Where large sums of money are concerned, small-C conservatism often holds sway. In pharma, that goes double. Historically, launch teams would rather wait for ‘certainty’ than act before they feel they’re ready. But in today’s rapid, fiercely competitive pharma market, that’s beginning to change. If ‘surety’ sits on one side of the dial, and ‘speed’ on the other, we’re slowly seeing that dial creep in the speed direction.
Or, put another way,
“Ultimately, teams must embrace the fast 80% decisions – those that are 80% correct and 100% on time. In the mid-2020s, a perfect 100% that arrives in Month Six is a failure.”
In today’s climate, speed is king – and the idea of ‘certainty’ is diminishing. In this article, we’ve taken inspiration from Impatient Health’s latest white paper on Launch Leadership and the mindset shift required to launch successfully in the age of AI. Read on to explore how launch teams can accelerate their decision velocity to come to the right conclusions at the right moment.
1. Align on decision criteria ahead of data review
Having all the data at your fingertips doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll find alignment. Often, launch teams encounter decision delays at the data review stage because they haven’t decided what ‘success’ looks like in advance. This is tied to another common pharma industry problem: the absence of clear cross-functional strategy. Without an overarching strategy with clear ‘whys’ and objectives to guide each department’s actions, it’s extremely difficult to align on what to do next.
“Executives spend a significant portion of their time – nearly 40 percent, on average – making decisions. Worse, they believe most of that time is poorly used.”
2. Clarify – and extend – accountability
Being agile means operating without bottlenecks. If all decision-making responsibility resides with a handful of senior leaders, then hold-ups are inevitable. Embracing the “fast 80% decisions” described by Impatient Health means extending accountability and accepting that the quick wins will outweigh the occasional mistakes. Clarifying who has decision-making responsibility – and for what – ensures teams are confident to take decisive action.
Per Impatient Health, pharma companies should be “trusting their field operatives to take on much more decision-making power, training them to adapt to changing circumstances.”
3. Assign fixed decision windows
We’re all susceptible to procrastination. When given a fixed deadline, it’s human nature to use all the available time. Finishing early is anathema.
“It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
–Parkinson’s Law
The same goes for decision-making – we have a tendency to leave difficult decisions until the last minute, allowing our thought processes to fill all the available space. This phenomenon, known as ‘analysis drift’, is a major contributor to reduced decision velocity. One useful technique is to create ‘time boxes’ – imposing fixed windows for the completion of individual tasks – and taking action before each ‘box’ has elapsed. This approach prevents over-analysis. In effect, you get a good decision now over a perfect decision when it may be too late.
4. Create a single source of truth
It’s hard to calculate quite how much time is wasted trying to reconcile different data sets across functions and departments. Whose figures are correct? Whose are the most relevant? What if one set of data contradicts another? Launch teams can spend months spinning these particular wheels.
When teams are working from a shared dataset that encompasses field data, social listening, congress data, claims data, and more, they have a single source of truth that effectively silences debate. Launch Intelligence™ looks within that data to surface insights – incontrovertible market truths drawn from an unbiased system that allows teams to move faster, align smarter, and make confident decisions when they truly matter.
5. Shorten the gap between insight and action
Today, pharma isn’t insight-poor. Far from it. Tools like Launch Intelligence™ can deliver answers to your most critical questions in minutes, where historically, it might have taken months. However, decision-making speed has not caught up. This is where the true bottleneck lies, with many organizations still taking weeks to act on critical insights. This lag in decision velocity is no longer necessary with the tools available today. Confident, informed decision-making can happen at the speed that launch windows demand, so all that’s left is for launch teams to address internal hurdles that slow decision-making.
“Inefficient decision making costs a typical Fortune 500 company 530,000 days of managers’ time each year, equivalent to about $250 million in annual wages.”
Teams can begin to widen this bottleneck by developing ‘decision SLAs (Service Level Agreements)’ – formal, measurable commitments that dictate how quickly a decision must be made once a certain trigger has been activated. These can work in tandem with the ‘time boxes’ we discussed previously. For example, Congress insights come in, and that triggers an SLA that states messaging adjustments must be decided upon within five working days.
In conclusion
Artificial intelligence has rapidly accelerated speed to insight, but decision velocity still lags. By making minor adjustments like those outlined in this article, launch teams can accelerate their decision-making speed and so gain an upper hand on their competitors. However, even early AI adopters often find that there’s a piece missing: a trusted, unbiased intelligence layer that sits above data silos to surface market-level truths. Launch Intelligence™ is that layer – a strategic trump card that empowers teams to make informed decisions with confidence, and act faster than the competition.
“Decision-cycle time – the ability to use your resources faster and more efficiently than your opponents – is the difference between winning and losing.”
–Tony Page, Senior Vice President, Insight Analytics, Within3
You can read more about the mindset shift required to launch successfully in the age of AI by downloading the latest Impatient Health whitepaper. And if you aren’t using launch AI yet, book a demo of Within3 Launch Intelligence™ to discover how it can accelerate your team’s decision velocity.
