceutical organizations have applied AIM
- Clinical process improvement
- Research and development process change
- Restructuring
- Lean and Six Sigma programs
- ERP and other new technology
- Integration of acquisitions
| Program | Who it is for | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Executive Briefing | Senior executives who sponsor change | A working understanding of AIM as a sponsor. Proprietary assessment tools pinpoint inhibitors and identify leverage points. Length and content are customized to the outcomes you want. |
| Introduction to AIM | Change agents and sponsors across multiple projects | A two-day awareness program, offered publicly and on site, introducing the core principles, vocabulary, and tools. |
| Project Planning Workshop | An intact project team | A three-day working session producing real deliverables, including a Business Case for Action and a high-level sponsorship, readiness, reinforcement, and communication strategy for a live project. |
| Accreditation | A core group of change agents and sponsors | An intensive four-day session that transfers the capability to apply AIM to business change projects, and turns participants into internal AIM practitioners. |
Each program stands on its own, and maximum value comes from applying AIM purposefully: integrating the tools, the learning, the measurement, and methodology knowledge transfer through the accreditation process.
What practitioners say
"As scientists, we are often placed as the lead on many change initiatives without any in-depth understanding of project management or change management principles. AIM training provides us with a deeper understanding of the principles needed to successfully implement global or local initiatives, ensuring inclusion, accountability and sustainability."
Associate Director, research and development unit, global pharmaceutical company
"AIM tools and measurement diagnostics improve my ability to define and implement a project. Many of my own past failures with implementing change were directly attributable to some of the pitfalls that AIM is designed to identify. It may seem that the tools are common sense, but we are not by nature very effective at implementing change."
Director, engineering technologies and process safety, global pharmaceutical company
"In the new changing world, the question is not: should we change or not? The real question is: how fast can you change? AIM is your way to successful change implementation."
Training leader, global pharmaceutical company
Rapid, dramatic change is part of the pharmaceutical landscape. Your organization is perfectly designed to get the outputs you are getting right now. The question is what you will do differently.
Common questions about internal change in pharma
Why does internal change fail in pharmaceutical companies?
Internal change in pharmaceutical organizations usually fails for four cultural reasons rather than technical ones: scientists who are outstanding subject matter experts are placed in sponsor roles without people-management expertise, a correctly risk-averse regulatory culture conflicts with the need to innovate, heavy matrixing spreads accountability until no one owns implementation, and there are too few professional project management resources for the volume of internal, non-drug-development change. Together these push organizations to declare projects finished at Go Live.
What is the difference between installation and implementation in a pharma project?
Installation is Plan, Build, Test, Deploy, and Go Live: the change is in place. Implementation is Uptake, Utilization, Adoption, and Optimization: people actually work the new way. Most pharmaceutical projects define success as installation, disband the team at Go Live, and never reach optimization, which is the only stage at which the intended value of the investment is realized.
Why is Go Live a missed opportunity in pharmaceutical projects?
Go Live is treated as the finish line, so the team is disbanded and redeployed exactly when the work changes character. Before Go Live the primary resource is technical subject matter experts. After it, the organization needs local change agents who have trust and credibility with the people impacted by the change, and agents with implementation expertise. Keeping only technical experts on past Go Live, or keeping no one, leaves resistance to be managed by leaders who are under-equipped for it.
What are the five metrics of a successful implementation?
The Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) holds every change initiative to five delivery metrics: on time, on budget, technical objectives met, business objectives met, and human objectives met. The fifth is the one most pharmaceutical projects never define. Human objectives are the specific new behaviors associated with the new process, and without them a project can hit every other metric and still change nothing.
Why is a communication plan not enough to deliver change?
Communication creates awareness, not behavior. As IMA Worldwide puts it, if communication were enough, no one would smoke and everyone would be skinny. Delivering behavioral change also requires sponsorship that is expressed, modeled and reinforced, readiness built before deployment rather than after, reinforcement that makes the new behavior more attractive than the old one, and a deliberate read of cultural fit.
How do pharmaceutical organizations build AIM capability internally?
The most effective route is to build capability on one selected project rather than training everyone. Training and knowledge transfer combined with consultant coaching lets that project be implemented faster while capability accumulates for future initiatives. Programs run as a continuum from an Executive Briefing for senior sponsors, through a two-day Introduction to AIM, a three-day project planning workshop for an intact team, to Accreditation that turns internal change agents and sponsors into AIM practitioners.
Move one project from installation to implementation
Pick the initiative that matters most and build the capability on it, rather than training everyone at once. Talk to IMA Worldwide about which of your programs is the right one to start with.
Talk to IMA Worldwide about your projectRead next
Read your own implementation history
The Implementation History Assessment scores whether your organization has a track record of change that lands. Assess the Climate, made concrete.
Turn a project team into practitioners
Accreditation converts change agents and sponsors into internal AIM practitioners, so the capability stays with your own people.
Operate without external consultants
An enterprise subscription and licensing let your own certified instructors teach AIM internally, which is what self-sufficiency requires.
See the full capability journey
What building capability one project at a time looks like over two years, from baseline assessment to a Center of Excellence your people run.
Adapted from the IMA Worldwide white paper Beyond Drug Discovery: Implementing Internal Changes on the Business and Clinical Sides of Pharma. AIM, the Accelerating Implementation Methodology, was developed by Don Harrison, founder of IMA Worldwide.
