Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly Case

Dwight Nakamitsu

Susan Yan

Flex-evening

Spring 2015

1. What is a “heavyweight project team” and how does it differ from the traditional approach used by Eli Lilly?

A “heavyweight project team” provides better communication and coordination by stimulating and facilitating across functions, stronger commitment to the project, and a concentration on cross-functional problem solving. In the “heavyweight project team,” the project manager has direct access to people in the different functional areas and the team members are co-located. He/she is accountable for the work of all those involved in the project and directly supervise their resources through main functional people on the core teams. The project manager is a senior manager within the organization so he/she has the knowledge and experience for the project. This type of team uses generalist skills which are applied broadly by trained team members and has less specialists in the team. These core team members have less knowledge in solutions and technical problem solving. It differs from the traditional approach by Eli Lilly because the heavyweight project team is given a clear charter “to focus exclusively on the development on a single compound” which the traditional approach has the project managers and functional team members to be assigned to four to five projects at a time. There is a lack of accountability and continual disability to meet deadlines in the traditional approach. While the heavyweight project team has a contract book that specifies detailed deliverables and timelines, this team takes on the responsibility of the work and the results of the project.

2. What is your assessment of the performance of two heavyweight teams described in the case? What factors contributed most to these performance results (choose the factors and the performance metrics that you think are most important)? In the pharmaceutical context, how far back in the development process should...