
My first unofficial case study — hVIVO
A few years ago I was working at a clinical trials company in London. It was the new kid on the block in the clinical trial industry and just three years in they had grown exponentially. However some processes had not evolved as the size of the business grew. This resulted in a bottleneck with the data in the clinical department.
My theory is that the accelerated growth across the business didn’t give the company a chance to work on many aspects including culture and as a result different departments may as well have been sovereign states rather than a part of the same company making collaboration difficult
The Problem
- My boss kept yelling at me because my reports were going out late (my pain-point)
- The reports were going out late because there was a bottleneck of the data in the clinic (their pain-point)
- The department was short staffed and there was a freeze on recruitment
The Solution
Change the process in the clinic so that they are able to enter data more effectively (mostly just be faster!)
Research
I spent an afternoon in the clinic, watching their process (contextual inquiry)
I also spoke to them to see where their pain-points lay. They were too busy to be heading to one isolated room at the back of the building to enter a days data (interviewing stakeholders)
Recommendations
Mt recommendation was providing the clinical staff Ipads so that they could enter data on the spot in real time.
Results
- Cross functional department relations improved
- Data was entered on time
- Reports went out on time
- My boss stopped yelling at me :)
