Wax On, Wax Off
Our modern world is full of distractions competing for our attention, and I have found it takes discipline and good planning to function at a high level in such a society. I need to be disciplined to prepare my family for the day ahead, balance a full work day split between document writing and meetings, squeeze in some exercise, and help to get dinner on the table. To ensure my life remains balanced while getting everything done, I have come to value the practice of mapping out the proper sequence of actions. As life grows ever more complex, this requires a deliberate effort to ensure everything fits. Every day is a game of real-life Tetris. To play it most successfully, I work hard to hone the two habits of informed planning and the discipline to follow through on those plans. These skills allow me to get a lot done and remain flexible to the inevitable fire drills that crop up at home and at work.
Part of my job is developing processes with the Acumen team for writing submission-ready documents. The same elements of good planning and discipline are directly applicable to navigating the complex set of steps required to write a document. In my job, improvisation is usually a bad idea.
Collectively, Acumen has a lot of experience writing documents, but we all approach this dynamic work with slight variations in style and technique. Our goal in process development is to harness our core ideas of what leads to success and map those out, in detail. When outlining the steps to build a quality document, the details really matter. The steps that lead to the success of a protocol amendment are not the same as those needed for a clinical study report. It has taken time, but we are well on our way to creating a comprehensive set of document-specific processes that allow our writers, editors, and other specialists to apply a consistent, proven, and disciplined approach to document development. We are careful that steps aren’t missed and that the right steps are applied to the right projects.
A major advantage to developing our document processes as a group is that we can each contribute our experiences to shape the most ideal process. For example, one thing I avoid is soft milestones. An ill-defined or vague milestone can leave a trail of confusion, disharmony (finger pointing), and project delays. I am insistent that our processes help our writers define meaningful and realistic milestones so that we can set proper expectations with our customers and engage in the right steps at the right time. Requiring our project processes to have firm, clearly outlined deliverables means that we need to stay organized and disciplined as writers, and the payoff is a job well done and on time.
Cultivating the paired habits of informed planning and personal discipline into our company’s processes ensures that our writers are working from a playbook that sets them and our customers up for success.
Michael Claffey
Vice President, Acumen
