By Sue Iannone

Ah, the plan of action (POA) meeting.  It can be a fantastic tool for making sure the field teams are ready, willing, and able to get the message out.  Unfortunately, it can also be an exhausting and frustrating fire-drill—a mad dash to the finish—particularly for the Learning and Development (L&D) team.  It doesn’t have to be this way!

In parts I and II of this series, we described the need for a POA governance process and we outlined some best practices for POA planning.  In this third and final installment, we offer some tips for implementation success.

Stay Organized

Once your POA plan is in place, staying on top of all the moving parts leading up to the meeting can be a real challenge.  It’s imperative to use your POA plan to create an implementation checklist, covering all key tasks and deliverables that are due by meeting time (and even beyond).

Every POA is different.  However, there are plenty of common elements, and it’s possible to create a generalized POA implementation checklist.  So, that’s what we did.  You can find it here,

This general checklist can serve as a solid foundation for your own.  Feel free to modify it as needed to help manage your own POA implementation efforts.

Create the Right Training for the Right Purpose

The POA meeting is a large investment of time, energy, and dollars.  So, it’s important to maximize the return on that investment.  A big part of doing that is creating learning programs that are

1. Specifically focused on achieving business, behavioral, and learning objectives
2. Designed for maximum effectiveness

In a Part I, we discussed item 1 above.  So, let’s focus on item 2.  To help ensure that learning programs are as effective as they can be, it helps to think first of when they’ll be deployed:  Before, during, or after the POA meeting.  A good rule of thumb is to design learning experiences for these stages with the following goals in mind:

1. Before = Knowledge Acquisition
2. During = Knowledge / Skill Application
3. After = Performance Support

Before the POA Meeting

Learning should start during the weeks prior to the POA meeting.  During this time, learning activities should focus on providing learners with the foundational knowledge they’ll need to participate effectively in—and get the most out of—the POA meeting itself.

For example, assume that part of an upcoming POA meeting will center around some new studies that directly compare your company’s product to a competitor’s product.  Furthermore, let’s say that the study data was highly favorable to your product.  During the POA meeting, L&D wants to make sure field reps are well-prepared to communicate this data and some key messages derived from it.

You probably don’t want field reps learning about this data for the first time at the POA meeting.  It will be better to use that time for building their skills in message delivery regarding the new studies.  So, in the weeks leading up to the POA meeting, it would make sense to give them foundational knowledge about the studies and the data they contain.  Some tactics for doing this might include one or more of the following:

• Abbreviated pre-reading materials that highlight key findings from the studies
• A short knowledge assessment regarding the information contained in the pre-reading materials
• A microlearning emodule with interactive exercises or games to highlight key data points and reinforce key learnings
• An exercise in which learners should think of—and write down—some potential objections or questions that physicians might have regarding the studies

The main points are this:

1. You want participants to show up to the POA meeting primed, prepared, and ready to learn.
2. Save your live training time for knowledge or skills application, not knowledge transfer.

During the POA Meeting

The POA meeting is best used to help learners apply knowledge or skills.  Continuing with the example mentioned above, you might consider creating learning experiences like these:

• Training on a new visual aid that reps can use to communicate the study data and related messages, including role-play exercises in which they practice using the visual aid
• Objection-handling exercises, in which learners discuss potential objections, then formulate and practice responses

Don’t forget to make it fun and engaging!—themify it, gamify it, hold a competition, or infuse the training with whatever techniques are acceptable (both culturally and compliance-wise) in your organization.

After the POA Meeting

After the POA meeting, learners will return to the field and be expected to deploy their new knowledge and skills in customer interactions.  Post-meeting learning tools and experiences should help them do that.

During the weeks and months after the meeting, the L&D team should work to reinforce what the participants learned.  Some potential tactics might include:

• A quick reference job aid that contains key messages, data points, and/or key objections (along with potential responses)
• Feedback loops in which reps can share new questions or objections they hear in the field and formulate potential responses
• Coaching guides for sales managers to use when helping reps refine their skills

Don’t forget the post-POA meeting performance support!  Research tells us that participants lose most of what they learned at a live meeting if it is not reinforced.  It need not be complicated but it is necessary to drive retention.

