You're striving for seamless process optimization. How can you unite R&D and quality assurance for success?

When I took on the role of Marketing Director at Educor, I noticed a disconnect between our R&D and Quality Assurance teams, hindering process optimization. To bridge this gap, I initiated joint workshops where Damelin teams could collaborate with R&D on common goals. We implemented cross-training sessions to ensure each team understood the other’s challenges and strengths. By establishing a shared project management platform, we facilitated real-time communication and feedback. This united approach not only streamlined our processes but also fostered a culture of mutual respect and innovation, leading to higher quality products and faster time-to-market.

Aligning R&D and QA goals is paramount to fostering a collaborative environment. By ensuring both teams understand the company's overarching objectives and how their specific goals contribute to the larger picture, you create a shared sense of purpose. It's crucial to bridge the gap between innovation and quality. R&D should recognize the importance of QA's role in ensuring product excellence, while QA should appreciate the need for flexibility to accommodate innovation. Establishing common ground creates a foundation for mutual respect and effective teamwork.

Aligning goals between R&D and Quality is of course paramount to success. But just having common goals does not guarantee common perspectives. Companies seeking new markets need innovative, envelope-pushing R&D to thrive. The more educated R&D players are about QS constraints, the better they can creatively address them. The better Quality players understand the intent of R&D, the better they can help meet the intent in a compliant manner.

IQ/OQ/PQ, and regular Operator MPI training and testing. Period. This leaves no ambiguity as the the validity of your process, and ensures consistency and repeatability between Operators.

To achieve seamless process optimization, start by aligning the goals of R&D and QA. When both teams share a clear understanding of the end objectives (such as product reliability, innovation and efficiency) it creates a unified direction. Facilitate workshops or strategy sessions where R&D and QA can collaborate on setting these goals, ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of quality, and vice versa. This alignment ensures that both teams are pulling in the same direction, ultimately driving successful outcomes.

Regular communication is the lifeblood of a successful R&D and QA partnership. Establishing open and frequent dialogue channels is crucial for breaking down silos and fostering a collaborative environment. By scheduling regular meetings and updates, both teams can share insights, discuss challenges, and align on priorities. This proactive approach promotes early issue detection, prevents misunderstandings, and ensures that everyone is on the same page throughout the development lifecycle.

Make this communication as hands-on as possible. R&D and QA partners should meet together and watch the same process, inspect the same product, or execute the same studies together. With this kind of relationship, they're much more likely to end up solving common problems together instead of being disconnected about priorities or acceptance criteria.

While collaboration is mission critical, be wary of meetings that occur for the sake of meeting. Often, regularly scheduled meetings outgrow their purpose. Be cognizant of it and repurpose the meeting or give the team that time slot back. It will get filled soon enough, no doubt.

Use of a centralized data management platform that both teams can access. This ensures that the R&D team has real-time feedback on quality control, allowing them to refine processes quickly based on empirical data from QA. On the other hand, QA benefits from having insights into ongoing research and development, helping them better anticipate potential issues before they escalate.

Data sharing is a cornerstone of effective R&D and QA collaboration. By openly exchanging information, both teams gain invaluable insights. QA teams can leverage research data to proactively identify potential quality issues, while R&D can utilize quality metrics to refine their designs and processes. A centralized platform or database is essential for facilitating data sharing. This ensures easy accessibility and encourages a culture of transparency and collaboration. By breaking down data silos, organizations can optimize their product development lifecycle and deliver higher-quality products.

It is best to share data cross functionally but it's almost useless unless you provide the "Why?" behind your sharing. If you just "FYI" the cross-functional representative(s), don't expect anyone to give it more than a cursory review. People aren't omniscient. They need to know why you think the data you're providing is relevant to them.

Joint training is an invaluable investment in fostering a collaborative R&D and QA environment. By providing opportunities for cross-functional learning, teams gain a deeper understanding of each other's roles and challenges. This shared knowledge fosters empathy, respect, and a more unified approach to problem-solving. Training sessions should focus on developing a shared language and understanding of key concepts. For instance, R&D can benefit from learning about quality assurance methodologies, while QA can gain insights into product development processes. This shared foundation strengthens collaboration and accelerates project timelines.

Joint training sessions will be instrumental in bridging the gap between R&D and QA. When both teams participate in cross-disciplinary workshops, it opens up a shared understanding of each other’s processes. Organizing a series of training sessions where R&D staff learned about the quality assurance protocols that they use, while the QA team received an overview of emerging technologies in product development. This initiative not only improves communication but also gives each team a better appreciation of the other’s constraints and opportunities.

Some examples of successful joint training could be in the form of a shared Black Belt project or process validation. In my experience, shared accountability for the results of these efforts leads to more impactful experiences and forges stronger long-term relationships between the groups. This also sets up both organizations for future talent development opportunities.

An effective way to ensure a feedback loop is established and exercised is to create a set of criteria that the commercialized product / process must meet before the R&D team can be "released" from the project and move on to the next effort. This enables the R&D team to experience the consequences of decisions made early in the development process and inevitably strengthens the next design.

Creo que en la gestión de proyectos y en general en la vida cotidiana de nuestras industrias farmacéuticas, esta es una situación cotidiana y puede llegar a marcar una diferencia importante en los flujos de trabajo de la organización. En mi vida profesional he visto muchas herramientas para el manejo adecuado del feedback pero creo que ninguna ha sido tan provechosa y dinámica como la apropiación de los tableros de mando (Dashboard) como entrada fluida de información y en un plano más amplio, los cuartos de control o muros de visualización colaborativa (OBEYA). El OBEYA es un término japonés que significa cuarto de control y podría ser interpretado como la representación gráfica y colaborativa de los indicadores de gestión de la compañía.