We collaborated with top business consultants from a multinational pharma giant to build an optimized QRM platform that helps Quality Managers and Project Managers effectively identify, prioritize, evaluate and mitigate the proactive & retrospective risks at an org-level, business unit-level and project-level.
Inefficient & Error-Prone Process:
Any gaps in the assessment and analysis of Quality Risks in a pharmaceutical company hinders the deliverables of their live IT projects and increases the likelihood of recalls and adverse events. This ultimately hurts their compliance, competitive advantage and customer trust.
Streamlined Risk Assessment:
We designed a platform with streamlined processes for risk owners and quality managers to expedite decision-making with quality insights in real time. This is achieved through a drill-down dashboard with clear visual representation of risks distribution, associated timelines and their potential impact.
Hi there, Captain! (Play along for a second). Picture yourself preparing for your next flight, a couple of hours from now.
Before takeoff, you diligently assesses potential risks such as weather conditions, aircraft performance, and flight routes.
Just like pilots, pharma companies prioritize safety, plan ahead, and adapt to changing conditions to achieve successful outcomes.
Quality Risks Management in pharma sector involves analyzing potential risks in the manufacturing process, raw materials, and regulatory compliance to ensure the production of high-quality, safe medications.
Any gaps in the assessment and analysis of Quality Risks in a pharma company increases the likelihood of drug recalls or adverse events while hurting the company's reputation and customer trust.
My involvement in this project was on two levels:
Discovery
1 - organizing stakeholder workshops
2 - card sorting
3 - feature validation
Design
1 - user journey mapping
2 - ideation
3 - information architecture
4 - low to high fidelity wireframes
5 - interaction design
6 - visual design
7 - prototyping
Starting from the ground up, I took charge of:
1 - mapping user context and needs
2 - sharing domain knowledge within the team
3 - syncing with tech architects to design user flows
4 - translating research into dashboard concepts
5 - handing off wireframes to visual designers
6 - infusing business goals into UX iterations
7 - collaborating with business analysts to develop user stories
8 - storyboarding opportunities of differentiation
9 - driving user testing/feedback sessions
10 - pitching the UX impact to the CFO executives
Applying the Double Diamond model proved helpful in defining a roadmap of different UX activities throughout this project. We went back and forth between these stages as needed, and gathered stakeholder feedback
after each iteration. This way, we were able to break down the complex requirements and structure our findings.
Motive: Get a grip of users' mindset and their core needs
Medium: Offline psychology study*
Mapping: Simplified Empathy Maps
* Sources:
https://learnaboutgmp.com/good-manufacturing-practices-cgmp/quality-risk-management-within-the-pharmaceutical-industry/
https://www.cio.com/article/3335123/how-do-cios-think-about-it-transformation.html
https://hbr.org/2012/06/managing-risks-a-new-framework
For each user group, I started with a basic thought in mind:
What are the core priorities of this person in QRM?
Which of those priorities are non-negotiable?
By looking at the same problem from the lens of a CIO versus that of a Risk Owner/Quality Manager, we could map out the user motivations in their respective roles. We then identified the interrelated goals from each bucket that could later be aligned towards a common achievable goal within the scope of this project.
Motive: Deep dive into current ecosystem of users, processes and tools to manage risks
Medium: Stakeholder workshops
Mapping: Process Maps
The analysis of all the insights from the discovery stage boiled down to three major pain points for our users:
This understanding from research phase led to framing the opportunity as well as shaping the UX objectives.
How do we enable Quality Managers / Project Managers across business functions to assess and prioritize risks at varying levels of granularity, without overwhelming them with information?
Design intuitive, distraction-free interfaces that reduce users' cognitive load by structuring the vast & complex data and yet making all information accessible in minimum no. of clicks.
Enable QMs and PMs to proactively manage IT project-level risks to restrict the impact on costs, regulatory compliance and delays in go-live dates.
/ Discoverability
/ Task Completion Rate
/ No. of Steps in Navigation
/ Incidents of compliance breach
/ No. of projects delayed
/ Revenue loss
We adopted a fail-first intent to brainstorm and validate our concepts in continuous iterations. For each of the 7 key use cases in the user journey, we sketched out the information flows, screen layouts, data visualizations and user interactions.
We mapped a high-level customer journey in the proposed solution and optimize it at each step.
Identifying the set of parameters to accurately depict the insights in a visual form involved back-and-forth.
Keeping interactions simple while packing more data in a limited space was only possible with a lot of hit and trial. For every individual element and its relation with other elements on the screen, we went through several rounds of refinement to arrive at the best effective visualizations.
After several iterations and continuous testing with users, we landed at the final version of the dashboard screens.
After several rounds of feedback and deliberation on each individual widget and their relationship with other data on the dashboard, we were able to achieve a clean modular dashboard spanning the 7 key use cases for MVP. We made sure that users are able to extract risk-related insights with minimal manual effort, thereby significantly reducing their cognitive load.
To depict the end-to-end user flow and the various filters to navigate through the data, we created a clickable prototype.
• By showing QM-specific vitals, risks are prioritized quickly and accurately, thereby saving the organization-level losses on costs and efforts.
• With timely mitigation of risks, Project Managers are equipped to deliver as per release plan.
• Getting to the bottom of nuances & complexities in the perception of risks in relation to projects took more time.
• Identifying the set of parameters to accurately depict the insights in a visual form involved back-and-forth
• Keeping interactions simple while packing more data in a limited space was only possible with a lot of hit and trial
Thanks to the synergy in our team of self-motivated & inquisitive designers and with constant support from client, we were able to overcome these challenges and deliver a solution that was greatly appreciated by the business team and users.
I love making connections, so feel free to reach out and say hello!
Need a systems thinker who can drive business outcomes?
Or have thoughts to share on my work?
Either way, I love making connections. Let's get talking!
I love making connections, so feel free to reach out and say hello!
Need a systems thinker who can drive business outcomes?
Or have thoughts to share on my work?
Either way, I love making connections.
Feel free to connect via LinkedIn, email me, or schedule a time on my calendar.
Let's get talking!