Use Microlearning Techniques When It Makes Sense

As you know, “microlearning” refers to educational content that can be consumed quickly.   Microlearning techniques make sense in a lot of situations, particularly when you’re dealing with learners who are very busy, need to learn quickly, and must apply new knowledge and skills in the field, in real-time.

When it comes to POA meetings, you can use microlearning techniques at any point.  However, they are often most useful for the following purposes:

1. To prepare learners for the POA meeting
2. As follow-up support after the POA meeting

During the lead-up to the meeting, short pieces of easily-digested content can provide learners with a foundation of knowledge.  That way, they’ll get more out of the meeting itself.  For example, a short video clip on “What’s in it for me?” will help learners see the relevance of the training they’ll receive at the meeting and get them in the right mindset.  Short pre-reads or explainers can provide foundational knowledge.  The possibilities are numerous.

After the POA meeting, many L&D organizations fall short when it comes to performance support or post-event reinforcement.  It’s understandable.  L&D team members are likely to be exhausted after finishing the hectic POA process.

However, neglecting post-event training will hamper results and reduce the ROI of the overall process.  So, don’t ignore this aspect of POA meetings.  Microlearning techniques are well-suited to post-event reinforcement and performance support.  Easily-consumed job aids might provide performance support for field personnel.  Reminder e-mails, short self-reflection exercises, and other techniques can help keep learners on track once they’re back in the field.

Plan for Contingencies

Perhaps I’m dating myself here, but fans of the 80’s television show, The A-Team, might remember Col. John “Hannibal” Smith’s catch-phrase:  “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Well, don’t we all?  But, plans rarely come together exactly as expected.  How many times have you planned an event (like a POA meeting), and had everything go exactly as expected?  That’s what I thought.

Chances are, something will go awry with any big event.  It won’t always be a major issue.  In fact, in most cases, unforeseen changes are minor.  But, you will need to plan for them, to the extent that you can.

Look for the elements in your POA plan that might be a bit “shaky.”  For example, maybe you’re doubtful that Marketing will get a certain piece of content finished and through Medical, Regulatory, and Legal review on time.

If your concerns come to pass, then it pays to have something in your “hip pocket” to replace that on the agenda.  Perhaps it’s some other meaningful training event…or a team-building exercise…or perhaps you just give them the time back.

In any case, think about those potential danger points, and have a “Plan B” if you need it.  I always like to say, “have a Plan A, a Plan B, and probably a Plan C.”  If you only have to use Plan A, then great!  If things fall apart, you’ll be grateful and less stressed if you have those B and C options ready to go.

What about you?  Do you have other best practices when it comes to POA implementation?  If so, let us hear about them in the comments.  Until next time!

The post Avoiding POA Chaos, Part III: Implementation Best Practices appeared first on Bull City Blue.

By Sue Iannone

Famous general and former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”  When it comes to life sciences plan of action (POA) meetings, I’d say I definitely agree with the second part of that statement.  Good planning is quite indispensable.

In part I of this series, we covered the need for a governance process to help ensure that POA meetings run smoothly and achieve business objectives.  Assuming you’re optimizing your POA process in a linear fashion, dealing with the general approach to planning comes right on the heels of establishing a governance process.  In this installment, we review some best practices for POA meeting planning.

Planning is Important but Easy to Overlook

Every POA cycle needs planning.  Unfortunately, this is where a lot of organizations fall short.  When you think about it, Marketing is busy creating tactics and building materials.  They’re not always thinking about “the meeting.”  L&D is usually busy with what seems like a million different projects, and it’s easy to lose focus on the next POA meeting.

However, that date is going to come and go regardless, so you’ve got to be ready for it.  In part I, we mentioned that preparing for a POA meeting is a lot like running a baton race.  Each “runner” (Marketing, Legal, L&D, whoever) must typically get their part done before handing it off to the next.  Delays at any point in the chain can cause problems.

L&D is usually the last runner in the baton race, so they often take the brunt of those problems.  This is why it’s very important that L&D spearhead efforts to ensure timely, effective planning for every POA cycle.

