Mary became a new project manager at PharmaCom after working in basic research. She is working remotely with her manager Melanie to learn her new role. Melanie encourages Mary to connect with colleagues to understand their roles and interests. Mary researches her teammates and feels acquainted with them before their first meeting. In the meeting, Mary has difficulty interpreting reactions but later sets up a video conference that runs more smoothly with more participation and easier interpretation. Mary is able to quickly get an answer to a question from the meeting by connecting with research partner Andrew on PharmaCom's Q&A tool.

1. Connectivity
Interacting, Collaborating, and Networking

2. Meet Mary
Mary became a PharmaCom
Project Manager this week
after spending 6 years in
Basic Research. She will be
working with her team to
determine if their drug
candidate is viable. She has
been learning how to
navigate the rest of the PRL
community outside of the
labs and is beginning to get
the hang of things.

3. Because she is at a
different site, Mary remotely
learns the procedures and
operations of her job from
her manager, Melanie.

4. Meet Melanie
Melanie has been a
PharmaCom Project
Manager for nearly 20 years
and has contacts in every
area of PRL. She wishes she
could spend more time
mentoring new hires like
Mary, but with her busy
schedule she winds up being
more of a reference than a
coach.

5. Knowing how important
networking is at
PharmaCom, Melanie
encourages Mary to connect
with her colleagues and gain
a better understanding of
who they are, their role on
the project, and most
importantly, what they are
passionate about.
Colleagues at Lunch

6. Taking Melanie’s advice, Mary reads most of the documentation
from the project teamspace and does research on her teammates
using internal PharmaCom resources prior to her first meeting with
them.

7. She also checks out some of the papers they have
written and becomes familiar with their interests and
areas of expertise.

8. Although she has not personally met them, Mary feels that
she is now acquainted with her colleagues.

9. Even though the prep work helped Mary learn more about
her teammates on an individual level, it didn’t prepare her
for the complex dynamics of working with a team spread
out over multiple work sites.

10. In her first project meeting, Mary is introduced to the
team. Most of the attendees are teleconferencing in
from other sites around the world.

11. Because it is difficult for her to tell how everyone is
reacting to the discussion, she often finds herself
interrupting and speaking over people.

12. She also feels that only a small portion of the
attendees are openly contributing to the meeting.

13. As she feared, a few attendees
reach out afterwards to further
discuss agenda items that were
either closed or tabled for sub-
team review.

14. For the next meeting, Mary
decides to set up a video
conference as a way of avoiding
some of the awkwardness of the
last meeting. This way, everyone
can see each other and have a
more open conversation.

15. During the meeting, a question is brought up about the
quantitative PCR of a particular sodium molecule with
liver cells that no one can answer – including Thomas.

16. Meet Thomas
Thomas is a Senior Lab
Chemist in PRL's Basic
Research division. He's been
with PharmaCom for 20 years
and identifies with the
company values of knowledge
and peer contacts. Although
some of that time was spent
abroad in the US, he recently
returned back to his hometown
of Hoddesdon in the UK.

17. To avoid interrupting the discussion taking place, Mary uses
the meeting chat tool to ask Thomas if he has any ideas
around who might have the answer.

18. Based on Thomas’s
response, Mary makes a note
to post the team’s question to
PharmaCom’s Q&A board.
She is confident that between
this and her list of knowledge
profiles for liver cell biologists,
she will soon have an answer.

19. As the meeting winds down, Mary observes that things seemed to run
more smoothly. More people actively participated in the discussion and
it was easier to interpret reactions to challenging topics thanks to being
able to see facial reactions and body language.

20. To see what everyone else thinks, Mary does a pulse check and is
pleased to see that the new format got a thumbs up from most
attendees. She is also pleased to see that her inbox has not been
inundated with “off-line” follow-ups to decisions from the meeting.

21. Sub-teams post their off-line
discussions to the team wiki
and voting tools are used to
make decisions between
meetings. Most importantly, all
meetings are immediately
uploaded to the project
teamspace for those who
couldn’t make the meeting live.

22. Thanks to fewer email follow-
ups, Mary has time to post the
team’s question to
PharmaCom’s Q&A tool
immediately following the
meeting. She quickly starts
receiving answers back – not
only from PRL colleagues, but
from some of their research
partner colleagues as well.

23. She enters search keywords
such as, “liver”, “cellular
biology”, and “sodium + qPCR”
to narrow down the list of
responses and notices that a
great deal of the remaining
answers are from Andrew Cai,
a scientist from one of
PharmaCom’s research
partners.

24. Meet Andrew
Andrew joined the PRL team
2 years ago as a research
partner and is considered by
many to be an up and coming
thought leader in liver cell
biology. He is excited to be
working with PharmaCom
because of its dedication to
research and has already
made many connections in
the PRL community.

25. In Andrew's profile, Mary sees that several people have
rated him favorably for answering their questions quickly and
efficiently.

26. When Thomas hears about
Andrew, he is skeptical. He
has never met Andrew and
knows little about who he is
beyond the fact that Mary
found him on some
“website”.

27. However, going through his
own network, Thomas learns
that Andrew was a graduate
student of his old professor at
Brown. Thomas also learns
that his colleagues like
working with Andrew because
he always makes sure his
data is relevant by referencing
the PharmaCom databases
before submitting his
response.
Hearing approval from some
trusted members of his
network, Thomas feels more
comfortable with Andrew’s
response.

28. Now in direct contact with
one another, Thomas and
Andrew collaborate virtually
on some molecular
structures by drawing them
out to avoid naming
mishaps.

29. As Thomas and Andrew
finish up their
collaboration, a Safety
Assessment and Pre-
Clinical sub-team begins to
look more closely at the
drug candidate to better
understand the compound
toxicity.

30. With each member as an
author, the Safety
Assessment and Pre-Clinical
sub-team iterates on their
report for the committee
reviews.

31. At the end of the Development
Phase, Mary and the Clinical
Research Associate use the
Teamspace to coordinate the
IND application. They
reference the meeting
recordings and sub-team wikis
as project support.

32. Later, when the project
moves into Phase I testing,
the Data Manager, Robert,
sets up a reporting
environment for Mary.

33. Meet Robert
Although he is relatively
new to PharmaCom and
PRL having only joined 2
years ago, he has been in
the area of Clinical
Operations for 9 years.
His detail-oriented
personality and flexible
demeanor is an asset as
he coordinates sites
around the country and
implements clinical trials.

34. In the reporting
environment, site
investigators enter their
results as soon as they have
them. Mary and Robert log
into the environment to see
the data.

35. Mary subscribes to the environment so that she receives
batch updates of Robert's clinical reports and operational
plans.

36. If the project has an issue, Mary knows immediately and
can make adjustments before it becomes a problem.

37. Overall, the different voices of the research lifecycle came together
seamlessly with the help of different types of collaboration tools to
help foster creativity and accelerate innovation.

38. Decision times were condensed, information was accessed
regardless of time or location, and a team that never met in person
worked as if they had known each other for years and were seated
right next to one another.