Takeda Process Training and Performance Support

Gold 2023 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Award Excellence in Partnership

Takeda is a leading values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. It has employees in approximately 80 countries and regions who are driven by purpose and are grounded in the values that have defined the company for more than two centuries.

Situation

Innovative Learning Group (ILG) collaborated with its client, Takeda, to create training and performance support materials for Takeda’s effort called, Submission Excellence. This effort accelerated the product submission cycle from 39 weeks to 19-24 weeks. ILG helped create consistent, easy-to-consume materials that are shared across functions.

Takeda also needed ILG’s support in reshaping people’s ideas of training and knowledge-sharing. Many existing materials were subject-matter-expert owned PowerPoint presentations shared either in-person or virtually which sometimes caused delays in the delivery of information as well as inconsistent messaging.

Solution

The learning strategies devised for Submission Excellence included both formal training for initial knowledge building and performance support for on-the-job reference in the moment of need. The goal was to create a blended solution that could be rolled out and implemented in a consistent manner.

Formal Training

For the formal approach, ILG worked with Takeda to create three e-learning courses assigned to all employees involved in the submission process but specifically targeted to new employees.

These courses are:

• Global Regulatory Affairs (GRA) Onboarding Overview. A 20-minute course that provides a brief overview of Takeda, GRA, the systems used by GRA, and the different ways to connect and find support within Takeda.
• Marketing Application Process Overview. A 20-minute course that explains the whole submission process, including the roles and responsibilities and critical activities of each stage.
• Global Labeling Overview. A 20-minute course that explains the key roles, responsibilities, and primary deliverables of the Global Labeling team, which is a key player in the global marketing application submission process.

Performance Support

ILG helped build a dedicated digital space and developed performance support materials that included process and procedure documentation, templates, and examples. The digital site was designed to be the one source of information for everyone involved in the submission process.

The specific performance support materials include the following:

• Global Marketing Application Submission Playbook. This covers the life of a submission, starting with the key clinical messages that drive the purpose and strategy of the submission and ending with the rapid response team tasked with responding to health authority feedback on the submission.
• Global Labeling Playbook. This documents the purpose, mission, and collaboration points for the Global Labeling team, including their role as a partner in the submission process.
• Global Labeling Awareness Materials. An interactive PDF provides a close look into the role Global Labeling and Device Labeling play in the Submission Excellence process by showing the different submission process stages.
• Publishing End-to-End Submission Playbook. This documents the publishing component of the global marketing application submission process, listing the different tools to use, the responsibilities of the publisher, and the process for each submission type.

Implementation

ILG also assisted with the engagement and communication plan for the program launch, which included:

• A monthly Submission Excellence newsletter with key project progress and milestones, featuring leadership quotes on Submission Excellence
• A Yammer page for ad hoc direct engagement with the Submission Excellence workstreams
• A focus on Change Champions, individuals identified throughout the teams in GRA who were considered in the know about Submission Excellence
• A weekly status update meeting with all Submission Excellence workstreams and a program manager to report updates and questions to leadership
• Virtual and in-person walkthroughs, roadshows, and poster sessions at different sites and with different groups within the organization who were available to explain the changes and answer questions

Results

As a result of this learning and performance improvement initiative, Takeda employees have been given the tools, resources, and training to accelerate the product submission cycle time from 39 weeks to 19-24 weeks and meet Takeda’s five excellence drivers underpinning the specific process changes through Submission Excellence:

• A harmonized end-to-end process
• Early strategy alignment and planning
• Parallelized activities on the critical path
• Optimized resource planning
• Streamlined governance

To learn more about how Innovative Learning Group can create custom learning solutions to help improve business results, contact us at info@innovativeLG.com.