Some POA Planning Best Practices

As you work to develop and implement a strong process for planning POA meetings, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

1. Don’t delay getting started.

It should go without saying that you need to give yourself enough runway to get everything done.  Perhaps that’s 90 days, maybe it’s 120 days.  It’s definitely not 60 days, though I’ve seen that (and less) on multiple occasions.  In your specific company, you know how long it takes to get things through Medical, Regulatory, and Legal (MRL) review, so be sure to plan for it.  The exact amount of time needed will vary by company, but don’t forget to start with the end in mind, and then work your timelines backwards from there.

2. Do a Needs Assessment and know what you need to build.

It’s critical to work with your key stakeholders to perform a needs assessment up front.  This will help you define the business objectives, behavioral objectives, and the resultant learning objectives for the meeting.  That, in turn, will help determine what needs to be developed for the meeting.  It sounds like common sense to say it, but it’s best to approach a POA in the same way you’d approach developing any L&D curriculum.

The needs assessment and resulting training don’t need to be super-complicated. And, if you’ve adopted a strategic mindset towards POA and established governance, you certainly need not begin this from scratch.  By attending business reviews and other key stakeholder meetings, you may already have a good idea of the needs of the business.  If your organization has not taken a strategic approach to POAs, you can still move forward in an effective way.  What you need to build stems from the focus of the meeting.

What do we mean by this? If it’s a “POA-lite” situation, meaning if a meeting only needs to share a refresh of existing materials and/or only involves one business unit or product, then simple may be the best way to go.  In contrast, if a POA will encompass a new selling model, new data, a launch, multiple teams, and so on, then it’s going to get complicated.  That will also affect timelines, so it pays to conduct the needs assessment far enough in advance to allow for either type of scenario.

3. Line up your resources.

Once you know what you need to build for the meeting, you need to ask yourself a critical question:  Do we have the resources we need to do all this effectively?

If you do, then that’s great!  If not, then you may need to outsource some aspects of the work, and you’ll need to determine what those are.  Alternatively, you might be able to get other company personnel to help out.  For example, perhaps a Field Trainer or a District Manager could contribute as an “extra set of hands” as part of a special project.

Or, if funding is the issue, it may be necessary to ask Marketing to kick in some extra dollars to help get the job done.  The point is, you’ll need to systematically compare the resources you need with what you have, then determine the best way to plug any gaps.

4. Don’t wait on Marketing for final materials.

In general, it’s OK to start working on your training programs before Marketing has finalized the core materials.  Draft materials will typically suffice, at least at the outset.  This will help you get a head-start, or at least minimize the effects of any delays that Marketing or other stakeholders experience.  With only a few weeks left before a POA meeting, it’s much easier to tweak a strawman workshop that is “80% right”, than to wait to the last minute and build an entire workshop from scratch.  A solid and effective workshop, that is!

For any last-minute requests or changes, have a contingency plan (which might include saying “no” if the request is unreasonable, unrealistic, or “nice to have”).  L&D professionals who oblige these last-minute changes run the risk of having poorly executed solutions and are ultimately seen as order-takers versus strategic partners.

5. Scale best practices beyond a single POA event.

It’s best to deploy best practices across POAs in general, and not treat every POA as a unique, siloed event.  Once you have determined your POA planning process, and the best practices that go along with it, be sure to document and institutionalize them as the way to approach all POA planning efforts.  Given the transitory nature of many personnel in the L&D department, you will want to make sure that your best practices outlive any single meeting…and the tenure of any single team member.

What’s Next?

So, we’ve covered best practices for POA governance and for POA planning.  In the next installment, the “rubber will meet the road” and we’ll look at best practices for POA execution.

The post Avoiding POA Chaos, Part II: Planning Best Practices appeared first on Bull City Blue.

By Sue Iannone

According to Dictionary.com, “chaos” is defined as “a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order.” Any L&D professional who’s been involved in planning a pharmaceutical company Plan of Action (POA) meeting knows about chaos first-hand.  In fairness, “chaos” is probably too strong a term for describing the POA experience.  But, most L&D people will agree that it’s not entirely inappropriate, either.  When I reflect on my collective POA experiences during my 27-year career, I have memories of both extremes—the awesome POA successes, and the POA disasters I’d like to forget.

