"Ueberblick LeanRnD™ can save 1/3 of time, in every experiment!"
Two quick examples:
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1. Project planning
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Does your project plan directly link project goals to "experimental work needed"?
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LeanRnD provides a simple and systematic process for planning projects which directly links higher-level goals to actual experiments and their needed outcomes:
- lightweight, systematic planning that is easily scalable
- challenges are communicated via "reasoning", not via "strong opinion"
- clarity about true scope
- nothing is "forgotten"
- makes delegating work much easier
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2. Experimental planning
Is your work planned so that "preventable repetitions" are minimized?
Is your work documented so that new hires can understand it, and could replicate it?
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LeanRnD provides a simple and systematic process for planning work:
- generates transparency about reasoning to both, managers and contributors
- minimizes hands-on time for planning, communication and documentation
- "growing the team" faster and with less hands-on time
Ueberblick LeanRnD™
- is an RnD operating system that allows you and your team to systematically organize all RnD work
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- provides a time-proven RnD structure that you can install in your company within 4 weeks
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Benefits of Ueberblick LeanRnD™
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- instantly achieve more progress faster and with less time in the lab
- automatically generate transparent evidence to justify and communicate decisions and get easy buy-in: from your team and from your board
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- helps to manage existing and growing teams, allocate work and maintain a clear overview
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How it works
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LeanRnD is a simple structure and processes that drive "industrial RnD best practices" all the time, at all levels.
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Those "industrial RnD best practices" were collected over many years from different successful companies, teams and contributors and combined in a coherent system of a structure and defined processes.
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Your company can benefit from many expensive lessons-learned without having to go through the years-long learning process of trying to rebuild something similar from a much smaller pool of experiences.
"Ueberblick LeanRnD™ can save 1/3 of time, in every experiment!"
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Ueberblick LeanRnD™ is highly effective when applied in biotech:
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Here is an Example.
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Here are Common Concerns and what reality has shown.
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And here are Testimonials from RnD managers that are applying Ueberblick LeanRnD™ methods.
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You focus on the science, let Ueberblick LeanRnD™ organize the work!
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Ueberblick LeanRnD™ makes justifying timelines to the board easy.
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Ueberblick LeanRnD™ helps present convincing evidence for your strategy to solve roadblocks.
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Ueberblick LeanRnD™ is a proven solution to freeing up time to focus on science, establish reliable timelines, and avoid roadblocks.
"Ueberblick LeanRnD™ can save 1/3 of total experiment time, in every experiment"
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- a theoretical example for how a small subset of Ueberblick LeanRnD™ tools work
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A 15-day-example of the "classic" RnD way
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In a normal biotech RnD department setting, an individual experiment is assigned to a scientist who plans and executes the work, with a focus on execution and a lean "Planning" step.
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The "Initial Execution" highlights problems in the plan that require improvements before the experiment can deliver the desired results.
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After this "Improvement Cycle" is worked out and a second execution, this "Improved Execution" achieves the desired outcome.
In comparison: Applying Ueberblick LeanRnD™ methods to achieve the same in 10 days
The core tool of the Ueberblick LeanRnD™ system is the "Experimental Report". This is the document type that experiments are planned in and that documents all work in a "complete and comprehensive" way.
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For this example, the same experiment as above is now planned, executed and documented within such an Experimental Report. The process for Experimental Reports places emphasis on the Planning step. Among other things, this drives attention to detail and the use of references to justify experimental decisions.
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After the Planning step and before execution, the Experimental Report process asks the scientist to discuss the plan with a co-worker during a short "Pre-Peer-Review" step.
Real-life experience shows that the majority of experimental problems can be uncovered and improved upon using the Pre-Peer-Review process, which now allows skipping directly to the Improved Execution without having to undergo an Initial Execution.
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Only by applying the Pre-Peer-Review tool, the Experimental Report process eliminates already one of the most time- and resource-intensive steps in the entire process. This directly leads to:
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- faster turn around time to results
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- decreased use of resources
- decreased lab-time to achieve the same results: an important consideration in COVID19 times.
