With our free networking sessions, you can air common challenges of working in our sector and learn from others’ experiences. You are welcome to attend!
What we offer
- Highly interactive sessions, in a safe environment to share issues, challenges and learning
- Peer to peer advice
- Tools and tips from expert facilitator(s)
Who should attend?
- Project managers working in biotech or pharma who have not previously worked in an IT environment and want to understand the differences.
- IT project managers who are moving into or considering a role in biotech/pharma and want to understand what to expect.
- Programme / portfolio managers overseeing mixed-technology projects (software + biotech) who need to calibrate practices across domains.
- Functional leads (e.g., QA, regulatory, R&D operations) who collaborate with project managers and want to understand the management dynamics from both sides.
Benefits
- Gain confidence to apply best practice, skills and processes in projects
- Pick up tips from those with more experience
- Build your professional network
Logistics and Costs
- 1-hour virtual session
- Free of charge (booking required)
- 8 – 16 participants
From Sprints to Stages: Key Differences Between IT and Biotech Project Management
Friday 20 January at 4pm UK time.
Summary:
- We’ll compare typical IT project characteristics (software development, sprints, frequent updates) with biotech project dynamics (longer timelines, heavy regulatory overlay, experimental work).
- Together we’ll highlight what stays the same (goals, scope, teams) and what shifts (risk profiles, governance, change tolerance).
- The aim is to spark a discussion among project-managers who are navigating or considering the transition between fields — what practices to bring, what to leave behind, what to adapt.
Key Focus Areas:
- Scope & uncertainty: comparing evolving requirements in software vs. experimental biology and regulatory endpoints.
- Governance & compliance: how IT’s change-management regime differs from the heavy regulatory governance in biotech/pharma.
- Timelines & deliverables: contrasting fast-moving release cycles in IT with long-lead phases, dependencies (e.g., clinical regulatory), and milestones in biotech.
- Team composition & communication: the difference between developer/tester teams and cross-functional biotech teams (research scientists, regulatory, manufacturing, QA).
- Risk management & iteration: how iterative agile in IT compares with more linear or stage-gate biotech processes, and how to manage unknowns.
- Tools, metrics & success criteria: from bug-counts and user-stories in IT, to assay validity, regulatory acceptance, and biological endpoints in biotech.
- Cultural mindset: shifting from software’s ‘ship and iterate’ mindset to biotech’s ‘do things right first time’ mindset because re-work can be very costly or unfeasible.
Moderator
Nadège Minois
Nadège Minois is a project management consultant with over 20 years of experience leading complex research, IT and cross-functional projects. She helps biotech and small-to-medium-sized businesses bring structure, clarity, and confidence to their projects. Through her consultancy, Nadège bridges the gap between traditional project management and the unique realities of research-driven environments. She is passionate about helping project managers adapt proven methods from IT to the fast-evolving world of biotech and pharma, ensuring innovation moves forward efficiently and sustainably.