In this 3-part series, we’ll explore a framework for taking the chaos out of POA planning and implementation.  We’ll cover ideas and best practices related to

1. POA Governance Process
2. Planning Best Practices
3. Execution Best Practices

Today, we’ll outline the overall challenge and cover POA governance.

The Problem with POA Meetings

Pharmaceutical companies typically hold POA meetings once or twice per year.  They offer the best opportunities for Marketing and company leaders to get face-time with the field selling teams.  They’re the primary vehicle for rolling out new strategies, messages, data, selling tools, and training programs to the field forces.

They’re also extremely expensive.  Time out of the field is costly in two ways.  First, there are the direct operational costs such as airfare, hotel bills, food costs, entertainment expenses, and so on.  Then, there are the less-obvious indirect costs of the customer-facing teams not being in front of their customers selling, educating, or solving reimbursement problems.  Both types of costs are significant to the organization.  As such, it’s clear that a company needs to realize the maximum return from those significant investments.

Unfortunately, the ROI of POAs often suffers due to poor planning and governance.  The worst of the challenge often falls on L&D.

Think about this:  For a typical POA meeting, the L&D team is often tasked with developing training around new messages, selling tools, or any other tactics critical to brand or portfolio strategy.  However, L&D can’t develop that training until Marketing (or whoever) develops the core materials.  Marketing will often experience delays (it happens to the best of us) and create core materials much later than originally intended.  Add to that the need to clear Medical, Regulatory, and Legal (MRL) review, and the delays are compounded.

Because non-L&D people often underestimate the time and effort required to create good training, L&D is often left having to scramble at the last minute to get things done.  Too many times, L&D comes in “just under the wire.”

This is akin to a baton race.  The way to win is to ensure that your team’s runner is ready, launches off the blocks at the right time, holds on tight to the baton, and delivers a smooth handoff to the next runner.  If all goes well, the team wins the race.  If the first runner gets a slow start, drops the baton, or if any runners on the team stumble, the team loses valuable time and puts winning  (or placing) at risk.

L&D is often the last runner on the last leg of the baton race.  Time lost by any of the other runners can negatively impact training effectiveness.  This can harm business results, as well as L&D team morale.  It doesn’t have to be this way!  In fact, the L&D team can set in motion changes that can dramatically improve the whole POA process.

Good Governance is Critical

In our experience, the state of affairs described above is worse in companies that don’t have a good POA governance process.  A good governance process helps ensure that all stakeholder groups are on the same page, understand what’s expected of them and when, and have established processes for conflict resolution.  These stakeholders usually include:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Market Access
• Sales Operations
• Medical Affairs
• Legal / Regulatory
• L&D
• Meeting Planning

L&D typically doesn’t have the authority to establish and “enforce” a POA governance process, but it can act as the catalyst in helping to establish one.  Below are a few pointers in making that happen.  L&D should do these things as a dedicated initiative, not just in advance of a specific POA meeting.  Fixing a “broken” process deserves some dedicated time and attention:

1. Speak with Individual Stakeholders – L&D should sit down individually with the leaders of key stakeholder groups. Call on them to learn what they want to accomplish via POA meetings in general and ask them to define success from their point of view. Get their input on how the POA planning process could go more smoothly.
2. Establish a Governance Committee – L&D can advocate for the idea of a POA Governance Committee. This would be a group of senior leaders from the stakeholder groups listed earlier.  The committee is not supposed to get “down in the weeds.”  However, it will need to help determine the overall business objectives for individual POA meetings, set guiding principles for POA planning, establish dispute resolution processes, designate people to serve on the POA team (below), and so on.
3. Establish a POA Team – This team will include “doers” who get into the details. For any given POA meeting, this cross-functional team must outline the POA plan:  Objectives, deliverables, responsible/accountable personnel, deadlines, and so on.  A RACI matrix is often used for capturing all this.

A strong governance process is critical for aligning expectations and resources.  Basically, it helps get everyone pulling in the same direction at the same time.  In the next installment, we’ll cover some best practices for POA planning.

The post Avoiding POA Chaos, Part I appeared first on Bull City Blue.