Professional sports has fallen into a ‘Moneyball trap’ of late. In our AI-augmented, data-driven age, advanced metrics exist to track practically everything – from the expected points added of a particular play to the weighted value of a shot-creating action. Each of these metrics can be instructive when used as part of a holistic strategy, but none are as important as what it actually says on the scoreboard. Pharma has fallen into a similar trap. Launch teams record numerous activity or ‘vanity’ metrics that are great at demonstrating how busy they are, but effectively useless when it comes to revealing the impact of those activities on patients.
Why teams fall into the activity metric trap
Well-supported activity metrics can be hard things to let go of. Teams become attached to measurements that track the number of MQLs generated, field interaction numbers, share of voice targets, and so on. We call these ‘vanity metrics’ for a reason. They record effort, they feel tangible, and they give departments achievable targets to aim for. But what they don’t do is show what those activities mean in terms of patient impact.
Medical leaders report that activity metrics like these are the most used in practice, but also recognize that they’re among the least relevant. But they’re easy to count, and for that reason they get counted – that’s why it’s a trap. Identifying alternative metrics – ones that actually demonstrate how launch activities address existing care gaps – is much more complicated. In the absence of a valid alternative, activity metrics become targets, and teams begin to optimize for them. The actual value of an activity becomes secondary when the activity itself is the target. As Goodhart’s Law indicates: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
Launch teams everywhere are busy, and they can prove it. They’re working hard. But that doesn’t mean they’re productive.
“We need to go beyond activity metrics and start creating accountability dashboards that offer strategic value.”
Focusing activity where it matters
Currently, teams are treating activity metrics as if they’re the ultimate goal – the numbers on the scoreboard – rather than a vital but distinct rung on the measurement ladder. Activity metrics can help to connect execution through stakeholder influence and patient impact, but they can’t demonstrate impact on their own.
The top rung of the measurement ladder is the ability to measure whether launch activities move patients through the healthcare system and toward evidence-based treatment. Target Population Output methodologies (TPOs) can help teams to climb that ladder. TPOs can be used to identify the ‘leakage points’ where patients drop out of the care pathway, giving launch teams something to measure against. If they can demonstrate that their activities are closing those leakage points and helping more individuals to progress along the patient pathway, then they can measure the patient impact of their launch activities. While the activities launch teams are directly involved in can rarely impact TPOs on their own, they can directly influence the stakeholders capable of delivering patient impact.
“[TPOs] allow a structured approach for linking the “how” of our interventions in health systems with the “why” of population health and business goals.”
Climbing out of the trap
If many pharma launch teams are currently caught in the same trap – optimizing for vanity metrics that record ‘busyness’ without ever demonstrating impact – then they need a way to escape. Activity metrics represent merely the first rung of the ladder. The next rung is represented by stakeholder indicators. The final rung is outcome metrics. Three steps to take you out of the trap and to a place where you can reliably demonstrate the patient impact of your launch activities.
Each of these three metrics is interrelated:
It’s easy to see how each ‘rung of the ladder’ relates to the next one, but most organizations still struggle to connect them because each set of metrics lives in separate systems. This is part of the reason that pharma teams have grown to accept dashboards that track activity metrics exclusively. Purpose-built technology like Within3’s Launch Intelligence Platform™ acts as a single source of truth capable of surfacing insights needed to move up the ladder. By connecting activity to stakeholder sentiment and intent, and eventually hard evidence, teams can create a feedback loop that empowers them to pivot their launch strategies as market forces dictate, and helps them escape the ‘activity metric trap’ for good.
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