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The Pre-Peer-Review is only one out of many Ueberblick LeanRnD™ tools for experimental planning.
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It encourages spending additional time on the defined Pre-Peer-Review process and the introduction of improvements into the execution plan. This can often be done in less than a day and it routinely solves problems that would have caused a preventable repeat.
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In this example, it instantly saves 5x the invested time by cutting down the most resource-intense part of experimental execution from two iterations to only a single one.
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Value from Ueberblick LeanRnD™ as an integrated structure
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For a hands-on-manager it is very difficult and laborious to ensure that every team member adheres consistently to small processes such as the Pre-Peer-Review step over time frames of may years.
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The solution is to install a coherent "organizational structure" that acts as a checklist for such simple processes that everyone can follow and check off item-by-item and without the need for hands-on management.
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The Ueberblick LeanRnD™ methodology provides many simple tools such as Pre-Peer-Review and drives their implementation in every experimental planning instance without RnD management hands-on time.
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With each experiment cycle, this leads to significant savings in resources and overall, drastically shortened product development timelines.
If the Ueberblick LeanRnD™ methodology is consistently applied over a single year, this translates into more than 4 months of saved time and resources.
Testimonials
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Bernhard Zimmermann, CSO at Natera, Inc.
When expanding at Natera we were faced with the challenge on how to manage a rapidly growing RnD team and keep efficiencies and quality high. We started to apply a planning and documentation structure that is similar to the "LeanRnD" methodology. One of the main team members who helped define and improve the methodology was Axel Bethke.
Common concerns and real-world experience
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"This is a lot of upfront planning time"
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Bernhard Zimmermann:
Upfront panning and refinement results in high quality experiments with clear results. The involvement of multiple team members in the planning phase helps to eliminate gaps and errors in the experiments that have to be addressed with additional work.
When the experiment is concluded, the advantage of the "Experimental Report" is that it is a "complete and comprehensive" documentation, which leads to several advantages, below are some of those we practically experience every day:
- Results and protocols are much easier accessible to cross-reference with other experiments, also to other team members.
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- Years after the work was completed, results and protocols can be retrieved easily, even when the employee has left the company.
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- New hires can in detail read up about previous work and seamlessly expand from previous work without having to re-do experimental work.
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- IP filing becomes much more efficient as all relevant experimental work is fully documented.
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Axel: "This sounds like a complex effort."
Bernhard Zimmermann:
It’s not complex. Basically it is a discussion where everything important is written down immediately. Therefore nothing gets forgotten, misunderstandings are much less frequent, etc.
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"This complex planning effort around Experimental Reports drowns scientific creativity"
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Bernhard Zimmermann:
The experimental plans enable creative contributions by colleagues and stakeholders and to focus the creativity on the objectives.
Oftentimes, during the planning process experiments change significantly compared to how they would have looked when performed “in isolation” without the input from colleagues.
Axel: "How do experiments change during planning?"
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Bernhard Zimmermann:
Refinement and better understanding of objectives lead to changes, budget considerations, reduction of complexity and duration, assessment of main risks and mediations (eg. highly valuable and rare materials being used), new and better ideas (creativity).
Scientists pay a lot of attention to the detail and experiment and project plans become much more valuable if company and business perspectives are factored in with help of managers.
Axel: "How often have you seen this 'increase in value' effect?"
Bernhard Zimmermann:
Every single experiment is improved.
Axel: "Was this key to the most recent patent application?"
Bernhard Zimmermann:
It’s not “key”, it just makes it more efficient and reduces time spent by RnD people.
Actually also for litigation: records with dates, contributors etc. I have a call this afternoon 08/03/2020 where I’m asked for this kind of info and documentation!
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How to download Ueberblick LeanRnD™ into your company?
We can train your team hands-on within 4 weeks using ongoing RnD work as "project-based learning" to minimize downtime.
Are you interested in hearing more?
I can give a 30min presentation to elaborate on the details and convince you of the benefits.