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Pharmaceutical Case Study

This document summarizes a case study on applying agile project management methods to a software development project for a Brazilian pharmaceutical company. The project aimed to develop an inventory control module to reduce losses from expired drugs. It adopted the Scrum agile framework, with a Scrum Master, Product Owner, and cross-functional Scrum Team. They broke the work into sprints, held daily stand-up meetings and sprint reviews. Over five 20-day sprints spanning 100 days, they successfully delivered the new system on time and enabled early returns, demonstrating agile project management's benefits for handling changing requirements.

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sahiru bodahewa
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110 views9 pages

Pharmaceutical Case Study

This document summarizes a case study on applying agile project management methods to a software development project for a Brazilian pharmaceutical company. The project aimed to develop an inventory control module to reduce losses from expired drugs. It adopted the Scrum agile framework, with a Scrum Master, Product Owner, and cross-functional Scrum Team. They broke the work into sprints, held daily stand-up meetings and sprint reviews. Over five 20-day sprints spanning 100 days, they successfully delivered the new system on time and enabled early returns, demonstrating agile project management's benefits for handling changing requirements.

Uploaded by

sahiru bodahewa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PHARMACEUTICAL CASE STUDY – SIMPLIFIED AND SUMMARIZED VERSION

INTRODUCTION
Modern software development projects need to operate in a highly dynamic
environment with constant change and uncertainty. Traditional project
management methods based on “waterfall” method are ineffective in this as they
cannot deal with changing and uncertain requirements. As a solution to this
situation, many companies have recently chosen to use the agile project
management (APM).

This research paper reviews the application of APM in a software development


project of a pharmaceutical company. This research seeks to answer the question
"Why be agile?". In other words, is the agile approach to project management
more advantageous than the traditional management approach?
AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT (APM)

The agile project management approach is most suitable for projects which
involve uncertainty and constant change in which the traditional techniques of
project management does not fully meet the requirements. in recent years, the
agile project management methodology has been widely adopted in project
management with great success. This report examines the application of APM for
developing an inventory control system for a pharmaceutical company called
Farma Y.
CASE STUDY

The Farma Y was established in 2003, operating in the Brazilian Market, with focus
on production and marketing of generic drugs. The Farma Y occupies the 15th
place in Brazil, both in units sold and in revenue.

The purpose of the project, called "XYZ Project" is to develop, an inventory


control module based on the effective date of drug lots, whose objective was to
reduce the potential losses in drugs with short shelf life. The Brazilian regulations
demand that drugs that expire within next 6 months to be discarded. This results
in millions of dollars of losses annually.
AGILE SCRUM
SCRUM is an agile software development approach and a project management
framework. It uses iterative and incremental development and delivers value
early. Iterations are called sprints. Sprints are time boxed. The duration of a sprint
is 1 to 4 weeks. Each sprint delivers a small usable part of the system.

Small cross-functional teams are used (7-9 members).

Within the Scrum approach, the project key stakeholders are:

Scrum Master, the Product Owner and Scrum Team. In the XYZ project this was
the adopted structure. A PRODUCT BACKLOG contains all the requirements
XYZ PROJECT
The Scrum Master appointed was the IT leader, because he had knowledge of the
Scrum approach.

The Product Owner was the Controller Manager of Pharma company, since the
aim of the project was directly related to improvements of internal control,
reduction of inventory costs, and greater effectiveness of business operations.

The Scrum Team was composed of IT employees such as consultants and


programmers.

An initial PRODUCT BACKLOG was created by the PRODUCT OWNER with the help
of the SCRUM Team.
From the Product Backlog, activities with greater value were identified, and then
created the Sprint Backlog. This was done through Backlog Grooming, which is a
meeting before each Sprint, preparing the activities and scope for the next Sprint.

SPRINT EXECUTION

The project development considers the Scrum approach, dividing the deliverables
in to Sprints. Sprint duration is set to 20 days.

The goal of the first Sprint was determined: the first sprint is to provide
quantitative data (for queries and reports) of medicine batches. This covered the
first 3 features of the product backlog.

Then the first sprint was executed by the scrum team.

Daily scrum meetings were held, led by the Scrum Master, attended by scrum
team and product owner, at a pre-set time (9 a.m.), lasting fifteen minutes.

At the end of the sprint, a Sprint Review meeting was held which was attended by
the Product Owner and the customer, in order to show what has been done, and
discuss possible adjustments.

Soon after the Sprint Review, the Development Team held the Sprint
Retrospective to self reflect on their own performance and to identify positives
and negatives.
FINAL RESULT

The project was built in five sprints, totaling 100 days (about 4 months). However,
the results could already be used after the first month, providing important
information for decision making and enabling early ROI for the client.

Agile project management has proven that it is a success. The benefits of using
Agile/SCRUM for the Xyz system are given below:

------ End of the Research Paper ---------


DISCUSSION WITH TOP UP BENG STUDENTS

If you choose this as the source for COURSE WORK


article/report ;

You have plenty of material for Agile / SCRUM Method

But nothing for PRIVACY

So propose the following future extension to the system

Take online customer orders for drugs - collect customer data (e.g.
name, address, age, contact number, illness/medical condition etc.) and
receive prescriptions via whats app or email and deliver drugs to the
door step of customers. This became a very common practice during
the COVID 19 pandamic.

Then discuss privacy issues . . .

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