Veeva Summit -2023

Supplier technology conferences are a different beast from more professionally orientated events. You approach them very differently in that at a single vendor conference in that you are very focused on two things:

Getting your views heard to influence design
Learning new uses of the tech and the upcoming roadmap

Even the hallway track is different. While you still have fascinating chats with colleagues of yore and are meeting new individuals to learn and share with; the overall tenor is very different. How are you using the tech, how are you overcoming issues, what are you doing differently.

This week was the Veeva Summit, so it is no surprise that I feel slightly tired from the whirlwind. I presented on Process Management within Quality Vault utilizing Process Navigator, a fascination of mine and something I think organizations need to be way more deliberate about in their quality systems.

Structured unstructured time

First, what impacts knowledge workers’ energy is not the sheer amount of time they spend in meetings, but the relative proportion of meeting time compared to what they spend on individual tasks. We found that, on a given day, the more time knowledge workers dedicate to meetings relative to their own individual tasks, the less they engage in small break activities (e.g., a short walk, casual conversations, brief fun reading) to restore their energy during that day. The absence of such break activities, which are crucial for periodic replenishment, harms their workday energy. The impaired energy in turn has a negative impact on the knowledge workers’ task performance, creativity, and job satisfaction at work.
“Arrange Your Meeting Schedule to Boost Your Energy” by Chen Zhang, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, and Zhaodong (Alan) Qiu (Harvard Business Review)

Solid research here that really resonates. Go and read it.

Risk Management is a Living Process

ISO 31000-2018 “Risk Management Guidelines” discusses on-going monitoring and review of risk management activities. We see a similar requirement in ICH Q9(r1) for the pharmaceutical industry. In many organizations we can take a lot of time on the performance of risk assessments (hopefully effectively) and a lot of time mitigating risks (again, hopefully effectively) but many organizations struggle in maintaining a lifecycle approach.

To do appropriate lifecycle management we should ensure three things:

Planned review
Continuous Monitoring
Incorporate through governance, improvement and knowledge management activities.

Reviews are a critical part of our risk management process framework.

This living risk management approach effectively drives work in Control Environment, Response and Stress Testing.

At heart lies the ongoing connection between risk management and knowledge management.